I'm building a LF SCANNER camera

[ralphnevins]

was seraching for info when i came across this thread ...
i mucked around with scanners in 2002 & have (in the last few months ) been revisited this project /

intital scanner was a ccd based plustek based (epson perfection 1250) usb scanner / & i fitted the ccd into a 35mm frame & hacked up sane software to drive it ...
example pics on FB:
example pics on FB

latest project is using a CIS based canon lide210 .. & am now looking for an aprop. lens/bellows arangemnt .. & am currently rewrite/modifing the software to drive this ...

I hasn't thought of the color issues with CIS i do like the small size of the electronics

most of the OLD scanners i've come across do not support USB2.0 so can't keep up to the data stream

Ideally i want a the low power & would prefer a CCD (35 mm sensor length size) & 10000 elementx3 but high speed USB ..
Still hacking ..

[Steven Scanner]

I'm a novice at LF scanner camera's. Right now I've got a cardboard box with a magnifying glass at one end and an unmodified flatbed scanner on the other end. Standard software, black & white images, BMP file output.
The magical appearence of a picture is part of the fun. I see I have a long way to go and a lot to learn. For now I'm going to make my own LF camera from scratch, but in a way that it is easy to alter for better lenses and scanners.
I don't have a lot of knowledge of software (barely made it installing the standard software from the scanner. )
Now I'm going to read the pages of this thread again for more info.

[Steven Scanner]

Finished the camera (for now)
More info here:
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...t=84761&page=2

[skywatcherjan]

Hi everybody,

here are some sample pictures of my scanner camera and comparison of 2 lenses:



The scanner was a really cheap lifetec USB scanner.

greetz

Jan

[Steven Scanner]

Nice photo's Skywatcherjan. Did you alter the scanner? I have difficulties with shooting outdoors, I think to much UV light.

[skywatcherjan]

I took all the hardware out of the scanner and mounted it into the camera box.
The lifetec scanner software (old stuff : Windows98) is very cool and allows for almoste everything to be set after I run a preview scan: levels, curves, filters, contrast, ......
The scanner does one calibration at the first use and then reads what it calls "shading data" if the software is restarted. I don`t know where it is stored, might be in the hardware itself.
So after a succesfull calibration (basicaly holding the bar over a white paper) I covered the led light bar for taking pictures so no stray green light comes in the camera dark box.
I did not alter the scanner electronics nor the software.
The CIS moves in a curve in my camera because it lies in a deep groove and has to be pointed at the incoming light over the whole scan. The center of the curve is at the diaphragma of the lens and the radius equals the focal distance of the lens (more or less).
Here are some technical shots:

I hope this helps you
Jan

[Steven Scanner]

That helps. I'll try the calibration, perhaps that works. The light bar and the CIS seem to be in the same casing, removing one would mean I also remove the other. Perhaps another scanner could do the trick.
The deep groove you're talking about works as a pinhole. Most scanner camera builders remove the deep groove but your sollusion works to.
I have this problem: When I want to take photo's outside, like this one


I get an image like this:


The vingette is because I didn't remove the deep groove. That is actually not the problem right now. The problem is the over exposed tree. I tried to ajust the settings in the software, I tried a filter in front of the lens. UV and colored gel filters, but it doesn't take away the flare. It doesn't happen when I shoot indoors with artificial light, just with natural light. As you can see here

[skywatcherjan]

Hi again,
I had that kind of image from outside too when scanning in a linear path : I believe it is called the keyhole effect. With the curved path this is solved.
As for the contrast:
1- calibrating :
The lifetec scanner I used does calibration by giving a series of light pulses with decreasing intensity while not moving the scanner head under the white strip on the glas plate. then it gives constant light and moves slowly onder the white strip. The calibrating can be done on demand with a button in the software.
I tried all kind of things for calibrating with external light sources eg uniform white surface through the lens of the camera holding the CIS in the centre etc etc. Nothing performed better then letting the scanner using its own light bar over white paper: probably because of the several steps it uses with the decreasing intensities.
2- preview
After doing a preview scan procedure , I do the settings: levels, curves, Gamma nearly 0 !!!, ...
I then select the area I really want to scan: redo the settings, because it changes completely (histogram seems to be rearanged with the data in the selection and somehow stretched ?

It seems I realy got lucky with this old scanning software from lifetec, it solves a lot of problems

Jan

[skywatcherjan]

These are my best portrait images as yet with the DIY scanner camera.
The lens was the Wollensak Velostigmat , stopped down about halfway.
Captured with lifetec scanner software 2400 DPI
Exported as 16 bit TIF image with microsoft photodraw edition 1998
Imported on linux with RAWTherapee : something like "bridge" for photoshop
Processed in Gimp, 8 bit TIF grayscale
Exported as JPEG:





Thanks for looking

Jan