Photographing books, other texts and non-flat photos through glass.

[george013]

The strength of the glass is what it is. It will break with a torquing or point load. The frame prevents the torque loads on the glass by carrying them evenly and not loading the glass.

That's what I wrote.

For the mods.
I noticed before, why are many posts gone in the "latest threads" list. I'm missing all the post in this thread before mine while looking at the date they should be there.

George

[Manfred M]

That's why I was suggesting a frame for the glass. Thickness isn't as important as strength and rigidity. In fact, a thick piece could lead to internal reflections of the subject.

Think of the bottom surface of the glass on the subject, light at an angle and an internal reflection in the glass creating a double image.

Agreed, this is why it is important to have the camera perpendicular to the glass and to have the proper lights at the proper position. I created the following shot to explain who to do this with a painting hanging on a wall, but the principle is the same for shooting anything behind glass.

[Mike Buckley]

Why are the diffusers helpful?

[Manfred M]

Why are the diffusers helpful?

They increased the size of the light source.

[Mike Buckley]

I doubt the diffusers are needed in most situations and they actually introduce a potential problem when lighting the project being discussed here and another potential problem when lighting anything with texture.

The only reason to use the diffusers is if it's not possible to evenly light the subject using the two light sources on their own. If the space allows positioning the light sources sufficiently far away from the subject so they illuminate the entire subject, no diffusers will be needed. Any situation that doesn't allow that would be unusual, especially in a controlled studio setup no matter how informal the setup happens to be.

The potential problem is that if the diffusers are large enough to be the size of the subject, it will become more difficult to position them so the entire surfaces of the diffusers are outside the family of angles. When photographing anything with texture, using a diffuser will make it more difficult to display the texture of the subject in the photograph.

[Saorsa]

That's what I wrote.

For the mods.
I noticed before, why are many posts gone in the "latest threads" list. I'm missing all the post in this thread before mine while looking at the date they should be there.

George

My apoligies, I seem to have hit the reply with quote button in your post. I didn't intend to quote you but to quote and answer the question above yours from Mike Buckley which said

Is a piece of glass by itself less strong than the same piece of glass enclosed in a frame? I ask because intuitive it seems not. However, I have no idea.

Since I see now that you were responding to the same question I think we are in wild agreement.

[loosecanon]

First, if books etc can be flattened under glass then use a scanner, some will even correct for the exposure difference for the uneven lighting by the spine. Canon do some very portable scanners which can be used sideways or on top of books.

I have also used "mouse scanners" to copy fragile book pages in a library. Take a thin board to place under the pages to give a wider margin for the "mouse scanner.

To avoid see through either scanning or photography of books put black paper under the page, except with very thin pages it will solve the problem of the text on the reverse showing through.

If having to copy by photography then use a long macro lens, it reduces the distortion due to page curvature. After photography you can apply a correction to pages, lightroom does this well. I often find I photograph all the pages one side of a book, and then the other. Keep a stock of card to balance the book thickness by putting card under one side and removing from the other, this minimises book damage and evens up the pages.
I then renumber the images of each set starting at 001, then adding adding A or B at the end of the file name, they will then rread sequencelly

Working in museums or record offices I always start with a standard colour patch card so as to profile the light source which often one cannot control.

I also use an incident lightmeter to measure evenness of lighting across the page. white card reflectors can help even up things, especially where you have no control of the lights

A final hint, very faded/yellowed photographs can be much improved by photographing them with UV light.

[Manfred M]

I doubt the diffusers are needed in most situations and they actually introduce a potential problem when lighting the project being discussed here and another potential problem when lighting anything with texture.

The only reason to use the diffusers is if it's not possible to evenly light the subject using the two light sources on their own. If the space allows positioning the light sources sufficiently far away from the subject so they illuminate the entire subject, no diffusers will be needed. Any situation that doesn't allow that would be unusual, especially in a controlled studio setup no matter how informal the setup happens to be.

The potential problem is that if the diffusers are large enough to be the size of the subject, it will become more difficult to position them so the entire surfaces of the diffusers are outside the family of angles. When photographing anything with texture, using a diffuser will make it more difficult to display the texture of the subject in the photograph.

The diffusers in my case are soft boxes.

The trade off is that the light source has to sit further back to provide even lighting (inverse square law impact) without the diffuser and that ends up being a small light source that can cast harsh shadows, although that is more important when photographing something with textures.

Using a diffuser / softbox means you can get closer to the subject and the light is diffuse, so one is trading off the hardness of the light against the inverse square law impacts. I have always found the point where I position the lights to be close to the optimal to balancing these two conflicting properties of light.

The subject being photographed is ~ 60cm x 60cm / 2ft x 2ft.

[Keen Learner]

Once again, many, many thanks for all your quite wonderful input.

I am just so impressed with how much "value" you have all added and I read all your posts, one by one, out to my friend, who came to visit me today.

As a complete newbie to forums, I decided initially to err on the side of caution as regards how long my initial post should be and so I feel now that I should have perhaps made it slightly longer just to give you a little bit more information. Please forgive me for this being a much longer post to give you a better feel for the matter. I will then try and return to "normal length" posts in future.

I cleared my late father's house of "valuables", very much like Robinson Crusoe salvaging anything of value or use from his wrecked ship before it was finally completely lost in the great storm [read: final, professional house clearance and then sale], some 21 months ago and many of the items I rescued were very badly affected by mould.

The house had been shut up for many years due to legal issues and the mould problems arose as a result of water ingress after some "very kind" people nicked all the lead off the roof.

My father was a very keen photographer in his day and I am trying to rescue as many of his books, photos, correspondence and other papers as I possibly can.

Most of the photos are now in very mouldy, old photo albums; he used to develop his own black and white film and print and enlarge everything himself on a self-built enlarger and luckily the (sodium thiosulfate) "hypo" wash has meant that most of the actual prints seem unaffected by the mould.

I now wish to digitise everything so than I can then dispose of all the evil-smelling originals (bar the prints and items of real historical value). I should obviously have specified "nineteenth century" in my earlier post rather than "last century". Sorry.

I shudder to think of the state of the negatives and transparencies, many of which were 120 film-sized and others were stereo photos taken on his trusty, old, twin-lensed camera. He glued these stereo transparencies on to odd bits of stiff cardboard so that he could then pop them into his hand-held wooden viewer, which he would hold up to daylight or any other good light source.

However, my plan all along was to protect all those books and documents worth saving and to be especially careful not to break the spines of any books or harm any documents that are worth preserving for posterity: just like the doctors, "First do no harm!"

I hope that the wooden "book cradle" that I am trying to design and have fabricated (instead of a copy-stand or enlarger base) will help in that respect.

We aim to make a prototype out of MDF first and then, once we have made all the improvements that will almost certainly be found necessary, we will go for "the real McCoy" in hardwood,

It will hopefully allow me to take photos of diaries and books (many of the latter having his handwritten comments in them) that will only comfortably open to "X" degrees.

The two wooden side supports for the books would slot into a series of grooves (to allow for different thicknesses of book spines) on the rubber-mat bottomed wooden base that would also have a series of grooves cut into the top on either side that would permit the hinged supports (as on the back of old-fashioned desk-top photo-holders) to slot into, thus allowing for the different degrees of opening that a book could comfortably tolerate.

The glass plates were never intended to flatten the whole book: there would be two plates so that one (loose) plate would be "pressing gently down" on one page and the other, quite separate, plate would be "pressing gently down" on the other page.

As I wish to become, over time, a "semi-professional" photographer and "scanner" (in order to help other people to digitise their "stuff" and write up their autobiographies, too), I have already invested in the following (all new) kit and software:

• the two (previously mentioned) Canon EOS 70D camera-bodies ;
• the two (previously mentioned) Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lenses;
• a Canon EFS-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM zoom lens + UV Filter;
• a Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 EX DC HSM wide angle lens + UV Filter;
• a Sigma 105mm 1:2.8 DG Macro HSM lens + UV Filter;
• a 67mm Circular PRO1 Polarising Filter;
• a Giottos Silk Road YTL9383 3D Column Aluminium Tripod with a Giottos MH7001-652 Series 1 Tripod Ball Head;
• a Vanguard Alta Pro 263AB 100 Aluminium Tripod + Ball-Head;
• a Manfrotto Compact Advanced Tripod With Ball Head (a very welcome "freebie");
• a (very ancient) Velbon Mini Tripod.
• a Canon RC-6 Remote Controller for precisely the avoidance of camera-shake, as mentioned in one of your earlier posts;
• a Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flashgun;
• a Bowens Streamlite 330 Two Head Lighting Kit on stands and with diffuser covers;
• a 35m-long powered USB 2.0 cable for tethered camera-shooting;

• an Epson Perfection V850 Pro A4 Photo Scanner.
• an Epson Expression 11000XL A3 Flatbed Scanner.

• SilverFast Archive Suite 8.5 (top-end German scanning software);
• Adobe Lightroom CC;
• Adobe Photoshop CC;
• Adobe Bridge CC.

That "little lot" obviously cost me an arm and a leg to purchase (and a very long time to decide upon what the shopping-list needed to be) but it should hopefully "do me" nicely although I have taken note of all the other suggestions that you have so kindly made and will keep them in mind.

My idea is that I will leave the two scanners at home, as their much-more-difficult-to-protect optics will definitely not appreciate "bouncing up and down on any rough, old farm tracks" that I may have to negotiate but the Lowepro camera "roller-case" and camera bags should help protect the two cameras and all the lenses and other kit on my travels.

I bought the second camera body essentially as a spare, just in case something befell my other camera when I was a long way from home. I have therefore not been at all upset at your recommendations to use just the one camera. Being a complete novice and 62 years old, I made the difficult decision to buy an identical model as my second camera (rather than the full frame I was seriously thinking of getting), as then I would not befuddle myself with a brand new set of controls and face having to buy some different lenses for the full frame camera.

I am getting seriously worried now that I have definitely exceeded your capacity (and goodwill) for reading and so I will end for tonight with the final comment that I am surrounded by a great many, big, fat and absolutely fascinating (not to mention expensive) books by the likes of Scott Kelby, Martin Evening and Jeff Schewe but I will definitely look at getting the "Light: Science and Magic" book to add to my library.

My thanks to all who have made it right through to the bitter end of this post. I will keep you updated on my progress (and all the inevitable blunders) and I can't tell you how much "safer" I feel embarking on this huge project with all of you experts waiting in the wings to both advise and encourage me "whenever despondency and despair descend"!

[Mike Buckley]

I'm having a little bit of trouble following you on all of your details but I do feel comfortable commenting on everything shown below.

The glass plates were never intended to flatten the whole book: there would be two plates so that one (loose) plate would be "pressing gently down" on one page and the other, quite separate, plate would be "pressing gently down" on the other page.

You explained the intention to get the pages of a book flat. When you are photographing pages that are close to the center of a book, "gently" pressing them down will likely be insufficient.

Only one of the glass plates is necessary, as you should never have to or want to use two of them at the same time. Instead of using the second plate to gently press down the pages on the other side of the book, my thinking is that a clamp that holds down that second side of pages would be ideal. That's because, unlike the second glass plate, it would not add any pressure to the binding.

The diffuser covers attached to your Bowens Streamline 330 units will have no beneficial effect unless your subject displays texture that you want to minimize. They will reduce the brightness of the light and increase the exposure time.

The Canon Speedlight on its own will provide no benefit; two of them could be very useful, in which case you would not need the Bowens Streamline 330 units.

Instead of using the various tripods, I strongly suggest again that you instead use a copy stand as explained in Richard's and my posts. Ensuring that the plane of the camera sensor is parallel to the subject will be far easier using a copy stand than using a tripod even if you have two-bubble levels attached to your system.

When using your zoom lenses, make sure they don't creep when they are perpendicular to the floor. If they do creep, they will be impossible to use for your project.

Your UV filters should be unnecessary though unharmful.

If you set up the lighting properly, there will be no use for the polarizer. Even if you set up the lighting improperly, it's doubtful that your polarizer will be of any use.

Best of luck with your project! I admire you for taking it on with such sincerity and diligence.

[Keen Learner]

Thank you for reverting so quickly, and, once again, so helpfully, Mike.

I fully take on board that it would be easier to get "the planes" right with a copy-stand if the subject will be well-behaved and lie flat to be parallel to the planes and I may very well look into getting a copy-stand for all my photography of documents although my first port of call there would be my new flatbed scanner in order to try and diminish the resulting file sizes (i.e. in order to end up with smaller PDFs rather than much larger RAW or TIFF files).

I need to do a lot of trialling of photography vs scanning (very much including checking my assumption that I will be able to do far more post-capture in Lightroom and Photoshop than in my SilverFast software) to ascertain whether I am ultimately better off in terms of time and end-results using one or the other. My gut instinct, though, is that I will end up using the scanner at home and the camera when away from home for the reasons already explained (i.e. trying not to mess up the scanner's optics).

In my experience the pages of a book only very rarely want to lie perfectly flat and that led me to think that it would be easier to have a device (my book cradle) that would enable me to get a good shot of at least one really flat page whilst the other page (and all the pages behind it) are held "out of the way" at a (moveable) angle that is entirely comfortable for the (old) book and its spine.

You are convincing me more and more, however, to go for the "one shot at a time" approach, first doing all the left-hand pages and then all the right-hand pages and the idea of using a clamp rather than another sheet of glass is a very good one (and especially as I have had visions of one sheet of glass damaging or breaking the other at some stage). The suggestion of having a stack of cardboard (to use under one or other of the book covers) as one works one's way through the book was also very helpful indeed.

I had not thought of "zoom-creep" before so that has been another "heads up" for me. Thank you.

My understanding is that one is always better off using a prime lens in studio situations if one can.

I also take on board your comment about the diffusers not helping me. I must confess to just having left them on "out of habit" (and to make sure that they did not get lost during my recent house-move).

I may very well get another Canon Speedlite to use instead of the Bowens lighting stands if space or luggage is ever a problem.

I also take on board your comments about the filters not helping. I keep UV filters on all of my lenses just as protection, it always being so much cheaper to replace a filter than a lens.

And finally thank you, Mike, and all the other members who have commented so generously so far: I continue to learn a lot from your much greater experience and I very much appreciate all your encouragement.

[Mike Buckley]

Noting your concern about file sizes, simply delete your raw files after converting them to small JPEGs.

To be consistent with the PDFs created by your scanner, you could save your RAW files to PDFs that are about the same size as the PDFs created by your scanner. Alternatively, you could implement consistency of file format by opening your scanner's PDFs in Photoshop and save them as JPEGs.

[Keen Learner]

Mike, there seems to be no end to your bright ideas!

Thank you for those two very useful tips as file consistency was a looming worry of mine. I will try both ideas out and then report back at some stage.

I am very much at "the idea-gathering", rather than "the doing", stage of everything at the moment, as it is all early days for me so all of these incoming bits of advice are wonderfully helpful.

All the professional photographers, whose books I am reading, speak of their "workflow" and thinking out the right workflow for all my specific circumstances is where I am concentrating my efforts at the moment.

There will then come "a moment of truth", very soon, when I will start putting it all into practice and that is probably when I will come back to this Forum to report on what worked (for me) and what didn't.

I do have one further set of questions and that is: would it be (a) possible and (b) advantageous to try and "tether" *both* of my two Canon 70Ds to Lightroom at the same time and (c) would I then be able to check both exposures on my PC monitor?

My idea is to alter the time on one of the cameras so that it is a few seconds behind the other. Then, when I import the photos (and I have set up the Import Pre-Set to alter the filename to include the date and time down to the very last second along with the photo number), all the shots of opposing pages would automatically fall into filename (and number) sequence?

Thanks.

[Mike Buckley]

You might get more helpful information about the tethering if you mention the software you plan to use. I'm not a Canon user, so it's likely that I won't be of any help with the questions related to that.

My idea is to alter the time on one of the cameras so that it is a few seconds behind the other. Then, when I import the photos (and I have set up the Import Pre-Set to alter the filename to include the date and time down to the very last second along with the photo number), all the shots of opposing pages would automatically fall into filename (and number) sequence?

Be sure to test that before assuming it can be done. I use very powerful cataloging software to batch rename my images and I can't think immediately off the top of my head how to get the sequential numbers in the file name to accurately reflect the order the captures were made from image files that have been downloaded from two separate memory cards.

[Mike Buckley]

Something else to keep in mind:

Set your aperture to a depth of field that will display the first page and the middle page equally sharp. Keep in mind that the text and other material on the middle page will be displayed at a slightly larger magnification than the first page because it will be closer to the camera. Contrast that with when using a scanner that all pages of the book will be digitized at the same magnification.

[Mike Buckley]

I can't think immediately off the top of my head how to get the sequential numbers in the file name to accurately reflect the order the captures were made from image files that have been downloaded from two separate memory cards.

While eating lunch, I thought of an easy way to make that happen. (Doing so is pretty much the limit of my ability to multitask. ) If your renaming tool allows you to set the sequential number of the first image file to be renamed and to set the increment to a value of 2, you could easily create a series of odd numbers for image files captured using one card and a series of even numbers for image files captured using the other card.

[Keen Learner]

I had mentioned that I would be using Lightroom (and that's the CC version) for the tethered capture.

I have used Adobe Bridge for batch renaming before and found it worked extremely well.

As long as the date and time come before the cameras' image numbers in the filenames, they should then automatically fall into the right sequence, I would have thought.

I take on board the depth of field issues occurring with the camera and not the scanner: a good point, well made.

I will keep the incremental numbering up my sleeve!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Clive,

As long as the date and time come before the cameras' image numbers in the filenames, they should then automatically fall into the right sequence, I would have thought.

Bear in mind (for sorting) that you will probably want to use a date + time format like this YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm-ss, especially if you might not complete the shooting of an entire book in one day.


If you haven't already - you might want to assess the sizes (make notes of dimensions), shapes, numbers of pages, etc. of all the material you need to digitise, so that you are aware sooner rather than later whether your solution will enable all material to be handled successfully.

Consider the possibility that some book images might be printed 'across the spine' on both sides - so then what will you do?

Continue separately and merge left and right halves in PS CC?
Turn camera and shoot both pages landscape orientation? (Can you get it far enough away to do this?)

If I were doing this, I would make everything jpg, regardless of source, for ease of photo manipulation in PS CC.


The only things I pdf scan are multi page documents that I know I won't need to process, since then the pdf has the advantage of 'keeping them all together' in one file.


I'm not sure what 'quality' of end product you are aiming for, but these could be things to consider ...
a) If you have ever photocopied a book on a photocopier, remember how impossible it was to get the left and right hand sides 'square'? The same is true of flat bed scanners to some extent.
b) On the other hand; don't aim too high or you may lose interest and never finish the project
c) Rotating in PS CC or LR will soften the images - and you may still have the problem of getting consistent size and placement with respect to the edges of the images in a series (e.g. if viewed in an album consecutively).

Good luck, Dave

[Keen Learner]

Thank you, Dave, for your very useful thoughts on the matter.

I have indeed been using the YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm-ss format although I bunch things up a wee bit just to make the YYYY-MM-DD a bit more prominent (i.e. like so: 2016-01-18-191049-2648.JPG).

The story of my life since my house-move is that I always have to answer people that "it's in a box somewhere" (in the garage), which is piled high and up to the rafters with some 500-odd large "Really Useful Boxes" on special trolleys that I had fabricated so that I could then move the great big, cam buckled stacks around to access what would, inevitably, be a box on the very last stack in the far corner!

I will therefore just have to guess at all the book dimensions and hope for the best. I am after all building just a prototype in MDF and so we can adjust things for the next "improved" version.

"Consider the possibility that some book images might be printed 'across the spine' on both sides - so then what will you do?"

That would probably be my "Beechers Brook" and I would probably come flying straight out of my saddle!

Either that or "ritual disembowelment" after I had limped back to the stables!

I will add *the absence of that* to my nightly prayers!

If I were to make every shot (and scan) a JPEG, won't I suffer losses each time I save the file or would that just be the end format after all manipulation had been done?

I am not an expert in Acrobat and currently only have Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro (rather than the latest CC version) but that does allow me crop and manipulate PDFs a bit and the excellent SilverFast software I mentioned in one of my earlier posts in this thread (and, if you have a moment, do please have a look at the video here: http://www.silverfast.com/) will enable me to do a lot more, no doubt, as I understand that Acrobat is designed primarily just for office documents and forms.

In the end, I will probably be aiming for just 300 dpi as my end-product, as I intend to print or publish most photos and documents in some form of book form where 200-300 dpi seems to be what is generally expected for the smallish-sized images found in normal-sized books. The dpi required will presumably also depend on the size of the final image required so I may well have to bump up the resolution if the subject (say a postage stamp or a coin) is very small and the final image is going to be larger (i.e. for a book cover).

Thank you again, Dave, for adding to all the quite wonderful advice I have received. I never imagined for a single moment when I registered a few days ago that we might get to close to 40 posts on this thread so I feel I have received the very warmest of welcomes from you all!

[Saorsa]

Another thought on file numbering.

I don't know the canon menus but on my nikons I can force the camera to produce any filename I want with some limitations.

For example, the default DSC_nnnn could be changed to some access code with sequential numbers. You could try to make them mnemonic or just create a spreadsheet to identify the individual book or collections.

for example

AAA_ Grandma Jones Diary 1810-1815
AAB_ Grandma Jones Diary 1816-1817