Tripod options for photographing books

Hi all,

I stumbled across this site a few days ago. After reading other members posts i was quite surprised at how friendly & helpful people are here.
I'm a member of a few other photography/photoshop forums & the people are always so rude.

Thats the little intro over now for my problem....

I'm looking to photograph some very old family photo albums. I'm unable to scan them as the albums would fall apart.
I've been looking into a tripod to fit this purpose. I found this picture...



But.. I can't find anywhere to buy one. (UK)

Can anyone here point me in the right direction please?
Also if anyone has any tips/hints regarding lighting & technique when photographing books / photo albums I would greatly appreciate the help.


Many thanks

Simon

a hand scanner would be better? another way probably easiest my scanner is old, thin & can fold right back. I scanned something that was tooo bulky & heavy to fit on scanner so fitted scanner over object you may get black edges but as long as it doesnt interfer with photo just crop pic.

What feature of the above tripod is it you want? Is it the ability to lay the centre column horizontally, to point the camera down?

If so, the Mangrotto 055 and 190 Pro ranges do exactly that

I'd be really surprised if you needed a tripod with a boom arm to get a good angle on a photo album. Most tripods will give you plenty enough space between the legs to lay a large book out and get the camera level above it.

Well worth a try before commiting to a tripod that might be good for that job but not other stuff you might shoot.

As for lighting, that could be really fun if it's an album with a glossy film over the pics. You might find yourself chasing reflections and highlights all over the page as you move things around to adjust the light. If you don't have a couple of flash heads or lamps to get the light evenly coming from both sides, your best bet is to shoot it under natural light. All you want is the level of light completely even across the whole of the bit you're shooting. A good sized window will be fine but if the lights always changing, it can be a bit off a faff. Which is why one lamp either side, at a 45 degree angle (half way between the book on the horizontal and camera on the vertical) is the common set up for copying.

The only other thing to worry about, yeah I know copy work can be fun is that pages in photo albums don't often lay flat. You really need to have the film/chip in the camera completely level to the artwork or picture for a good quality copy.

HTH

For a one off project like that I'd stick with a conventional tripod and improvise. Put a chair on the table and strap the tripod to the seat or something so the camera can point down easily.

I take pictures of documents now instead of scanning them. As said above side lighting stops reflections. lower half of a window with net curtain or flash off camera so no reflection.