copy photography?

[joe_hoyle]

<p>hello,</p>

<p>i want to copy some postcards but i am unsure how to go about doing this. I am going to be photographing on 5x4 as i am going to be enlarging to 20x24 inches. </p>

<p>What is the best way to go about this? Also what is the best aperture to use?</p>

<p>thanks very much, Josef Hoyle</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>Best way is flatbed scanner. A $50 flatbed scanner can probably do the job for less than your film and processing costs on 4x5, and better.<br>

If you really want to do it on film, you probably want TMAX 100 film. You want to use the optimum aperture of the lens. That depends on the lens. You need two, maybe four lights. Ideally you want polarizing filters on the lights to prevent glare. See the old Kodak books on copying. </p>

[vick_vickery]

<p>These days, a scan is probably the most bang for your bucks, but if you really want to copy it, mount it at lens level on a wall, making sure the film plane is parallel to the card and carefully focus the camera, filling the film area as much as possible. Place two lights at 45-degree angles to the card for even lighting (check by holding an unsharpened pencil at 90 degrees in the center of the card and make sure the shadow density is even on each side of the pencil). Then take the picture. Exposure is probably best judged with a reading off of an 18% grey card if using hot lights, or a flash meter if using studio strobes. Not a difficult setup once you've done it a couple of times.</p>

[joe_hoyle]

<p>ok brilliant, thanks for the help. </p>

<p>I am shooting it on film, as i want to colour print in the darkroom, thats just a presonal preference.</p>

<p>So i should have the aperture as wide as possible? <br>

Also should i give it any over exposure, i usually shoot on fuji pro s and give it a stop over, so shall i continue to shoot like that?</p>

<p>cheers</p>

[vick_vickery]

<p>Aperture won't matter much...depth of field needed on a postcard is, what, 0.01"? You'll be shooting off a tripod, so I'd use whatever f-stop you've found gives you the best sharpness with the lens you're using and adjust the shutter speed accordingly.</p>

<p>Expose how you find you get the best results with the film you choose...I'm not familiar with the Fuji Pro-S, but I'd expect normal to normal-1 would work pretty well, but I'd probably bracket the shot anyway since I had already spent the time to set up the lights, etc.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>OK, so these are colour postcards, right? Since genuinely photographically printed colour postcards are quite rare; are they half-tone printed, or hand coloured B&W photos? If they're produced by letterpress or offset litho, then the definition of them is going to be severely limited by the CMYK dot structure, and it really won't matter too much what aperture you use. Also the colour and contrast range is going to be limited - well within that of any modern film.<br>

Much more important is to light them correctly so as to avoid reflections from any surface texture, and to set up the camera dead square and plane parallel to the cards. Makes sure all the camera movements are zeroed too - easier said than done with some 5x4 cameras.<br>

I'll endorse the recommendation to use a flatbed scanner and avoid most of the above difficulties. A 1200 ppi scan from any halfway decent scanner will reveal all of the half-tone dot structure, and the scan can be enhanced with photo editing software to match the tone and colour of the original very closely.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Most postcards only require a 600 dpi scan *TOPS with a flatbed; thus a flatbed from 12 years ago can be overkill.<br>

The "printing line screen" of a postcard is less than National Geographic's about 175 level; many are about 120 to 150 line screen; as measured by a C-Thru Ruler line screen measuring ruler that shows a interference pattern when rotated on a dot half tone print. To avoid banding one normally scans at double the line screen; thus for 150 you need 300 dpi. With a 450 to 600 setting every dot will be recorded. For a digital route a 600 dpi flatbed is all one needs <br>

For film one has reflections; focus to deal with. There really is not alot of info; since the date is really dots. With a 4x6" postcard; scan at 350 dpi often captures about the entire affair. ; ie 1400 by 2100 pixels; about 3 megapixels. </p>

[erie_patsellis]

<p>Kelly, we must be the only people left with some of those antique prepress tools.</p>