How to photograph illustrations in a book?

snakebunk

I am 95% a bird photographer and I have no experience in studio work, I haven't even used a flash (almost). Now I am about to photograph illustrations in a book.
I think my 150/2.8 lense will work (it is the shortest I have), but I really don't know anything about how to light up the book pages. Do you have any recommendations?

Msmoto

Here is one idea for copying photos… a start

http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/genealogy-copying.html

The trick is to avoid reflections, light the image evenly, and of course capture at the highest quality with bracketing the exposure. I have copied photos using north light from a window and a large white reflector on the side of the original opposite the light source.

WestEndBoy

You will get superior results with a hundred dollar scanner.

Ironheart

+1 jshickele
The hardest part is getting the paper to lay flat and get the camera perfectly perpendicular to the paper, otherwise you will get distortion. A scanner solves both of these issues. Not to mention lighting without shadows, etc... Oh, and a D800 owner will want to argue this, but scanners have much higher resolution (esp as the paper gets larger)

WestEndBoy

Yeah, some books it may be very difficult too. But a scanner is the first thing I would try.

snakebunk

Great input, thank you! I never thought of using a scanner. Also like the idea of using the sun light, but I guess it's hard to get similair light on all the photos (there are about 300 pages that are of interest).

ThomasHorton

Checkout some of your local libraries (public, college, and corporate). There are specalized scanners specifically designed to scan books. More and more libraries have these. They have compensating image processing software that turns a curved page into a very nice flat image. I was shocked at how well they work.

If you are interested in learning how to photograph stuff like that. I can highly recommend

"Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting" by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua

It is a textbook on how to light things while eliminating glare and other unwanted reflections.

Good luck with this.