A2-A1 scanner

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sa30gr
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Joined: 26 Nov 2010, 10:22

A2-A1 scanner

Post by sa30gr »

hi everybody!
A few questions for large paper scanning...

Has anybody used a camera to scan wide and tall documents? A2 -A1 size?

is there any distortion at the edges of the document? can the cameras manage such a size?

I am trying to scan old newspaper books. I have already built a book scanner for A4 which off course is very small for job...
Anonymous1

Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by Anonymous1 »

Well, as long as your paper is extremely flat and the camera is almost perfectly aligned, then you can use a D-SLR with a huge resolution (well, 18MP should work) and just take the pictures from above. I'm not sure if you can even do this with a normal camera without having to combine multiple shots...
ibr4him
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Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by ibr4him »

I've an A2 size scanner but I use DSRLs with prime lens so the quality is obviously excellent, not sure about Powershots. Will post some pictures later.
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daniel_reetz
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Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by daniel_reetz »

I'm going to move this over to the Hardware section.
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daniel_reetz
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Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by daniel_reetz »

Well, OK, first, I'd love to see your small scanner. :)

Let's do some basic calculations. A1 in inches is 22x33 -- at 300DPI that's 6900x9900 pixels. Certainly, we don't have a good, cheap camera for that. The Canon 5D mark II, at 22mpix, has (5616 x 3744 pixels). 5 616 / 33 = 170.181818 pixels per inch in one dimension, and 3744/22=3 744 / 22 = 170.181818. If your source newspapers are much coarser than that, and you can use most of the area, you'll be alright.

You'll want a "prime" or "flat field" lens. For the Nikon platform I can recommend the Nikon AF Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D - it is an outstanding lens which will give you useful pixels across the frame. I don't know anything about Canon stuff, really.

In going after this, you will be pushing the limit of currently available technology (though certainly a year from now that will change). You might also be able to simply combine the output of two cheap cameras -- for example, two or three 10mpix compacts. Given that you can have three compacts for $3-600, and the software processing can be automatic, this may be an attractive option for you.

If you're interested in pursuing the "multiple compacts" approach I can be of some support, as I have many, many compacts laying around looking for interesting projects.
ibr4him
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Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by ibr4him »

You'll want a "prime" or "flat field" lens. For the Nikon platform I can recommend the Nikon AF Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D - it is an outstanding lens which will give you useful pixels across the frame. I don't know anything about Canon stuff, really.
EF50mm 1.8 - approx $99, but outstanding picture quality.
sa30gr
Posts: 13
Joined: 26 Nov 2010, 10:22

Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by sa30gr »

Thanks everybody, you cleared a lot of stuff in my mind...

first i need a good DSLR camera, and i can cope with the distortion with a special filter (that i didnt know that existed. I was more going to the solution of taking the camera far-far away and using the zoom lens for flatening the picture.)

the 180dpi pic is good for my standards.. after all the A4 scanning with my a590 (8mp=180dpi) is very good, as i am upscaling it to 300dpi BW with scankromsator (i said a bad word (mayby!), but i am using scankromsator for 170 years old books as it can manipulate very well the gray ink areas of the opposite page - very hard program to master though, many hidden thinks- but after one month i have established a good work flow with very good results..)

also, very good idea the 2-3-shot per paper with cheaper compacts.

I tried some coarse pictures of a newspaper (a2 size) with my a590 (8mp), and they are not too bad actually!
So i'll post some pics later

daniel thanks a lot for the offer of the compacts! I'll keep it in mind, if the one camera solution fails
(also my small scanner will follow!)
By the way, have you seen the prices for a2-a1 book scanners? 50-60.000$ and up!!! omg!
sa30gr
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Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by sa30gr »

some basic test pics with A590 (8mp) of a newspaper. Each page is about a3 size, in the A2 pictures below i took pics of both pages and posting only the left for comparison. There was no distortion due to different focus from center to the sides as i increased the distance and used all the zoom (about 2m away).
The a3 pics where taken at my book scanner at about 80cm distance.

a3 - scantailor
a3 - scankromsator
a2- scantailor
a2- kromsator

So, my 8mp camera is adequate for up to a3 scanning. The a2 is a bit readable, but no way can be used for pro jobs.
For a2 scanning we need a 16mp camera for best results, or 2x8mp cameras for the same page, having a lot of trouble combining the pics.

(as a side effect, see how kromsator corrects the illumination of the A2 pictures resulting at a more readable result. Also i managed to get 600dpi output in krom, but scantailor kept crashing at 600dpi- so used 300)

ibr4him, please post a test pic of a2 if possible, also can you mention the make and model of your DSLR?
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daniel_reetz
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Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by daniel_reetz »

very interesting comparison - newspapers must be, generally, very low resolution!
Kirtai
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Re: A2-A1 scanner

Post by Kirtai »

You may want to try stitching multiple photos together using something like Hugin. There's a tutorial on this at http://hugin.sourceforge.net/tutorials/scans/en.shtml. It should also be able to fix lens distortions.
(Note that I haven't tried this myself yet though)
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