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I need to take pictures of a photo album that has the usual plastic around
the pages. I cannot remove the page due to this might ruin the pictures.

My dilemma is that I have tried taking pictures of the page, but I get bad
glare when using flash and when not using flash I lose details and accurate
color.

I thought about building a light box, but a professional photo guy told me I
will still get glare. He suggested using a light box with a polarized
filter to reduce the glare.

Has anyone tried this or have any suggestions?

jeff wrote:
> I need to take pictures of a photo album that has the usual plastic
> around the pages. I cannot remove the page due to this might ruin
> the pictures.
>
> My dilemma is that I have tried taking pictures of the page, but I
> get bad glare when using flash and when not using flash I lose
> details and accurate color.
>
> I thought about building a light box, but a professional photo guy
> told me I will still get glare. He suggested using a light box with
> a polarized filter to reduce the glare.
>
> Has anyone tried this or have any suggestions?

Have you tried a flat-bed scanner? I don't know how it might handle the
plastic, though.

David

On Thu, 26 May 2005 07:47:26 GMT, in rec.photo.digital "jeff"
<> wrote:

>I need to take pictures of a photo album that has the usual plastic around
>the pages. I cannot remove the page due to this might ruin the pictures.
>
>My dilemma is that I have tried taking pictures of the page, but I get bad
>glare when using flash and when not using flash I lose details and accurate
>color.
>
>I thought about building a light box, but a professional photo guy told me I
>will still get glare. He suggested using a light box with a polarized
>filter to reduce the glare.
>
>Has anyone tried this or have any suggestions?

A polarizing filter properly oriented should cut the glare.
----------
Ed Ruf Lifetime AMA# 344007 ()
See images taken with my CP-990/5700 & D70 at
http://edwardgruf.com/Digital_Photog...ral/index.html

Ed Ruf <> wrote:
: On Thu, 26 May 2005 07:47:26 GMT, in rec.photo.digital "jeff"
: <> wrote:

: >My dilemma is that I have tried taking pictures of the page, but I get
: >bad glare when using flash and when not using flash I lose details and
: >accurate color.

: A polarizing filter properly oriented should cut the glare.

Another suggestion is to use an off camera flash. If the flash is at a
wider angle (in the area of 45 deg to the surface of the plastic sheet)
the flash will not be bouncing right back into the camera but off in
another direction. If you think of this glare as similar to red eye many
of the same solutions will help. So using a pola filter or moving the
flash, or both may give you the photos you desire.

Randy

==========
Randy Berbaum
Champaign, IL

The standard way of copying the photos is to put it flat down, have two
bulbs lighting it at 45 degree angles off the center from both sides,
polarizer as needed. The angled lighting evenly lights the photos, and
prevents glare from bouncing back into the camera. Polarizer helps
reduce anything else.

David Chien wrote:
> The standard way of copying the photos is to put it flat down, have
> two bulbs lighting it at 45 degree angles off the center from both
> sides, polarizer as needed. The angled lighting evenly lights the
> photos, and prevents glare from bouncing back into the camera.
> Polarizer helps reduce anything else.

I did a (old-fashioned paper and tape) scrapbook two ways: 8.5" x
11.7" scanner and 20D/Tamron 90mm photography. The scanner (overkill @
300ppi) produced perfect images of what fit on the bed. I've yet to
snuggle up to the stitch-needy ones, mostly newspaper reports of auto
races, but the beginning and end ones look like this:
http://www.fototime.com/inv/1E1C1FE9BEDB1B9

The photographs were made under a big light tent - a fabric-topped
"gazebo" outside my back door. Full sun on the roof yielded even,
consistent beige lighting on the music-stand style stage; AWB loved
the warm look, but I did a custom white balance for the record shots,
only two of which were of plastic-covered items. The simple solution
was to tilt the platform so the reflections (minor - the lens
to-subject distance at the subject's big-album size was on the order
of five-and-a-half feet) didn't obscure content. I'll un-keystone
those in Photo Shop.

Eventually I will make a Web page with thumbnails from the photos
linked to moderate-size images of either the photo'd pages or large,
legible images from the scans, when actual content access is
imperative.

--
Frank S

"Verbing wierds language."
-Calvin

David J Taylor wrote:
> jeff wrote:
>
>>I need to take pictures of a photo album that has the usual plastic
>>around the pages. I cannot remove the page due to this might ruin
>>the pictures.
>>
>>My dilemma is that I have tried taking pictures of the page, but I
>>get bad glare when using flash and when not using flash I lose
>>details and accurate color.
>>
>>I thought about building a light box, but a professional photo guy
>>told me I will still get glare. He suggested using a light box with
>>a polarized filter to reduce the glare.
>>
>>Has anyone tried this or have any suggestions?
>
>
> Have you tried a flat-bed scanner? I don't know how it might handle the
> plastic, though.
>
> David
>
In a situation like Jeff described, I've scanned photos in an album through a plastic
cover sheet. It worked well, and I have an inexpensive scanner. The hardest part is
holding the album in position when it projects outside the scanner. Getting the pages
flat is also important.