Re: [ARSCLIST] Scanning LP covers

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:50 AM 8/9/2003 +0000, Don Cox wrote:

> So the minimum resolution needed for reading the sleeve notes is
> 2000x2000 pixels. As the camera image is rectangular, it would need to
> be 2000x3000 pixels, which is 6 megapixels. To get a good image for OCR,
> more would be desirable.

Thank you for independently justifying the acceptability of the Nikon D100
for the task <smile>. In fact, I have used a closeup of some of the text
when I've wanted to reproduce it on a CD tray card.

> Any color print film in 35mm will easily resolve the detail required,
> assuming focus is accurate and flash is used for lighting to avoid
> camera movement. Digital cameras are not yet up to 35mm resolution.

It's getting close. My 6MP Nikon D100 SLR (that uses Nikon AF and later
lenses but multiplies their effective focal length by 1.5) is coming very
close to film. I have a split-screen bitmap image showing a portion of a
scan from Fuji RDPIII slide film scanned with the D100 and the 60mm AF
Micro lens and also another image born digital with the same lens. The
grain of the slide is visible in the digital image.

I certainly think that more pixels are better but there are
cost/speed/storage issues as well. Point is 6MP is approaching film
quality--especially now that Kodak has killed Kodachrome 25 leaving Fuji
Velvia (ISO 50) as the king of resolution (and also saturated but gorgeous
colors).

There are print films with high resolution, but I don't think
garden-variety 400-speed print film matches the 200-speed resolution of the
digital camera. I'm not sure if it matches the 400-speed resolution.

Also, for this kind of work, make sure you have a digital camera that can
save either raw (and convert later) or TIFF files. You don't want to go
through the JPEG compression if you can avoid it.


Cheers,

Richard