Using a flat bed scanner as a digital receiver

[KMac]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is really an alt process question or not but I have been wondering if it would be possible to use a flat bed scanner to capture images directly off the ground glass or even just the film plane in a view camera? Some scanners have a back light feature for scanning negs or transparencies. If the lid and backlight of the scanner were removed and the scanner attached to the back of the view camera at the appropriate register distance, would it be possible to scan the image at the film plane. I am guessing the low light intensity would be an issue, could this be overcome by overlaying several sequential scans? I know very little about scanners so please feel free to educate me or tell me if there is no way it could work.

Any insight would be appreciated before I buy and dismember an innocent scanner.

Best regards,
Kevin

 

[terri]

I've no clue if it's possible. It sounds pretty labor intensive and I don't know why you'd not just want to shoot with the view camera!

I'll move this over to the Q&A to see if you can get more feedback, and possibly some answers.

 

[shorty6049]

i already asked this question a while back, and most people think its not possible, but i'd still love to try it...a question i have though, is, do view cameras have a much larger image circle projected from the lens? is there a way to make the image circle of a regular lens that large?(just move it farther from the focal plane?) the problem i think that you have with using the scanner like that, is that focusing is a bit tricky if you dont have ground glass or something at the focal plane, because you cant see what you'll be capturing or how its focused

 

[KMac]

The image circle on a view camera lens is bigger than equivalent smaller format lenses to allow for tilts and shifts. You could move a 35mm or medium format lens further from the film plane to make the image circle larger but that changes the focus substantially so you would be limited to focusing on subjects that are very close the the lens.

I was thinking of still focusing on the ground glass then removing it and replacing it with the scanner to scan the shot.

 

[shorty6049]

yeah, thats kind of what i was going to try. I have a scanner, and a lens, but i dont have any way to hold the lens in place to focus it. And i didnt want to take the scanner apart to take the light out. If you try it, make sure to post your results!

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Scanners work by light transmission. You either have a light inside the scanner and tied to the scanning unit itself (used for the reflective scanning of targets like photographs or magazine pages) or a light over the scanner that shines down through the glass bed onto the scanning unit (for transmissive scanning of transparent targets like negs).
The image formed in a camera is very dim by comparisson to the light sources used in scanners so the result would either not register or be so noisy as to be useless.
Potentially interesting as a problem to solve but the results would probably not be worth the time, effort and expense.

 

[mysteryscribe]

http://www.f295.org/DIYforum/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl/Blah.pl?b-cc/m-1174588592/s-new/

take a look

 

[Alpha]

Of course it's possible.

http://www.betterlight.com/

 

[Cheesecake]

Hey make sure you post the pics if you do it.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

http://www.f295.org/DIYforum/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl/Blah.pl?b-cc/m-1174588592/s-new/

take a look

But there is a heck of a lot of noise on those pics - and they seem to be B&W. What's the colour like?
This raises the question 'what is the point?'
It is interesting as a problem to solve but the technique adds nothing whatsoever. You could get the same results with a normal digital and 5 minutes of play with PS.
And I have to say the pictures produced are visually extremely boring. It would appear that the whole attraction for this technique is the technique itself. To my mind this is the photographic equivalent of playing strip poker by post. :er: