copying pages from a microfilm (off topic)

[Lefty Mills]

During a visit to a Family History Center I had to copy several pages
from a microfilm. I was told to insert paper markers at the places I
wished to copy, roll the film back to the beginning, take it to another
machine which had a photocopier, insert lens, set focus and try to find
the places I had marked. This is all very primitive. Is there a better
way? Perhaps taking a picture of the screen with a digital camera (flash
off, of course).
How do others handle this?
L.

[Denis Beauregard]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 07:37:13 +0200, Lefty Mills
<[email protected]> wrote in soc.genealogy.computing:

During a visit to a Family History Center I had to copy several pages
from a microfilm. I was told to insert paper markers at the places I
wished to copy, roll the film back to the beginning, take it to another
machine which had a photocopier, insert lens, set focus and try to find
the places I had marked. This is all very primitive. Is there a better
way? Perhaps taking a picture of the screen with a digital camera (flash
off, of course).
How do others handle this?

The camera will give you a worst result compared to a photocopy.
One problem is there is not enough light and it is not equipped
with some holder for the camera like a tripod. Also, some
libraries forbid that (not all).


Denis

[Charlie]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 07:37:13 +0200, Lefty Mills
<[email protected]> wrote:

During a visit to a Family History Center I had to copy several pages
from a microfilm. I was told to insert paper markers at the places I
wished to copy, roll the film back to the beginning, take it to another
machine which had a photocopier, insert lens, set focus and try to find
the places I had marked. This is all very primitive. Is there a better
way? Perhaps taking a picture of the screen with a digital camera (flash
off, of course).
How do others handle this?
L.

Large libraries have special viewers with the photocopier "built in".
These often produce good results. Photographing the viewer screen with
a digital camera sometimes works, depending on the quality of the
camera, brightness of the projected image, and the skill of the
photographer.
---
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

[Gjest]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 07:37:13 +0200, Lefty Mills <[email protected]> wrote:

Is there a better
way? Perhaps taking a picture of the screen with a digital camera (flash
off, of course).
How do others handle this?

The small FHC I visit does not have a photocopier. I have been using my
digital camera with fairly good results. Turn off the flash and set the
sensitivity (aka film speed) to 400 or as high as yours will go. I also use
the camera's macro mode.

You might also want to take a look at http://www.clamperpod.com. I use their product
(along with the mini ball head) and would recommend it in lieu of lugging
around a tripod.

--

Dennis K.

[Dave Hinz]

On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 02:05:29 -0500, Denis Beauregard <[email protected]> wrote:

The camera will give you a worst result compared to a photocopy.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Every microfilm copier I've seen has been
black & white only, no greyscale. A lot can be lost in those shades of
grey, and turn a possibly readable script into blotches.

[J SCHWARTZ]

Denis,

That's how we have to do it at the Phila. Free Library, the City Archives,
the Historical Society, and probably other places around town. The readers
are separate from the printers, and the printers are frequently terrible,
particularly at the C.A. Sometimes you can find an image number on the film
to help reposition yourself quickly, and sometimes you can use the
reader/printer for the entire process, if noone is using it, so no back and
forth is necessary. The official rules don't support that method, but most
of the time I get away with it if there is no backlog.

I don't have any camera expertise, but have been thinking about getting a
digital camera for just this purpose. The copies one gets from the decrepit
City Archives printers are only acceptable at best, and frequently horrible.
I know I have to find some alternative because more of my time and energy is
spent on the printing process than on the finding process, believe it or
not, at least at our City Archives. Three printers, invariably at least one
completely out of commission, none take paper other than 8 x 11, lens
limited in reduction and magnification capabilities, film so heavily used
that the leaders (if they exist) rarely allow the film to be loaded without
jamming. It took me a long time before I figured out that I had to take the
lens and the glass off and hand feed the films in to get them started, and a
few other tricks like this.

If you find a camera solution, I'd love to hear about it. There are so many
options that I'm paralyzed with the decision, but I definitely have read
that it can be done. Just can't remember where the thread was.

jo



"Denis Beauregard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 07:37:13 +0200, Lefty Mills
[email protected]> wrote in soc.genealogy.computing:

During a visit to a Family History Center I had to copy several pages
from a microfilm. I was told to insert paper markers at the places I
wished to copy, roll the film back to the beginning, take it to another
machine which had a photocopier, insert lens, set focus and try to find
the places I had marked. This is all very primitive. Is there a better
way? Perhaps taking a picture of the screen with a digital camera (flash
off, of course).
How do others handle this?

The camera will give you a worst result compared to a photocopy.
One problem is there is not enough light and it is not equipped
with some holder for the camera like a tripod. Also, some
libraries forbid that (not all).


Denis

[Mike Curtis]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 07:37:13 +0200, Lefty Mills <[email protected]>
wrote:

During a visit to a Family History Center I had to copy several pages
from a microfilm. I was told to insert paper markers at the places I
wished to copy, roll the film back to the beginning, take it to another
machine which had a photocopier, insert lens, set focus and try to find
the places I had marked. This is all very primitive. Is there a better
way? Perhaps taking a picture of the screen with a digital camera (flash
off, of course).
How do others handle this?
L.

A while back this topic came up on one of the genealogy newsgroups. I
posted some examples of images taken with my 4 megapixel Canon G3. They
can be viewed at: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~curtis/digitalimages.htm.
I just bought a 7 megapixel Canon G6, but haven't even opened the box yet,
so I don't have any results to compare. The only thing I would strongly
recommend is to make sure you buy a camera with a flip-out LCD viewer, as
it makes the images much easier to frame, especially if you are trying to
twist around the lense and lighting from a microfilm reader to get a clean
shot.

Best regards,

Mike Curtis

[Stan Barras]

Lefty,
As you will see there is a lot of variation in what is available for
printing from microfilms.
First you should not have to mark the location with a piece of paper in the
roll. You should be able to remove the roll and take off spools in the
position you are viewing and transfer both spools to the photocopy machine
that hopefully has a built in printer.
At the Fam. Hist. Ctr. I go to the reader is hooked up to a CPU that is then
connected to printer. Thus you can save your image to a disk (CD or floppy)
to bring home to "play" with the right combination of features to get your
print or you can just print off the printer and then adjust the features to
get a good print.
Do you have more than one Fam. Hist. Ctr. in your area? You might check to
see what kind of equipment they have.
Hope this helps.
Stan.

"Lefty Mills" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

During a visit to a Family History Center I had to copy several pages
from a microfilm. I was told to insert paper markers at the places I
wished to copy, roll the film back to the beginning, take it to another
machine which had a photocopier, insert lens, set focus and try to find
the places I had marked. This is all very primitive. Is there a better
way? Perhaps taking a picture of the screen with a digital camera (flash
off, of course).
How do others handle this?
L.

[Pam]

I took my digital camera to Salt Lake City and used it for all the copies I
made. The ones I took of book pages weren't as nice as the ones I took of
microfilm pages. Our local FHC does not have a microfilm copier so I have
no choice but to use my camera. It's a 3 megapixel Kodak and does an
excellent job. I do tweak the images with an image-editing program and get
much better results with the camera than I ever did with the microfilm
copiers I've used, especially with films that have lighter areas. Sometimes
they don't show up well on a copier but the camera can pick them up. I did
learn to put a sheet of plain white paper over the microfilm bed for the top
lit machines that have a shinier bed to cut down on the glare.
http://www.pamsgenealogy.net/HansPressmarMarr.jpg shows one of the photos I
took at our local FHC after tweaking a little. Even with a microfilm copier
available I would prefer to use my camera.

--
Pam
http://www.pamsgenealogy.net

[Chris Watts]

"Pam" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
<snip>

I did learn to put a sheet of plain white paper over the microfilm bed
for the top
lit machines that have a shinier bed to cut down on the glare.
You shoul find that using a circular polarising filter will help with that.

Chris