Re: Digital cameras as "scanners"

["Michael Healy" <mjhealy@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is the method to which I resorted initially, because I was impatient
and had no scanner. I set up 35mm slides on a light table, put a digital
camera on a tripod, and shot. The idea was to do copy work, essentially.

You are asking about equipment, and I'm afraid I don't have any thoughts on
this part of it. What I can offer, though, is a warning. Slides and negs are
pretty small unless you're working with at least 4x5. So if the best you can
managed is the arrangement I've described, you probably are going to find
yourself with a couple serious problems. One will be lens selection and
alignment. Unless you use a long lens (100mm +), you will achieve the effect
of barrel distortion. Also, it's pretty awfully difficult to get both planes
perfectly parallel, first of all, and then perfectly lined up so the image
looks perfectly horizontal. I **do** copy work for artists. It's hard enough
to get an 8x10 image perfectly aligned to the camera using eyeballs. With
35mm slides, I'd say forget it, unless you've already got equipment set up
for slide duping.

Maybe others will disagree with me, or have actual experience pulling this
off with an expensive camera. I'd be skeptical. With my copy work
experience, I thought I could pull it off. Now I wouldn't waste the time.
What's the point of all the acrobatics and microphotography when you can get
superior results from a $500-$600 scanner? I only even tried it because I
did have the camera, and did not yet have the scanner. If you can overcome
the problems I've reported, more power to you. Otherwise, a waste of time.
Even for greeting cards, the result probably are going to suck beyond your
imagination. And I haven't even addressed the problems associated with light
source or control over the scan.

Mike Healy


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Cummins" <jcummins@acm.org>
To: <scan@leben.com>
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 6:00 AM
Subject: Digital cameras as "scanners"


> Are there any subjective or objective comparisons of
> (5M, ~$999 flavor) digital camera capture of slides or
> negatives vs scanning the same slide or negative.
> Auxillary lens usage is assumed for the digitial camera.
>
> If cropping is done at the capture point the camera
> resolution would also be spread over the specific area
> of interest.   The burden of color and mask corrections
> would, of course, move to the software side after capture.
>
>
>
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