Digital photograph.

john86 · May 20, 2006

Hello everybody, this is my first post. I have a question and I would greatly appreciate if someone could answer it for me or give some advice or tips as to what I should do.

Ok for various reasons I need to take a photograph of my drivers licence, now I have a 3.2 Megapixel Olypus Digital camera and every time I attemt to take a photograph of it the writing on the card is un-readable, I have tryed doing it with and without the flash on and with the lights on in the background and with them off.

Now what I need to know is whats causing this? Is it the quality of my Camera, if so any suggestions? Once again I would really appreciate if someone would reply to this :wink:

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bigfatbadger · May 20, 2006

can you post some examples? actually, that's not a good idea. Can you crop a bit and show us an example of where the text is blurry? Try not to include any personal details or anything.

OR, can you describe what you mean by blurry? Is it out of focus, or 'shaky'? I know this might be a bit difficult to say. How close are you to the licence? Do you have a macro mode on the camera?

Sorry for all the questions!

john86 · May 20, 2006

Yeah no probs, This is supposed to say D.O.B.

Thanks for the quick reply.

bigfatbadger · May 20, 2006

Are you quite close? Do you know if your camera has a macro mode? It is usually shown by a picture of a flower. If it does try putting that on.

What model camera do you have?

john86 · May 20, 2006

bigfatbadger said:
Are you quite close? Do you know if your camera has a macro mode? It is usually shown by a picture of a flower. If it does try putting that on.

What model camera do you have?

There is about a 20cm distance in between the camera and the licence, yeah the camera has a button with a flower above it which I believe is macro mode.

The camera is a Olympus Camedia Digital Camera C-350 Zoom and it's a 3.2 Megapixel.

Would I be better with the flash on or off as the card has holograms, and what about background light

bigfatbadger · May 20, 2006

I reckon, turn the macro mode on, and don't use the zoom too much. Get as close as you can while it still focusses and turn the flash off. Make sure you've got lots of light coming from behind you.

If you have a tripod it might be worth using that as well.

Hope this helps!

john86 · May 20, 2006

yes that did help, thank you very much but it's still kinda blurry.

bigfatbadger · May 20, 2006

The only other thing I can suggest is trying it in good daylight, go outside during th day and try it. What modes does your camera have?

john86 · May 20, 2006

It's got macro mode, then it's got a button with a jagged arrow pointing downwards, then one with a clock and one which doesn't have a picture, as you can probable tell I don't know much about cameras, I was thinking, what about using a program like photoshop to help clear up the image, do you think that might work? Once again thanks for your help.

Iron Flatline · May 20, 2006

Does your state have Drivers Licenses with a protective coating to avoid copying or photographing? Some have it to avoid fraudulent documents being created with high-res color copiers.

bigfatbadger · May 20, 2006

No problems,

I think staying in Macro mode is your best bet. If it still look as blurry as the onw above you'd have real problems clearing it up in photoshop. If not I suppose you could try some sharpening

john86 · May 20, 2006

Iron Flatline said:
Does your state have Drivers Licenses with a protective coating to avoid copying or photographing? Some have it to avoid fraudulent documents being created with high-res color copiers.

Yup

It's has cleared up a bit now I've put it in macro mode, put the desk lamp behind the camera facing the card and turned the flash off, I would say it's about half as bad now.

Cuervo79 · May 20, 2006

the key to this is how close you are, you have to find the sweetspot, sometimes 20cms is too close try to move back, also if you are say the sweetspot but you zoom in you will loose the focus, so I suggest to zoom all the way and then move back, I had that problem when I wanted close ups of stuff and that's how it works best...