Shooting Old Headstones in Cemetary (Page 4): You might try painting with light from a flash light held at a slant to the surface? Obviously, a tripod, small aperture are necessary for...

mizzee Loc: Boston,Ma

You might try painting with light from a flash light held at a slant to the surface? Obviously, a tripod, small aperture are necessary for this.

Pixeldawg Loc: Suzhou, China

There's several things you can try. First, if you don't have a flash, get one and get a remote trigger for it as well. This will allow you to make an extreme side light, which will highlight one side of the letters while throwing the other side into shadow, giving you a pretty strong contrast. If this isn't an option, and the light cooperates, shoot either very early in the morning or late in the evening. The next suggestion I would have for you is to play with the contrast in your image editing program. Much of what you're trying to accomplish here is going to be controlled by manipulating the contrast specific to the letters on the stone. Good luck with this project. Sounds very interesting.

FJT Loc: Delaware

I've had some luck with shooting at night. This photo was taken at Sleepy Hollow Cemetary in New York after dark. You can see that the name really pops. It was lit only by light painting with a flashlight. As just a point of interest, you can see that cross in the background of the music video Pet Cemetary by the Ramones.

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

Another thing to try is a colored light source.
Maybe try a black light. Another option is to use a speed light with different color gels.

Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

The grave yard not far from my place was settled by German Lutherans. Still in use today.

(Download)

PPP Loc: Florence

Try viewing each channel "RGB" in Photoshop and see which one has the most detail! Increase the contrast in that channel in type and/or use channel mixer to increase the lettering on the headstone.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

s_vanmeter wrote:

I just recently moved to a small community in Central Texas that has a cemetery with a lot of history. I am looking for advise on how to shoot old headstones so that the worn lettering can be photographed so that it can be read. I was thinking of trying bracketing, but don't know if I would gain anything by doing this. Some of the worn headstones are from the !850's range. I shoot with a Nikon D5300 and use the 18-55mm kit lens. Any advise?

Light-painting can be your friend for this. You will need various strength lights but nothing too bright. Your goal is to use the light to create shadows that highlight the letters on the stones.

Bipod

s_vanmeter wrote:

I just recently moved to a small community in Central Texas that has a cemetery with a lot of history. I am looking for advise on how to shoot old headstones so that the worn lettering can be photographed so that it can be read. I was thinking of trying bracketing, but don't know if I would gain anything by doing this. Some of the worn headstones are from the !850's range. I shoot with a Nikon D5300 and use the 18-55mm kit lens. Any advise?

Raking light was a good suggestion.

Try an off-camera flash from one side. The idea is to create shadows in the carven letters.
The sharper the shadows, the better.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

FEATHERED off camera lighting is the best approach. If the monument is in the shade, you can pump in side light with a reflector but use the EDGE of the beam. You can use the "silver" side of one of those pop-open reflectors or make something out of crushed and re-expanded aluminum foil. You can do the same with off camera electronic flash- let the light skim the surface and use the edge of the beam. Sometimes, depending on the time of day and the direction of the ligh, you will see enough relief with existing sunlight. You might use a CPL filter of there are reflections obscuring the engraving.

I did a job like that for church heritage organization for their historical archives. Thing is- on the badly eroded stones, I got permission to dust them with either white talcum powder (for dark stones) or dark fingerprint powder for lighter stones to accentuate some of the engravings. I used a camel hair brush as an applicator and removed all the powders after photography. There was a museum curator on the project that verified that theses powders would be harmless. Nevertheless- do not do this withou permission.

At first, I thought the job to be rather morbid but theses grave sites were extremely old and the history was very interesting.

Bipod

E.L.. Shapiro wrote:

FEATHERED off camera lighting is the best approach... (show quote)

Reflectors are great! And so inexpensive.