Photographing Books

V

Vadigor

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I've been looking around the web for advice on photographing books, but hit somewhat of a dead end so I thought I'd join up and try here. (I was led here by this)

I'm a History student in college and naturally old books factor into that quite a lot. =p The problem with most books is that they have been very badly preserved or are of bad quality to begin with and thus don't age very well. With one book I used recently I nearly split the spine in half trying to get it on a flatbed scanner and the ones I can use aren't of great quality either.

Trying to come up with an answer to this problem I thought that photographing the pages might be a better idea. I own a standard Canon EOS-350D kit with the 18-55mm lens. I just experimented a bit with photographing the pages straight up but I was wondering if there were any better ways to approach this. My results are varied, and while the text is usually quite clear, lighting and position is very iffy and it's also tiring work.

I think that I'd best buy a tripod which can handle horizontal angles (like the one suggested in the thread I linked to above) as well as some form of light source, but I have no idea what to go for with that and how much it would cost to set everything up. Finally, I'd need something to keep both the book and the pages flat and in position, but I can't think of anything that would handle that effectively.

I hope some of the members here can share their insights into this little conundrum of mine. =p
 
What I forgot to add was that I could use some sort of program to manage the actual photographs. Something to rotate and crop the text more efficiently than Photoshop.
 
Back in the days before PCs and scanners I copied some photos by mounting the camera on an old microscope stand, which gave me vertical adjustment. For lighting I made up two little lightboxes, with 100w bulbs, to put on each side of the photo. The white balance was a bit hit and miss then, but with today's digital cameras it would be no problem. Maybe halogen bulbs would be better.

There are dedicated copy stands with lights available but I don't know what price they are and probably not financially viable. So a simple setup with a tripod and horizontal arm, and probably something to balance the weight of the camera or stop it toppling over. Maybe a couple of cheap halogen desk lamps 50w bulb type.

Keeping pages flat - a piece of non-reflective glass bigger than the page so you can put some weights on the edges. Let the opposite pages and cover fold upwards and support it, to allow the other page to lay flatter. Position the light to minimise any reflections. Then play around and see what results you get.

As for the program, I haven't used it myself but somebody always comes up with the free Irfanview so I'll say it first.
 
The problem with old books, as you have found, is that the spines tend to break rather easily.

There are dedicated book scanners, which only open the book to about 45 degrees, scan the pages with a laser and then do lots of clever maths to straighten out the image. However they cost an absolute fortune.

I suspect that you will be best off sorting something out with your camera as you describe, but do remember that holding the book flat open will break the spine more often than not.

B.
 
I've neglected answering in this thread, but thanks for the replies. I bought a small and compact tripod for around 30 EUR, Vanguard Digi 2 to be exact. It's not very sturdy, but it will hold my camera no problem and can go fairly vertical.

I'm going to run a few tests with it soon now that I've configured Canon's shoot-through-usb for my laptop, but still don't have anything in the form of lighting. I'll have a go at that and might post any additional questions later. Thanks for the help so far. :D
 
Vadigor said:
What I forgot to add was that I could use some sort of program to manage the actual photographs. Something to rotate and crop the text more efficiently than Photoshop.
Click to expand...
Photoshop should give you very good results, if you learn to use it.

EG:
http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/straighten-photos/
http://www.northlite.net/ps/straight.htm

You should also be able to do perspective correction with it, so that even if the book isn't flat when you take the photo - even if you end up having to take the photo at an angle to the page - you can still correct for that.

EG:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/perspective.htm
http://www.lonestardigital.com/perspective_correction.htm

You should also be able to make the text very clear & sharp by using black & white points or histogrammy tools, perhaps afterwards the "posterise" filter.

Stroller.
 
For lighting, a makeshift light tent should help you get professional-quality results. A darkened room, a cheap white sheet and a couple of halogen desk lamps should be all you need...

Arrange the sheet over (as much as possible), behind and on either side of the area where your book will rest, taping or clipping the sheet to whatever sturdy objects come to hand (walls, shelves, lamp stands, etc.) to hold it in place.

Now shine the lights through the sheet (which diffuses the light). You'll need to experiment with the position of the lights until the pages are evenly lit with no shiny, overly reflective patches showing through the viewfinder, but roughly speaking you'll want one lamp on each side, reasonably high up (you might find the clip-on type of lamp useful).

Don't forget to set your camera's white balance! Just before you start shooting, place a sheet of white paper over the book and use your camera's Auto White Balance feature to set it.
 
Hi Vadigor

I've had good lighting results just laying the book flat on the floor by a full length window (french window). Providing the sun isn't shining directly through it and no nasty shadows it works fine. No colour correction required either.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. I just found out today that I have to hand in a book that I got from the library. It was printed in 1885, is falling apart at the edges but I have to use for my term paper and it's quite vital to my work. I can't prolong the term of loan because apparently someone else reserved it...

I was hoping to get more time to experiment with such a light tent as Ev suggested, but it seems I'll have to make do with natural light for now. I'm sure the results will be usable, but it would be handy to get good lighting on any future books that I need to photograph so I can minimise the aftercare that's needed.

Thanks again for all the help.


Edit: I've just looked through your links on straightening and perspective correction and those are indeed perfect. I didn't know Photoshop had those options hidden away so in my original (second) post I was asking for a program that can do crop and rotate functions like photoshop but without the vast array of features that Photoshop has. Irfanview would be something like that indeed. Thanks for those links, I think they'll prove very useful.
 
Would be interested if you could post some samples online (jpeg, full-resolution, but otherwise straight out of the camera) to have a play with.
 
FINISHED!

Gah, that took me close to two hours. I used natural light coming from an open window, but it still wasn't bright enough. The tripod I have is kind of rickety but did the job ok enough. I was setting out to photograph only the sections I needed, but given that that selection is thematically with a dozen subjects I just ended up going through the whole book to save time. Canon's Software suit is pretty basic but works quite well. I just set my camera on the first left page then put it on an autotimer taking pictures every 6 seconds while manually holding down and turning the pages. It took long enough and the results are shoddy at best, but if I need to look something up at least I can find it.

The upside is that this book is basically a collected volume of 14th century city rulings, so there's not much text on a page and I won't have to read it as a book, but now I have a backup should I need it.

I ended up shooting in both maximum quality jpg and RAW formats, even though I never used the latter before I figured it couldn't hurt to have them anyway.

And I'll see if I can upload some of the photographs I took, but like I said both the lighting and positioning is abysmal. It'll probably be something for tonight or even later in the week; I've had enough of this thing now. >_> I'm taking the book back tomorrow so I get to take the train into the city for another three hours without needing anything else there. If I ever find the person who reserved that book there will be hell to pay.
 
Vadigor said:
FINISHED!

Gah, that took me close to two hours. I used natural light coming from an open window, but it still wasn't bright enough. The tripod I have is kind of rickety but did the job ok enough. I was setting out to photograph only the sections I needed, but given that that selection is thematically with a dozen subjects I just ended up going through the whole book to save time. Canon's Software suit is pretty basic but works quite well. I just set my camera on the first left page then put it on an autotimer taking pictures every 6 seconds while manually holding down and turning the pages. It took long enough and the results are shoddy at best, but if I need to look something up at least I can find it.

The upside is that this book is basically a collected volume of 14th century city rulings, so there's not much text on a page and I won't have to read it as a book, but now I have a backup should I need it.

I ended up shooting in both maximum quality jpg and RAW formats, even though I never used the latter before I figured it couldn't hurt to have them anyway.

And I'll see if I can upload some of the photographs I took, but like I said both the lighting and positioning is abysmal. It'll probably be something for tonight or even later in the week; I've had enough of this thing now. >_> I'm taking the book back tomorrow so I get to take the train into the city for another three hours without needing anything else there. If I ever find the person who reserved that book there will be hell to pay.
Click to expand...


Looking forwqard to seeing how you're results came through. I personally would have gone down the dedicated book scanner route !
Ekso
 
Too late now, but I would have made a stand for the book which would hold it open at say 120degrees and could rock from side to side.

That should protect the spine, keep pages flat and let you tip it from side to side. Possibly a length of dowel or a ruler to place at the centre to keep pages flt.

Then diffuse but bright light, if nothing else then reflect spotlamp off ceiling or sheets of white paper.

use custom white balance on the camera to get it the right colour.
 
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