If using a digital camera with artificial lighting on a copy stand, what is the preferred type of lamp (3200 K, photofloods,or other choice) to insure best color fidelity?

-- william d schmidt (schmidtw@cwu.edu), July 22, 1999

Answers

William:
The colortemperature is not important, provided the camera has a While Balance capability within the range. That being said most florescent have wierd spikes in the Green and sometimes Red spectrum - but some are OK (typically NOT the shop lights you buy at your local hardware store).
You probably don't want flash - too hard to control for copy material if you don't have a permanent setup. I used a relatively cheap stand and set of lights (4) on goose necks that I got at a local camera store. These use mini-floods and they work very nicely. I have a Mavica FD-91. I say I used it because I now use a flat-bed scanner for everything I once did on the copy stand - I decided the better resolution was necessary.
Your only real problem will be moveability. Make sure you buy lights that you can easily move (the goosenecks in my case were perfect). Glare and reflection are your concerns on a copy stand. Sometimes keeping things flat is a challenge. I used a heavy piece of glass on books - but you have to keep it very clean. All of these problems were solved by the scanner. Which is a not-so- obvious way for me to say - when you add it all up you may want to consider a cheap scanner unless your requirements can't otherwise be met with a scanner. By the time you add up the cost of the lights, the stand, the glass, and the frustration of keeping it all in order a $99 flatbed will be much better - and still produce higher resolution than even a $2000 digital camera.
That's my $.02.

Des

-- Dan Desjardins (dan.desjardins@avstarnews.com), July 23, 1999.