Shooting Stained Glass Windows
Tiffany Stained Glass Window c:1902 - Chapel, NY
This past week, I had the opportunity to shoot several stained glass windows made at the turn of the century. The challenge was, retaining the brilliant colors while giving them context within the stone arch frames - a huge disparity between "light and dark" for sure, and typically well beyond the dynamic range in even the best of sensor technology. So - here are a few tips, that seemed to work well for me:
- Shoot in manual mode so you can over-ride the camera's "what you should shoot" mode;
- Spot meter the highlights - and remember what they are;
- Spot meter the shadows in the darkest area of the frame;
- Next - you are going to set to the average of the two readings - and then, set your EV to -1. This protects the highlight detail and presumes you can bring out the shadows in post-processing. As the shadows are in the final vignette (see the above image), I wasn't too worried about inducing any noticeable noise in the shadows.
In the actual execution of the shot - try to shoot late afternoon (golden hour) or very early morning without the sun directly coming through the window. A soft light is your best bet. In the inside of the building, ask for the interior lights to be dimmed or extinguished altogether, for optimum white balance and to induce a natural vignette around the bright window casement. As well, try to shoot in RAW mode.
I'll try to continue to add some images from last weeks shoot as I can, but, in the meantime, I hope this helps!
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