photographing documents

[flyer]

To PDL: taking a reading off a gray card, your exposure shouldn't vary, since the reading is from a neutral source,almost like an incident reading.

To Sion: It might be a long shot, but some tripods allow you to reverse the center post so the head is between the legs, or some have a second screw on the bottom of the post, so you can mount the head underneath, so the tripod can be used as a copy stand: you mount the camera underneath the center post, then tilt it back 90 deg. and put your book/document/image underneath to photography it.

Good luck!

[Slon]

Originally Posted by flyer

To PDL: taking a reading off a gray card, your exposure shouldn't vary, since the reading is from a neutral source,almost like an incident reading.

To Sion: It might be a long shot, but some tripods allow you to reverse the center post so the head is between the legs, or some have a second screw on the bottom of the post, so you can mount the head underneath, so the tripod can be used as a copy stand: you mount the camera underneath the center post, then tilt it back 90 deg. and put your book/document/image underneath to photography it.

Good luck!

My tripod has a hook on the bottom. I'll examine it a bit more to see if I can find anything else.

[PDL]

To flyer - correct - once the light source is "stanardized" you should use the same exposure e.g. manual - turn off AE. However, some pages will have slight variations where you might want to verify the exposure. Nothing like being paranoid.

To Slon - the tripod I use allowed me to put the head onto the bottom of the tripod - you know pull it out and put it into the support tube from the bottom up. Very handy feature on that guy.

I also used to shoot documents with a sheet of glass on top to make the surface nice and flat. Proper 45 degree angles on the lights and a black background (around the camera) stopped most if not all of the reflections. Worked out quite well.

The Elitist - formerly known as PDL

[RioRico]

Tripods are a pain when copying documents. An enlarger frame makes a better camera platform. I wandered through the few thrift shops in my rural area this week and found three old photo enlargers, cheap. Replace the enlarger head with your camera, set the lights, and GO!

Back in the day, when one wanted to copy pages, one merely pulled out their Minox, used the attached chain to measure the focal distance, and stealthily snapped away. The film was then delivered to the spymaster's lab for processing. Ah, the thrills...

[graphicgr8s]

How big is this book? Scanning on the proper equipment should only run about a dime a page. Depending on the software they use it might even be editable. Sure has to be more cost effective than photographing it. You should then get back a multipage pdf that you can print at will.
One thing though, since it's a textbook it is copyrighted.

[Lowell Goudge]

After reading all the responses, I think we are missing a few things here.

1) get a good macro lens. you need a true flat field lens, not a normal lens that is not optimized to be flat field and in focus edge to edge, This is why they make macro lenses.

2) make a copy stand from an old enlarger, You should be able to get one cheap, and it has a base and pedistal already, with nice smooth adjustment for vertical. YOu can put a tripod heard on this to give you adjustment, and use a level to ,make it square to the base,.

3) get a right angle view finder. It makes life easier.

4) when shooting, stop down to F11 maximum, after that you will begin to have problems with sharpness due to difraction around the apature.

5) look for some form of frame to hold the pages flat at the edges but try to avoid shooting through glass or plastic. the reflections will kill you.

6) do a test shot, with your lighting, on a plain sheet of paper. (light lines dividing the paper into 16 squares. Check exposure and white balance in the computer. For exposure, set your histogram to give you the value for a selection as opposed to the whole frame and select each square drawn on the paper. they should all be the same if you have uniform lighting. Use difusers on the lighting to make this better. For white balance, using the white paper, select the settings you like. The final project should be processed with the same settings.

[marcdsgn]

Originally Posted by Lowell Goudge

1) get a good macro lens.

Actually, I shoot a lot of small items for our company's product catalogues, and find that a longer lens gives more leniency to DOF and less distortion to the image, problems that often occur with macro lenses. If you're not shooting in a cramped space, I'd recommend making the lens as long as possible and pulling your camera position as far away as practical from the pages you're shooting. The downside is that if you're dependent on a camera-mounted flash for lighting, then you'll have to adjust aperture accordingly, or otherwise use independent lighting.

[woof]

Why not use a home-made light box with a hole cut in the top? It took me about 20 minutes to construct a light box, and I use it all the time now for various things. Here's an example of one that has a "port" in the top for overhead photos.

http://www.studiolighting.net/homema...t-photography/

Frankly, in your shoes, I'd just use a box maybe twice the size of the documents, line it with white "butcher" paper, cut the hole in the top, add the light source... those clip lights work great... and start shooting away.

It might seem "ghetto" but it would be quite effective.

woof!

[graphicgr8s]

Actually you can shoot through the glass. You just need to position the lights at about a 45 degree angle to the glass. Check a shot and adjust the angle as necessary. Then shoot till your done. It's actually a Rube version of a process camera used in printing to make negs for plates. Just seems like a lot of work for marginal results.