SC - Fw: [Mid] Last Post : Knowne Worlde Potters Meeting

[Timothy a Whitcomb]

Hi
    I know a little bit about photography.   A copy stand is a board with a pole
on one end that has a camera mount that can be lowered or raised.  It has a
place for two flood lamps on flexible arms on each side.  You can find them in
junk sales or used it is cheaper than new.  I do not know if sunlight would be
any less damaging than flood lamps for the length of time for the exposure.  You
must keep the board and camera level to each other. (everything must be very
flat)  If you do not have a way to get the board, some tripods will adjust
enought for you to do this.
    The best lens for shooting copy work is a flat field lens so that the page
is sharp from middle to edge.  But any sharp lens will be better than nothing.
(center of a lens is the sharpest.)  Film is still more information storage for
less cost than anything else on the market.  If it really something of value
(i.e. illuminated manuscripts)  I would use a larger format camera than 35 mm,
but for hand written recipes, 35 mm will be fine.
    If you use flood lights be sure to get tungsten film or get day light flood
lamps.  (very high kelvin temp bulbs)  Or you can take it to open shade like the
side of a building and tell the photo lab to take out cyan when printing them
up.  The shady side of a building gets sky light that will look cool and cyan in
the print.  You can shot a test frame a the beginning of the roll with a page
that has pure white and black and some mid gray that will help the printer
filter for the shaded light.  If you can get a real photographer's gray test
board that is the best.  If you have a color printer you could make one in any
paint program.  They are mainly gray and have large patches of black and white &
colors on them.  Be sure to bring your test sheet in with the film for the lab
to match.  Also some times a clear sheet of glass can help you hold the book
flat to get a better shot.  It must be very clean and have no reflections on
it.  (or you could use a polarizing filter)


I guess you could tell, I do know alittle about this stuff.
Helen

wandap wrote:

> 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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