Photographing Natural World Thumbnails

Overview

Steps for photographing thumbnail artwork, importing it into Lightroom, and placing into Photoshop documents.

Photography

Setup

1. Shoot each thumbnailed page separately. Not each sheet on which the thumbnails are drawn.
2. Lens: Tamron 90mm / 200 ISO / 1/125 sec @ f/8 / metering set to aperture-priority manual
   (It has to be a macro lens.)
3. Flash: SB-900, bounced off umbella. 1/4 power. Focal length set to 50mm, although not sure if this makes a difference here.
4. Camera mounted on Gitzo GT2331 tripod. (see photo)
   1. Camera pointed straight down.
   2. Front legs not extended, set at middle notch. Resting on table.
   3. Back leg on lowest notch, extended a little bit. Resting on step ladder.
   4. The blue line at the end of the Tamron 90mm lens will be 14-⅛ inches from the artwork. (The blue line is only visible when the lens is set to manual focus.)

table top set up with camera and flash

tripod leg settings; back leg set to lowest notch, front two legs in middle notch

flash and umbrella

artwork relative to the camera

tripod legs and position of flash relative to the artwork

Blue line on the lens is 14-⅛” above artwork. (The blue line is only visible when the lens is set to manual focus.)