Equipment & Techniques > Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear
The x-y Easel - stepping easel for art repro
teddillard:
Long, very long story short - I've finally got a really solid prototype of an easel that allows stepping capture by moving the artwork precisely, rather than moving the camera. I'd really be interested in hearing feedback on it. As far as I've been able to find, there's nothing else out there like it.
In short, it's a vertical easel on the lines of a classic, large, H-frame painters easel. It's equipped with a stepping motor (so far, manually controlled, but easily automated) that allows precise vertical motion. It's on a dolly, which allows horizontal motion, also able to be motorized and automated at some point.
The short pitch is, by virtue of the camera remaining static, focused on a fixed frame, and the subject moving through that frame, that frame is the only area you need to light.
Here's a link to the site I tossed together to help show what it's all about: http://www.xy-easel.com. There's a video there explaining the basic idea there too - can't figure out how to embed it here. ::)
Looking forward to hearing your comments. If you'd like to PM me, feel free, or email me at ted (at) teddillard.com
Chris_Brown:
I love this idea. Obviously, perfect lighting is paramount, and eliminating optical aberrations, too. I'll have to look into it.
A downside: It won't work when the art cannot be removed from its installation (which happens on occasion).
Bart_van_der_Wolf:
--- Quote from: teddillard on October 29, 2013, 07:17:42 am ---Long, very long story short - I've finally got a really solid prototype of an easel that allows stepping capture by moving the artwork precisely, rather than moving the camera. I'd really be interested in hearing feedback on it. As far as I've been able to find, there's nothing else out there like it.
--- End quote ---
Hi Ted,
It's looking good. It makes sense to use an inverted T-frame holding the artwork, sliding up and down on an H-frame. I agree that confining the area to be lit to a smaller area than the full artwork gives most flexibility and potential quality for lighting. It also allows better shielding of stray light, and of potential lens glare.
The only thing left is perpendicular alignment of the camera, but with flat-stitching that becomes slightly less critical since lens distortion can be corrected at the same time as optimal squaring. This will allow faster setup, although still no licence for sloppy work.
Well done.
Cheers,
Bart
teddillard:
Yes, I went through a few variations on holding the painting securely and finally settled on the same basic idea as what a traditional painters' easel uses. There's some lesson there about trying to re-invent the wheel, I'm just not quite sure what it is... ;D
On getting it square and parallel, that's not a problem. I just use a Zig-Align, and as long as the camera is at the same angle as the art, which figures to about 10º, you're perfectly square and centered.
As with any case of shooting flat art, a good lens really pays off. I was using an old 55mm Micro-Nikkor, but found a good deal on the 105 Micro-Nikkor and that's even better. Edge-to-edge sharpness a few stops down from wide-open is amazing.
KirbyKrieger:
If you haven't, you might take at look at Hugh's Easels, or Gung (apparently no longer available in the US). I painted for years on a Gung TJ7070B. Superb easel: x on rollers, y on a counter-balanced slide, tilt on a crank. I put the whole easel on three extra large, soft-rubber locking wheels (z). When I bought mine, the top-of-the-line supported something like 1,000 lbs. — made for working on sections of frescoed walls.
http://www.hugheseasels.com
http://www.artsmate.com/?product-98.html
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