Lumix DMC FZ50 as copy cam
Posted on June 30, 2007
Filed Under All, Photos, Weblogging, Technology |
I’ve been pleased with the quality of the 10-MP pix that come from my Christmas present, a Lumix DMC FZ50. This is basically the same camera that Leica sells as the V-lux 1 for $1000. So, I set it up recently as a copy camera - using 20 bucks worth of clamps and reflectors (that I spray-painted white) from the hardware store (including 100W-eqivalent daylight-balanced fluorescent bulbs on sale for $.99).
At issue is speed - my 11×14 scanner takes 45 minutes to make a hi-res (around 40 MB) scan, and its atrocious software offers almost no interface for cropping, dpi etc. It just offers screen res or hi-res, and at 45 minutes per hi res, it will take years to scan in all my Kodabromides.
In contrast, I can scan a whole box of prints in 45 minutes with the Lumix set up as a copy camera: quality is what you see above. The image capture is not very different from what the scanner gets - shadow detail might be a bit better - and I’m guessing a preset or 2 in Lightroom coud batch-fix the copy pix to an acceptable level (like getting the black and white points set), at least for web display. The real answer is a high-end scanner… or send all the prints out to a scanning service, maybe offshore?
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[…] All we need to add is a laptop with a link to the house wireless’ LAN, and we’ll be ready to go. First project will be to calibrate the scanner- I have the standard Kodak Color and B&W targets, which should help us get everything set up. Lightroom’s ‘presets’ feature should help get scanner corrections set up for application to multiple files, if need be. And, I’ll need a chair… […]