Darren Addy wrote: > Regarding your copying of B&W photos (some of which are curling... > > If you think that scanning would be a long job, I assure you that > copying them with a camera will be just as long, if not longer. For > those that don't lie flat, you will need to position them under glass. > That glass will need to be clean and dust free. It will need twin > illumination from 45 degrees off of each side (to eliminate any chance > of glare). Unless all of the photos are exactly the same size, you will > need to move the camera closer or farther away (if not change lens > focal length). Your camera will need to be perfectly perpendicular to > the image and directly centered. All of this is a big pain in the > patootie to do repeatedly.The camera could be placed on an enlarger > chassis to crank up and down for filling the frame, but the center line > changes as you change elevation so you still need to mess with that. > Also, it is hard to chimp the LCD screen without a reticulating LCD (or > perhaps the use of a mirror) as the camera gets too high for you. You > could work on the floor, but that's a lot of up and down. Pick your > poison. > > The scanner takes care of much of that for you. Good ones are not > terribly expensive. I highly recommend the Epson Perfection V600 Photo > (or one of it's kin). With its optionally lighted lid and negative > carrier you can even use them to scan film or slides. The newer > scanners are lightning fast compared to older ones (which you may have > or be used to).
I can see I'm exchanging one set of problems for another here. The photos come in both a variety of sizes and curls. The plus side for most of the equipment needed is I can get it together, but I note well the actually difficulty and time to set up each shot. Hmm. Might not be happy after a morning of this. I'll take a look at the scanner you mention plus the competition around today. The scanner we have is a good few years old now, and quality is low and time per scan is high. Thanks, Malcolm -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
