[Tfug] Hand scanner recommendation?

[Bexley Hall]

Hi John,

> Bexley Hall <bexley401 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > You can even use a camera for text and fine line drawings if
> > it will let you store TIFF's or "RAW" format (I've seen
> > photos of schematics stored as JPEGs that were little more
> > than fuzzy clouds)
> 
> That reflects my experiences with using a digital camera (Canon
> Powershot, model 240, IIRC; 2005 vintage) for close up work - can be
> tricky and a bit time consuming to get a decent shot.  Usually have to
> use manual focus in macro mode.  Even then it's not particularly
> straight-forward.

Yes.  Yet more "optical magic" (I'm sure there is *something*
going on inside the camera as this seems to be a "feature"
most cameras have -- frustrating if you forget *when* to use it)

I have a "portable" telescoping tripod (shrinks to 12", extends
to a little over 5 feet) that I use when I need to take photos
like this.  Point camera straight down (it seems very difficult to
take a photo of a thing "upright" -- always seems to be slightly
off of vertical  :< ) with objective directly beneath the tripod.

> It seems puzzling that the market for hand image & text scanners has
> dried up the way it has.  I remember seeing the magazines full of ads
> for them back in the late '80's or so.

I think one of their problems was "scanning crooked".  (i.e.,
not moving the scanner in a straight line over the target).
Scanners, in general, seem to have fallen out of favor.  I
think the time required to do the scanning is beyond most
people's level of patience (?)

And, to be fair, modern cameras really *do* have quite high
resolutions.  E.g., a photo at 1Mp is considerably worse than
a scanned image.  OTOH, a 10Mp image (in RAW mode) can often
beat the resolution of the screens with which images are
printed! (depending on size of item, of course)