SC - ps photographing old documents

[Helen]

When I was in Germany I went to the Princesses Library in Hesse-Darmstadt
where there were many period manuscripts and printed books.  The library
would photograph them for you for 20 pfennig per page.  It came out as rolls
of 35mm film, just like your favorite Kodak moments.  I then had the film
printed on 8x10's.  I have one copy of a costume book that came into the
library's hands in 1587 done in that way.  The books were photographed in
natural light on a dolly that allowed the operator to raise or lower the
camera so that the photographic immage exactly fit the page.  This happened
only ten or twelve years ago, so it should still be current practice.  The
point is that an actual photograph still has far more definition than the
best digital cameras I have seen so far.

So why not just get out your trusty 35mm place the book carefully in a place
where it will get adequate light for the film you are using and have at it.
You might want to build some type of structure rather like an enlarger frame
to hold the camera steady at a specific distance but that shouldn't be
terribly hard.  This is how my mother copied family pictures and documents.

Regina Romsey, old used Drachenwald Viscountess

P.S.  When I asked the librarian if they would mind if I reprinted the book
on my own for limited sale she said there was no problem.  The only thing
they cared to control were their hand done manuscripts!


- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG
[mailto:owner-sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG]On Behalf Of Stefan li Rous
Sent: Friday, July 30, 1999 11:06 PM
To: SCA-Cooks maillist
Subject: SC - copying old documents


David/Cariadoc commented:
> One way of getting copies with no damage would be to use a digital camera
> to photograph it. You don't need a flash, since you can use long
exposures.

Have you actually tried this? Which digital equipment? Most of the consumer
digital cameras are only just now getting to a 1600 x 1200 resolution. At a
density of 300 dpi that is only a coverage of 5 x 4 inches. I usually scan
on flatbed scanner at 600 dpi and that is often marginal and sometimes
requiring many corrections when doing OCR, expecially with newsprint.

However, if this is just for images that will be interpreted by humans
and not by machine, maybe the higher resolution is not required. Also,
I've usually been working with 10 or 12 pt typefaces. Were period type
faces larger? Or are we talking about handwriting in which case I think
you will have to do it by human interpretation of the images?

Those of you that have put book facsimiles on line, how have you done
it?

- --
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:
         http://lg_photo.home.texas.net/florilegium/index.html ****
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