In various photography training programs, reproduction seems to be one of the simplest exercises: two lights at 45° from both sides, equal power, and done. This may work for printed, flat, and unframed subjects. However, for anything more complex (art in a frame, textured media such as watercolors, reflective surfaces, and three-dimensional art objects like collages), it makes more sense to apply lighting techniques from product photography rather than rigidly following the reproduction formula.
This will be demonstrated here using an antique oil painting:
On the left, a reproduction "by the book," using two softboxes at a 45° angle from both sides. The symmetrical reflections on the frame clearly indicate this lighting setup. Achieving even light distribution is easy with this method, but the overly soft light fails to capture the texture of the surface, making the image appear too flat.
A harder light source should therefore be used instead, in this case, a P70 standard reflector. In setups with only one light, an even light distribution is achieved by placing the light source farther from the subject. Focusing the light (and directing it toward the farthest edge of the object) also improves uniformity. The Pulso G light used here offers this capability.
To avoid dominant and distracting glare, the light should be positioned at a shallow angle (at least 45°). However, in this case, that was not possible because the frame would have cast harsh shadows on the painted canvas.
In this example, these shadows were avoided by setting the light at an angle of about 15°. Since the surface was now highly reflective, polarization filters had to be used. It is often recommended that the polarization directions of both filters (one in front of the light and one in front of the camera) intersect exactly at 90°. However, this almost always results in color inaccuracies, as clearly seen in the right-side comparison.
The best subjective result was achieved with a 70° angle between the polarization planes of the two filters. The colors were very close to the original, and the surface texture was well visible without distracting reflections.
The photograph was taken with a medium format camera and a 150mm focal length. At an ISO sensitivity of 100 and a shutter speed of 1/180 s, the aperture was set to f/11.0.
The light hit the object at a 15° angle, and the polarization planes of the filters differed by 70°.
