Macro photgraphy

[Hasher]

Hi All

I am a complete novice so excuse my ignorance. I am wanting to get data off old microfiche's . If you never seen a microfiche they are a film card that used to be used for storing manuals , birth/death records and newspapers

here is a picture:


Wikipedia explains them as

A microfiche is a flat film 105 x 148 mm in size, that is ISO A6. It carries a matrix of micro images. All microfiche are read with text parallel to the long side of the fiche. Frames may be landscape or portrait. Along the top of the fiche a title may be recorded for visual identification. The most commonly used format is a portrait image of about 10 x 14 mm. Office size papers or magazine pages require a reduction of 24 or 25. Microfiche are stored in open top envelopes which are put in drawers or boxes as file cards, or fitted into pockets in purpose made books.

Mostly the stuff I want to photograph is 48x reduced but can be as high as 72x.

I have no camera or equipment. I am wondering if someone could advise me if this is possible and if so what equipment I would need.


Thanks in advance
Paul

[mjs1973]

Welcome to the Forum Paul. I haven't seen microfiche used in a while. My first thought on this since you said you have no camera equipment was, maybe you don't need any. Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be to use a flatbed scanner to scan the microfiche at a very high resolution. A decent scanner could be had for a lot less than a good macro photography set up.

[n8]

This seems to be a good idea. Faster too. A decent macro set up means a dslr body (several hundred if not over $1000), a macro lens (again several hundred dollars), and a good lighting set up, in this case probably a light table.

[Hasher]

Hi guys

Thanks for the reply's. I have tried the scanner idea but its more like the picture above, an overview of the sheet. What I am looking for is to take a picture of each page .

I found a commercial machine on eBay that does this but the manufacturer doesn't give to much about which lens they use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5uiMLT2VwI

They seem to use a CCD type camera . and is listed as a 2300 x 3500 pixels.

http://www.gosmicro.com.au/Product/DRS-Digitizer.pdf


Any idea what these guys are using ?

Thanks
Paul

[freygr]

You will need a bellows attachment to get the magnification needed to record a usable resolution, and depending on your cameras resolution you may have to take multiple exposures per page.

Check second hand office supply stores for used micro-fish readers, much cheaper than messing with micro-photography to print a copy of the contents of the micro-fish.