Newbie, photographing old photographs!

[StevenN]

Hi - I recently purchased a Canon EOS 450D, and have a large quantity of old family prints that I'm thinking of using the Canon on to digitise. Having read up on various flatbeds, I was wondering , can decent, printable images be achieved by using the EOS as a copier? I'm thinking, placing on a tripod, natural light, etc. Also, would a pane of non reflective glass do the job of blocking out reflections on glossy prints? Any hints or general direction would be most welcome on this. StevenN.

[KeithB]

The answer is yes.  But the non-reflective glass is better replaced by proper placing of the light source(s).  This recent thread discusses a very similar topic:
http://www.bobatkins.com/smf/index.php/topic,759.0.html

[klindup]

I did this job last year and having been a photographer for 50 years you can imagine how many photographs I had to digitise.  I have a copy stand that allows me to mount the camera vertically and which is equipped with lights.  In UK prices it cost me £200 sterling.  I put some masking tape on the baseboard so that I could position the prints for copying.  The camera (40D) was connected to the computer and controlled from from it using the Canon software DPP so that exposures happened automatically every few seconds.  Exposure was manual as was focus.  The prints were only on the baseboard for a few seconds so remained flat.  Then it was just a case of plodding through hundreds of photographs.  It was not necessary to cover the photographs with a sheet of glass.

Good luck

[Bob Atkins]

You could use the camera, but my guess is that in the end it would be easier and cheaper just to buy a flatbed scanner which is already optimized for copying flat subjects and has it's own built in light source etc.

Something like the Canon CanoScan LiDE 700F will do a good job for around $120. In fact even the $60 LiDE 110 will do a good job. Even if you want the highest resolution and fasterst scan speed, the CanoScan 8800F is only around $170 and it also does a good job scanning slides and negatives.

Of course scanners are slower than a camera, taking anything from about 10s to 60s per scan (depending on print size and resolution, as well as the hardware - more expensive scanners are usually faster), but then setup time is probably a lot quicker than using a copy stand.

If I had a lot of prints to scan,  I'd be much more inclined to use a flatbed scanner than a  camera.

[StevenN]

All - thank you so much for the advice here - the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to go with the flatbed option.

I'm currently scanning in some old family slides from the 1970s, and to do this, I did actually go for the dedicated film scanner option ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plustek-7600i-SE-Optic-Scanner/dp/B002EUFF6I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=computers&qid=1286272576&sr=8-1 )
So, if anyone is thinking of embarking upon a similar project, I'd be only to happy to pass on my experiences with this method!