Leaf Q's for repro work

[Ben Rubinstein]

I've had a look at the Grazer unit. A huge factor for us is not just price but also ease of use and very strong local support, especially with this kind of outlay, we can't afford to lose even days due to equipment not working and the only replacement being some 1500 miles away. We couldn't really consider buying that entire huge rig, table, lighting, etc without local support. Or do you think I'm wrong?

Do you have contact details for someone I could talk to about bying and import of the Grazer Book Cradle but also some better photos of exactly what it is and what it does? It's getting quite urgent as the sponsers are pushing me for final quotes already.

Just a reminder, my entire budget for camera, back, lighting, copy stand and table, computer, software and memory storage is just $35,000. It does make more 'exotic' solutions very problematic.

As the Hasselbad guy said to me on the phone, 'first we'll discuss what solution is correct then we'll work out how much compromise we need for your budget!'

Thanks!

 

[Stefan Steib]

Ben:

no problem - here is the email address of Manfred Mayer in Graz:
Manfred Mayer - Uni Graz <[email protected]>

The traveller repro stand is probably what you need- it´s in your budget, fits in a suitcase, does A3, is completely portable, comes with built in lights and costs only some thousand (I think around 3k € if I remember right).
Handling is straightforward and easy, if you want to do best, add a flight to Graz, get an intro and workshop as well and you´re perfectly set.

Contact Mr. Mayer- he can tell you the exact prices.
Tell him greetings from me.

Regards
Stefan

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Writing him an email now Stefan!

 

[David K]

Found this thread interesting despite the fact that I've never done this kind of work. Just wanted to commend those that have made the effort to be helpful to a fellow photographer. Truly the forum at it's best...

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Amen!

 

[fotografz]

All of this takes me back many years when one of my advertising clients was University Microfilms International (UMI), located in Ann Arbor Michigan which had one of the largest publicly accessible library's in the world. I believe they now make any stored document available in digital form. I loved reading newspapers printed during the American Revolution.

Among their considerable library assets was an archival division which I once toured. It was quite large and set up like a computer clean room, and they had special cameras/lenses that allowed pages of a book to be captured by only opening it a slight crack. At the time of my visit, they were photographing a large book that archeologists had uncovered in a Monastery. Now that I am more into photography, I'd love to know what that technology was ... some special form of anthropomorphic lens I suspect.

I wonder what is done with digital images that all of these archival places are now capturing? How are the data stored long-term?

-Marc

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

More than just a good question with RAW files of 50mb and Tiffs of triple that...

 

[Stefan Steib]

Don´t laugh - there are companies in Switzerland and some more countries that put the digital data back to Microfilm. Then these Microfilms are stored in Atomic blast safe shelters built into mountains. And all this costs a lot _ I mean A LOT ! of money.......
Alternatively there are Datastorage bunkers (did you see pictures of the one Wkileak uses in Sweden ?), with all kind of storage safety technology.
Both parties struggle about truth and how and when the other technology will be obsolete, it´s a little bit like the hen and the egg.
But it´s a very interesting business.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

I just had an email from Manfred Mayer with a quote for their travel unit, it's about twice the cost of the Kaiser and way out of our budget eventhough it is a georgous looking unit that I have no doubt I would dream of owning after a week or so of working!

Stefan, can I pick your brain a bit please? You wrote:

You will need some accessory black foam parts to support the differing heights, lead balls covered in black satin, formed as snakes and the forementioned Plexi fingers.

I can use cheap angled book supports to photograph books using a flat photographed page while keeping the book at an appropriate angle without flattening the book. My problem is photographing the page flat without using glass on top of it. I think the tools you mention above are what you are suggesting to use for this task but I have no idea what they are or how they would be used. Could you elaborate please?

Next question for both yourself and everyone. Data storage. What file format? Saving proprietory RAWs uses up a huge amount of storage space and to be honest, is not hugely archival. Tiffs are 4 times the size. Jpgs are small, small enough to be able to use cloud backup as secondry backup and to be honest with files which are mainly black text on white pages should not have a lack of information if they are the final result of proper processing, they are just text, they will not ever need further processing. However they are jpgs! One of the museums here has taken a radical approach of using jpgs as a file format for long term storage, what would your opinion be?

 

[Stefan Steib]

Hi Ben

I just wonder about the price of the traveller.....

Ok- the problem with the books keeping them straight while working trough in an 90 degree opened status is that there are several parameters changing:
the pages get changed from one side to the other as such one side of the book becomes thinner, the other one thicker. Also the back moves from straight up to straight down .next because of this the middle of the book (your page border reference) will move- which you have to compensate. The pro book digitzation systems have a so called wedge where the book supporting sides are moved by a parallelogram against each other connected (which mimics the movement the book does). Also to keep the sizes stable there are focus support systems to keep the height of the photographed page constant. This is extremly important as otherwise , if you only use Autofocus and go through a thick book, your pages will become smaller and smaller which is inacceptable. This twice as you have recto and verso pages (even and uneven /front - back).
the wedge also keeps the position of the book stable in an angle where you can use gravity to support/keep the pages open. Assisting to that you will need tools for extremly large/ small /unflexible/ uneven pages/Books.
The Foam blocks, the plexi fingers, the lead snakes (as weigths).
Every page on old and sensitive material may need more or less manual support, this also needs traing and experience. Very hard to explain in some sentences.
Now to do this completely manually you may invest worktime to adjust the nparameters, but I tell you this is by far more expensive than doing this with the right tools.
I would do this for maybe 50 maybe 100 shots but more than this will drive you crazy, take a book and try yourself, you will quickly see what I mean.

The format for lossless storage is original 8 or even 16 bit Tiff with tagged ICC. Storage volume is the cheapest part in this chain, what does a terrabyte cost today ? An online offer can either be rendered on the fly to jpg/sRGB or held as a parallel jpg image database.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan Steib - Hartblei.de

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

What is the best form of compression for a tiff?

 

[Stefan Steib]

Simply spoken: None.
Compressed tifs (LZW) are unsupported by most database image engines and incompatible to be opened in Webbrowsers and if they open they are SLOOOOOOW. Add this to the shere size and then just forget about. Given the fact that a fullresolution jpg with best quality also will be up to 80-90 % of the tiff (try yourself- if you have a full structure, full detail pergament page with paper structure and lots of details the JPG will be very big) and still looses Color information and exactness (which is also essential for scientific analysis of the images) you should simply go with tiffs. There is a whitepaper about the definitions for digital image acquisition for documents made by the DFG (and in part by the BSB) available as PDF :

http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/foerderung/programme/lis/praxisregeln_digitalisierung_en.pdf

Regards
Stefan

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

That document is a wealth of information in its own right Stefan, I will be studying it intently!

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

I think the question which I will be asking the organisation (they are hugely vague in their objectives, I have to be somewhat honest in that I'm pushing this project on them, they were interested but quite happy to procrastinate, as it's a private collection their interests are relatively narrow). You mention scientific analysis, to be honest if I gave them the files in B&W I don't think they would care that much. The main aspect seems to be the ability to transcribe and translate these works to be able to provide access to the public domain of the literature contained. Exact museum level digital preservation is not high on their priorities as far as I understand though I intend to lecture them on the subject very soon!

They have been transcribing the material but due to the delicate nature of the books and scrolls it has been hard and painstaking. The scripts and writing methodology vary wildely as you can imagine with a single language being written over hundreds of years in locations varying from the far east to Europe and everything inbetween. I myself can read and write some 4 hebrew scripts ranging from ancient to medieval to modern but deciphering this stuff is way beyond me. I can recognise some letters but that is about it. Until now the transcription has involved a table, lamp, magnifying glass and a computer. Oh and a lot of time! The main goal as it was presented to me was the ability for a book to be sent to multiple experts where they could view it in some 5-10X it's original size with the utmost clarity, contrast, etc.

But I do wish they would be a bit clearer in their objectives to me or indeed wish not to be uneasily certain that if I hadn't pushed the project it would have been (and might yet still be) buried...

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

What an incredible wealth of information that document is!

 

[Stefan Steib]

Ben

this document represents about 10 years of results, trial and error and daily work of several of the largest german libraries and museums.
There were numerous symposions and discussions about every sentence in that document, hence the sometimes a bit "political" formulation.
But this is like the standard "paris meter" a base for further consens in international digitization work.
If you google that phrases used in there as well as the links and the sources named you will find everything needed to proceed with your project.

Regards
Stefan

 

[Stefan Steib]

Ben

another very important link (it´s also mentioned in the first document):

http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/

will answer your questions about format in detail

Regards
Stefan

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

OK been doing some research:

I have to work on the following premises: Most of my work will be books of sizes up to A3. I will have documents to photograph up to A3. Some of those documents will be rolled and as such will need flattening to photograph.

There are 4 solutions that I can see.

1. Kaiser Repro Copy Repro stand. 5500 Euro. Perfect for flat work but unsuitible for books due to no book cradle solution which will hold a book open at any angle other than a damaging 180 degrees.

2. Meyer Traveller system. 8270 Euro. A nice solution for books and documents up to A3 but does not have a system to hold books flat or a solution for larger rolled documents (any suggestions?).

3. Kaiser suggested the Annagram CamCradle (http://www.anagramm.com/produkte/camcradle/index_cc.html). 12340 Euro. This does seem to have a vacuum system suitable for holding pages flat while photographing them but there does not seem to be any solution at all for anything which isn't a book. It's also very expensive and does not include lights and camera attachment like the Traveller above.

4. This is an interesting one that I discovered. Atiz Bookdrive Pro (http://www.allied-images.com/pdf/Bookdrive Pro.pdf). 10600 Euro. An all in one solution inclusive of workflow software. Very automated, you don't have to do much of anything to work it. It has what looks like an elegant solution to keeping pages flat gently and an automatic moving base to compensate for differing spine positioning. Main catch, it's set up for using Canon DSLR's, all the shooting and cataloguing workflow is based on that. That said with 5DII's for example you will be getting 42 megapixels per spread and I would have been happy with 28 megapixels from a MFDB. Where it goes bad is when photographing documents you use only one camera and you now have only 21 megapixels and DSLR megapixels at that. They do tell me however that you can use any camera you like including MF just without the workflow automation and software and the British Museum were inquiring after doing just that with their P1 backs using this setup. There is still the same problem with rolled documents larger than A3 of course. Using DSLR's this is a solution which is by far the cheapest. Hugely, significantly the cheapest. Even using a MFDB solution it's not that much more than the Mayer system.

I've emailed Mr Mayer to ask if the Traveller solution includes a method for holding pages flat for photography.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Mr Mayer has replied that curved acrylic sheets are supplied to hold the page down and a foot pedal used to fire the shutter. A laser positioning system keeps the focal plane and the geometry a constant albeit manually adjusted. Clever though somewhat work intensive compared to the (albeit more costly) Atiz system.

 

[Stefan Steib]

Ben

automated systems are only working on comparable flat books. The one that you showed here as examples are so fragile, you will need to trea them very carefully, means manually anyway. The samples on the Atiz site do confirm this IMHO as they show mostly standard newer documents.

regards
Stefan