Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Everything camera related. Includes triggers, batteries, power supplies, flatbeds and sheet-feeding scanners, too.

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caelum

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by caelum »

daniel_reetz wrote:caelum, sorry to be absent from this discussion.
no apology needed really.
Yes, 8MP is "enough" for smaller sized books. There is a little basic math that can help you with this. Let's say a good scan starts at 200 pixels per inch of paper (note that this is a low number). If your books are ten inches long, you need 2000 pixels to capture that page. (note that, to simplify, I am only dealing with one dimension (the long edge) of the paper)
Good, glad to know my camera is 'capable' now to see if "I' am. LOL My brain was really lost in your pixel explanation. Whew.. But re-reading I almost 'get it' but not very functionally.
Now the truth is that you never get to use all 2000 pixels. Only 60 to 70 percent of those pixels actually have the book page in them because of lens distortion, book misalignment, book shape not matching the image dimensions (like a long thin book) whatever. So you need some margin for error. Let's say your camera had 3000 pixels, now you can comfortably capture 10" documents at just above 200ish pixels per inch of paper.

Make sense?
igh ? well, sort of. I do realize the picture/scan will include a outside margin around the book. Most books I'm doing are 5 x 8 pages or so, but there may be an 8 x 10 one I may need to.
The settings on my camera are almost correct except for the tungsten I can't find without the manual. I built the cardboard version today, two cardboard wedges. And have a glass and book ready to go. I even have a tripod we found years ago as a throw away. Do you use a flash with the picture/scans ? Or with all the lighting no flash at all ?
As far as the CHDK things, OMG, their wiki is AWFUL. Sorry about that. When you get to the trigger-stage, we can help you install CHDK or it's sister project SDM. And there are USB triggers you can buy from a guy in Norway? Or somewhere. I've never bought one but people here have been very happy with them.
Well, if someone could actually help me with anything I would be most grateful! Not that I'm not willing to try work this out, but my brain can only take it so far. LOL where are these mechanical triggers in Norway ? Anyway to find him and would it be easy enough for me to use as well ?
Thanks for your patience with the masses of technical information spread all over this site. Believe me, I know that there are holes in the instructions and that it is quite hard to find things sometimes. But we are slowly getting to a point where that won't be a problem any longer, and I am working on that.
With that said, do you ever build simple scanners and ship to us less-fortunate-technical-deficient people. :) ?

caelum
Ryan_phx
Posts: 63
Joined: 29 Dec 2010, 14:51
E-book readers owned: Nook, Kindle DX
Number of books owned: 0
Country: USA
Location: Sandusky, OH

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by Ryan_phx »

caelum wrote:Well, if someone could actually help me with anything I would be most grateful! Not that I'm not willing to try work this out, but my brain can only take it so far. LOL where are these mechanical triggers in Norway ? Anyway to find him and would it be easy enough for me to use as well ?
I know a lot of people are happy with those van de Kamp triggers, but you can make your own for a little of nothing if you're so inclined. I used the design from this site, and it works beautifully. Cheap, too.
caelum

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by caelum »

Ryan_phx wrote:
caelum wrote:Well, if someone could actually help me with anything I would be most grateful! Not that I'm not willing to try work this out, but my brain can only take it so far. LOL where are these mechanical triggers in Norway ? Anyway to find him and would it be easy enough for me to use as well ?
I know a lot of people are happy with those van de Kamp triggers, but you can make your own for a little of nothing if you're so inclined. I used the design from this site, and it works beautifully. Cheap, too.
Sounds great Ryan, where do we find van de Kamp triggers ?
I'm totally electronically dumb, so can't do anything like that on my own. Way out of my field.

I'm assuming I wouldn't be too dumb to set it up and use too ? LOL
caelum
snaguy
Posts: 54
Joined: 14 Mar 2011, 04:28
E-book readers owned: iPad
Number of books owned: 0

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by snaguy »

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fvdk3d/set ... 151791739/

Instruction on how to order are in the above link.

Basically paypal payment to his email with details of order.
caelum

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by caelum »

snaguy wrote:http://www.flickr.com/photos/fvdk3d/set ... 151791739/

Instruction on how to order are in the above link.

Basically paypal payment to his email with details of order.

Thanks, that will be fine.

On an aside;

My camera is a digital SLR Canon S5 IS
and sort of one I wouldn't want to pick apart.But I am going to start with it manually at least.

Is there, by chance, a camera cheaper, but better than this one, that I could buy that may even have remote built in ? the 480 or those others that were recommended ?
If I ended up having to buy a set of matching camera's, this would at least solve two problems at once. ?
Daniel or ?

Caelum
Ryan_phx
Posts: 63
Joined: 29 Dec 2010, 14:51
E-book readers owned: Nook, Kindle DX
Number of books owned: 0
Country: USA
Location: Sandusky, OH

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by Ryan_phx »

caelum wrote: Sounds great Ryan, where do we find van de Kamp triggers ?
I'm totally electronically dumb, so can't do anything like that on my own. Way out of my field.

I'm assuming I wouldn't be too dumb to set it up and use too ? LOL
caelum
It's really very simple and takes no special knowledge. I don't know the first thing about wiring, and I put mine together in about ten minutes. The diagram is color-coded so there's really no way to screw it up.
caelum

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by caelum »

Ryan, Glad to hear it is easy to make. But for $20 it sure would save me some headaches ! :)

So nice to see people willing to share these patterns and such. Such sharing is really admirable in this world !

~caelum
jera2
Posts: 11
Joined: 28 Jul 2011, 00:09
E-book readers owned: Kobo
Number of books owned: 1200
Country: Canada

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by jera2 »

dtic wrote:There is now a CHDK beta for A490. I haven't tried but this is promising as A490 is low priced and still widely available.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/A490
http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php?topic=5051.0
I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago for $59 new--I wish I had picked up two since the price has gone back up since then.

CHDK works fine with it, as does my home-made USB remote-trigger. I'm just about done putting together my scanner, but it's not done yet, so I don't have any images to share, nor any comments on the image quality. It seems like it is going to work out fine.
jera2
Posts: 11
Joined: 28 Jul 2011, 00:09
E-book readers owned: Kobo
Number of books owned: 1200
Country: Canada

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by jera2 »

I noticed today that amazon.com has new Canon A495 cameras (blue) for $49.
steve1010
Posts: 3
Joined: 13 Aug 2011, 07:17
E-book readers owned: Nook
Number of books owned: 100

Re: Minimum Camera for Book Scanning

Post by steve1010 »

Is this camera canon a495 a good one for building a bookscanner?
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