Photographing persian rugs

[Nav13]

A friend has asked me for help to photograph a lot of Persian rugs for him. I've helped him before to photograph ~10 or so before and we did this by hanging them on the wall, using soft boxes and a tripod. However now he needs to photograph all of the rugs in his store. So we are thinking of making a set up where we can just lay the rugs flat on the floor and use a hoist or something to take pictures from above, since hanging each rug would be very time consuming.

So my first question is, can you rent a hoist (similar to what they have at hardware stores) or do you guys have any other suggestions other then using a ladder(cant get centered) to get high enough and centered onto the rugs.

Secondly what is the best way to get the most accurate colors. Is using a grey card and shooting in raw then editing afterwards going to be the most efficient way, or is that going to be way more time consuming?

As you can probably tell I am a pretty big noob to this stuff, although to be honest once everything is set up it shouldn't be too hard. That being said if any photographers are interested in taking up this gig, please pm me. We have no idea how much photographers would charge to do something like this so my friend may even just hire a pro to do it instead.

I still need an exact number but my guess is there are between 400-500 rugs. I will get a more accurate number soon. We are estimating it will take roughly a week to shoot them all.

edit: I should mention that two people can be provided to switch out the rugs. So anyone interested in the job, you would be mainly dealing with photography, not having to move stuff around.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I'm not sure about aerial setups, but for your WB question, auto white balance or WB set to "flash" should both do a perfect job when using flash. I've never had to correct any of my flash photo's WB even the slightest bit while using flash and AWB. Always best to shoot raw just in case though. A couple umbrellas or softboxes with flashguns like it sounds like you've been using should be enough for light unless these rugs are absolutely massive.

[Nav13]

Perfect that's good to hear Marc. When I helped shoot some rugs before we only had one soft box so it was a nightmare to get even lighting (obviously) so I will tell him to get two this time fore sure. I think two will be more then enough, the biggest rug is around 10X14 or something like that. Yea I think the hardest part is going to be getting centered on the rugs from above. Hanging the rugs is pretty much out of the question is will take a month to do 500 rugs that way.

[mboldt]

Hanging against a wall may be the only solution for the big ones... How else will you be directly centered above them?

[kvg]

Throw up a couple photos when your finished:thumbsup:

[blitz]

All you need is the camera suspended from a boom of some sort over the rugs. Change the zoom based on the size, pre-focus and use a remote trigger.
You could build a temp setup out of 2x4s

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by blitz
All you need is the camera suspended from a boom of some sort over the rugs. Change the zoom based on the size, pre-focus and use a remote trigger.
You could build a temp setup out of 2x4s

This is exactly how I'd do it.

[Nav13]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I was thinking of renting a scissor lift with a 3 ft extension which costs about 400 for a week, or a articulating boom lift for around 600 a week. I looked into renting a camera boom or jib crane, but it doesn't look like anyone rents them out, so I am thinking to just buy one with the 4-600 I would be spending to rent a lift.

Could you guys describe how you would make a support with 2x4's a little more? I am a little reluctant to do that since it will be my friends d300 that we will be using.

Oh and KVG I'll definitely throw some pictures up here once I am done.