Canon PowerShot sx60 HS settings

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The Purple Parrot
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Joined: 17 Aug 2016, 01:42
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Number of books owned: 5000
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Canon PowerShot sx60 HS settings

Post by The Purple Parrot »

Are there any book scanners out there that use this camera?

Got it yesterday and would like to know what and where are the best settings for book scanning? Depth of focus etc.

Is there any tutorial that I could use for this camera?

Thank You

PP
duerig
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Joined: 01 Jun 2014, 17:04
Number of books owned: 1000
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Re: Canon PowerShot sx60 HS settings

Post by duerig »

I was hoping that somebody who had this camera and used it might pipe up. But it has been a while and nobody has. So as a substitute, let me quote you some general camera settings recommendations that should apply to your case:

From the archivist user guide:
Camera Tips
Power Most cameras are battery powered because they are intended for mobile use. But you will be using them in a fixed position and changing a battery every few hours will quickly become troublesome. This is especially true if your battery location is not easily accessible after mounting and callibrating the position. Nearly every camera model has an AC adapter that you can purchase for it. Buy two when you are getting your cameras. If you cannot find an appropriate AC adapter for your camera, it is possible to make your own.

Flash Always make sure the flash is off. The overhead lights provide sufficient illumination and a flash will only reflect glare from the platen back at the lens.

White Balance The LED bulbs in the lighting module have a color profile of 'warm white' (2700 K). This means that the light they provide is skewed more yellow than blue. This means that you must set your white balance to 'Tungsten' on your camera. If you don't, the pictures be yellow tinted.

Focus Your camera can auto-focus when taking most scans. But the auto-focus can fail, especially when the center of the page is blank. If it does, you should manually focus your camera if possible. Be aware that each camera might need a slightly different focus even if they are the same model and the same distance from the page. Also, the ideal focus for the center of a page is slightly different than the ideal focus for the corners.

Zoom It is tempting to try to zoom in on each book as much as possible in order to maximize your effective use of the camera. But this is a mistake with the Archivist. Each time you change the zoom setting, you will have to recallibrate the position of your camera. Since callibrating your camera position precisely is so time consuming, it is better to pick a camera and zoom setting that provides sufficient resolution and leave it.

ISO In the Archivist, the pages will always be strongly and evenly lit. Low-light settings will simply reduce the quality of the image. Set the ISO to the lowest value your camera supports.

Aperture Most cheap cameras do not have aperture settings. If you are using a more expensive camera, then it is worthwhile to decrease the aperture size somewhat in order to make sure that both the corners and the center are always in perfect focus.

Shutter Speed Faster shutter speeds reduce the blur introduced by vibrations or other motions. Usually a value of 1/10 of a second is plenty fast enough for scanning.

Lens Distortion Every camera lens has slight imperfections which cause small distortions in the photographs. In addition, you will never get your camera to be completely perfectly positioned with respect to the page so the photo will be at a very slight angle. Often these artifacts can be hard to spot, especially if you aren't looking for them. But there is software that can be used to figure out the distortion on your setup and correct it after the fact. Only start looking into this when everything else is working.
http://tenrec.builders/archivist-guide.html

-D
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