Large format "scanning" setup

See post #4. “This is a job for black duvetyne, velvet or felt.”

Seamless paper is reflective due to the smooth surface. Black duvetyne, velvet or felt have properties that reduce the light reflected off them. I have done this many times and paper will not kill reflections.

That makes total sense, and didn't occur to me about the surface texture - I've always used black seamless for portraits when I want a black background and can't get gray to go dark enough. I remember reading your original post and thinking I could make due with what I already had available. It looks like I'll be ordering some duvetyne soon. Unfortunately I can't just walk into a fabric store and buy a yard of it right now, so I'll probably end up ordering a 5 yard roll - hopefully I get some use out of it for other projects! Thanks for the great advice and explanation.
 
My first thought was black felt instead of paper...JB photo covered this idea pretty well... I used to have about an 80x80 inch piece of photo-oriented " black velvet" which was more like black wool knitted fabric.
 
5 yards of duvetyne on their way. I’ll check back in a week or so when I have a chance to test it out.
 
Here is the final setup. I used 1 yard of duvetyne fabric (technically commando cloth) across the top with a circular hole cut out of the center to fit the camera lens. It's a little more challenging to attach and position than the large cardboard sheet, but is ultimately easier to store and transport. I secured it to the softboxes using medium binder clips. I won't bother showing a photo of a black piece of construction paper, but the reflection in the glass is 100% gone.


20200729-DSC_0978a
by adamhiram, on Flickr

One of the uses for this setup is to capture some of my kid's artwork. Sometimes it's just a drawing on 8.5x11 copy paper, other times it is in various shapes and sizes.


20200729-DSC_0965a
by adamhiram, on Flickr

However the main reason for this setup is to digitize some older photos that can't really be captured any other way. For example, this is a photo of my father from 1958 that is approx 11x14. In this case I was able to take it out of the frame to photograph.


20200729-DSC_0949a
by adamhiram, on Flickr


20200729-DSC_0955a
by adamhiram, on Flickr

But there are other, more challenging pieces that are in poor shape or cannot be removed from the frame, and need to be captured as-is. The photo below is of my grandfather from 1930, and is 15x23 in a very damaged frame with glass.


20200729-DSC_0959a
by adamhiram, on Flickr


20200729-DSC_0963a
by adamhiram, on Flickr

And that's about it! I have a lot of these to digitize, and I appreciate the feedback and guidance in configuring this setup to be more effective and accurate.
 
There you go. Congratulations on the successful copy work.
 
One last addendum - using this specific setup with a 50mm lens, my digital images are the equivalent of approximately 300dpi scans, which is perfect for my needs. For smaller prints and documents, higher resolution is certainly possible with a longer lens (85mm works well on 4x6 prints), and of course stitching together larger images taken with a longer lens is certainly an option.
 

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