DV Camera as Scanner?

Larry Rutledge

Larry Rutledge

Fest Master
My scanner died last night:embarasse And just when I was beginning a project that requires my scanning 250 photos to do restoration on. :angry:

Anyway, I don't have the money right now to purchase a new scanner, does anyone know how well the photos would come out if I film them with my consumer DV camcorder (I'm sure the DVX would do this fine, but I don't have one yet)? It's the only way I can think of right now for getting them into the computer. I thought that if the camera was on a tripod, and the area where the photo is sitting had a nice soft fill light on it, then the photo would come out ok. Am I crazy? :shocked:

Thanks,
Larry
 
People who do low-budget photo montages do that all the time... is it for a video project? You'll only get a resolution of 720x480 by filming them with a consumer camera (unless it has a "digital still" mode with higher resolution)?

How vital is quality? It could be done, but I don't know if the quality will be satisfactory for you, but it's very easy to test...
 
I've done this on several occasions (before I got my scanner) and it worked fine. It sounds like you're going about it the right way, too. Make sure to shoot straight down at the pics (or tack them up on a wall, but either way, you don't want the pics tilted in relation to the lens).
 
You could charge somebody thirty bucks to do the scanning. DV would work but obviously you're limited by resolution and compression.
 
Thanks for the input. I plan on testing it tonight when I get home to see if it will for me or not. I just thought I'd see what other's thoughts on this were. This is for a "low-budget" photo montage for my sister-in-laws birthday. Average quality is more than adequate for this project.

Isaac_Brody said:
You could charge somebody thirty bucks to do the scanning.
Click to expand...

I was trying to check on having them scanned for me, but all the places I found charged a minimum of $0.25/photo...so I was looking at $50 minimum, and if I'm going to do that I may as well add the extra $30 and get a cheap scanner.

Thanks again for the thoughts,
Larry
 
You can also ask friends and family. I'm sure everyone and their grandmas have a scanner now a days. Heck, the flea market gives them to you for free if you buy a cart of eggs.
 
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