Full frame wide angle lens for painting reproduction?

[aly324]

Hello, I need to photograph some paintings with my Sony A7R--both details and overalls. The paintings vary in size--some can be meters long. And in many cases I won't have much light or room to move around (in museum galleries or storerooms) and cannot use a tripod. So a traditional 60mm+ macro will likely be too long.

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a fast-ish wide angle (any brand, any mount) that 1) focuses closely and 2) doesn't have strong geometric distortion when focused up close and 3) doesn't have severe field curvature.

I'm open to macro tubes and helicoids or whatever contraption. I have a Hawk's Leica M to E-mount helicoid adapter.

I realize the above requirements are rather self-contradictory... But I also doubt I'm the first person to have this question! And naturally if I have to give up one requirement, it'll be 2) (fix in post).

Thanks in advance.

BTW, I normally use a Summilux-R 35, but it's a poor performer for this purpose due to its long 0.5m MFD, mid-zone dip, and field curvature (and my copy may be slightly out of calibration and exaggerates these problems at close focus). I had a Summicron-R that was quite good, but I've sold it for $. It also had some strong barrel distortion at close focus.

[Abbazz]

[Lloydy]

I would also try stitching a few pictures together. It might be possible to use a lens with little distortion and get good results.

[philslizzy]

[memetph]

Which focal length do you consider ?
I won't go for the Sony zoom. Corner performance is not at the level that you can reach with prime lenses.

[araucaria]

Maybe the Canon TS-E 17 would work. Or stiching with the ts-e 24, but you would need a tripod for that.

[RAART]

We used with great success Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art but the biggest paintings we have to capture are 2-3m x 1-1.5m

It is amazing already wide open and stopped down you will see any brush movement on the paint. The artist himself says that the pictures are too sharp even for his taste but that is easy remedy in PP. I don't know of any better lens out there, and just to let you know that we sold Zeiss and got Sigma. Much better than Zeiss.

EDIT: I wouldn't go wider than 30mm just in regards of distortion unless you have 24mm Tilt/Shift lens.

[aly324]

Thanks guys for the ideas!

I do use the Microsoft ICE program to stitch if necessary, but geometric distortion can ruin the stitching. Also the seams can be blurry. I should mention that these are Chinese paintings on paper or silk, not post-Renaissance Western easel paintings--so they are not necessarily hung, but can be scrolls or albums that are laid flat. Also pictorially and chromatically they're generally less eventful than European paintings, which poses a challenge to the stitching software. Good thing is paper and silk aren't as reflective as varnish.

Seems like the Sigma is a good choice. I'll look into that one...

And I hadn't realized that tilt/shift lenses are well corrected for geometric distortion--that makes sense to me. Thanks.

[araucaria]

They also don't have CA problems in the corners unless you shift them. I thought that would be specially helpful with paintings where you don't want to falsify color transitions.

[Basilisk]

Samyang do a 24mm tilt shift if you want a new lens. Don't know how good it is, but most of their optics are fairly highly regarded.