Copy Stand recommendations for photographing Record Covers

Any recommendation for a copy stand and lighting. My friend using a DIY stand and Home Depot lights which I used to create the shots below. I was hoping to buy something with more adjustments and ideal lighting.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kjohnsonhp/17076141057/in/photostream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kjohnsonhp/17257613256/in/photostream/

 

I used to copy photos in the days of film cameras and used a stand similar to this:

http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/toolkit/digitisation-equipment/the-copy-stand

Kaiser stuff used to be pretty expensive.

I dare say one could make something like this but you need suitable light bulbs for the best light. The alternative is to do it outside on a sunny day using a tripod. All you would need to do then is make some sort of album cover holder. You could either fix the album vertically on a wall or use a tripod which can angle the camera 90 degrees downwards.

The alternative is to get a suitable sized scanner.

 

Not sure what camera you are using but I see a lot of folks with phones using "selfie arms" - maybe you could mount one and/or modify it to attach to your camera? Like this:



I use a copier at work and scan to 600 DPI tiff. I then use ICE, Image Composite editor to stitch them together. Rather easy to use.....best of luck in your search though.

 

I use an Epson 836XL scanner. You can get them from ebay for about $150. However, they require a SCSI interface. I was able to put together a computer with the necessary stuff at Goodwill for about $50. VueScan can talk to this scanner directly with no need to track down drivers.

 

Finding SCSI anything these days is pretty challenging, aside from old Macs and SPARCstations.

For photography of this type, if you can find one a Polaroid MP3 or MP4 copy stand/camera is the best. They can be cheap since anything Polaroid is assumed to be junk, but in fact these were built by Beseler and are quite useful. They can be used as a stand with a digital. 35mm, or medium format or it has an integral camera that can do Polaroid pack, Polaroid 4x5, or take a Graflok back of several types.

 

I use a FUJI FinePix S 700, a tripod and a painting easel. Mostly I search online. But I make photographs of my 12" x 12" painting. I use the telephoto settings to reduce pincushion distortion and the camera's 10 second delay to prevent any potential blur from moving the camera:

 

Whoever has this figured out please post every MFSL vinyl cover that's been cleaned up!

 

I bought an old stand with lights designed for a 35mm SLR. Works great

 

Given the current total lack of interest in darkroom work old enlargers are very cheap and a lot of old moderate price amateur enlargers were designed to work in reverse as copy stands or as copy cameras in their own right. My dad had a pile of the old Kodak and Argus ones we abandoned in California when we made the trip to St. Louis. One I remember was really nice, it had a little roll film holder or you could use sheet film. A little shutter with a fixed speed of 1/15 sec or so went in front of the enlarging lens.

Leica had some really nice copy stands too but anything Leica was and remains insanely priced. The optics were good but in fact rarely the absolute best: hence Panavision did little business with them.


For digital I would prefer a scanner style solution such as a modern version of the HP CapShare. Why will no one make such a thing?

 

I second this motion. That's what I use (and it cost $2,000 new!) and never had a problem with it, though it's getting a bit old now, and I need to bump the blue a little bit for correct color. You do need SCSI which requires a PCI port. Then you just import the scan via whatever imaging software you use, I use Paint Shop Pro myself. For printing album covers for CD's on photo paper, I've found 300 DPI to be plenty of resolution. That's the easiest and cheapest way to do album covers, I believe.

 

There are other large format scanners out there with more recent interfaces. I use a Microtek 9800xl - these have Firewire and USB connections. The Firewire is fast, the USB is 1.0 so slow. This scanner had a tendency to act up - costly repairs. I found out it was a $1.00 capacitor that needed replacing.

BHPhoto lists this one: PlustekOpticPro A320 Tabloid Flatbed Scanner. It gets decent reviews.

 

Wow, that is CHEAP for an A3 scanner. Thanks, I'll keep this in mind if the Epson dies.

 

There is an even cheaper one, but reviewers list it as having Windows only compatibility.
PlustekOpticSlim 1180 Scanner - $199.

Large format scanners are outrageously expensive for what they provide. The sensor is 11 inches, as opposed to 8 1/2 inches. The rest is just glass and a plastic frame.

 

Wow. It's good to see there are some other options when this Epson finally kicks the bucket. The biggest challenge I've had so far is that the PC with it has to stay on Windows XP since there's no Windows 7 (or later) driver for my SCSI card, but a mechanical breakdown at some point is inevitable.

 

So far as I know they don't even make SCSI cards any more. For years the Adaptec 2940 was the one to get.

Apple abandoned SCSI when it was still viable, and that combined with the implosion of the RISC workstation market was the end of SCSI.
I was having lunch with some vintage Apple buffs and they were telling me that there is no Mac that supports both SCSI and USB natively, making file transfers awkward.

SCSI on PC was always dodgy because PC vendors avoided it like the plague even when it was clearly superior. So, volume of SCSI was low and they abandoned it when serial IDE came out.

 

Take the cover outdoors and place the camera on a tripod, place the cover parallel to
the camera lens, position so there is no sun glare, take a high rez photo.
Remove the vinyl out of cover to avoid warping.
Not as good as a scan but, sunlight works very well.

 

"Copy Stand" produces many attractive hits on Amazon. (Consider a polarizing filter to reduce glare.)

 

The Brother MFC-J6520DW, MFC-J6720DW, MFC-J6920DW, and MFC-J6925DW all-in-one scanner/printers scan up to 11 x 17 inches. And also print up to 11 x 17. They have wi-fi and, very interestingly, can scan direct to an SD card, without connection to a PC. The 6520 is around $210 in stores. You'd have to do a stitch of two scans for an album cover, but you'll probably be doing a little cleanup anyway. These printers are pretty easily available at your local big box discount office store. You could take it by itself somewhere to scan covers to an SD card, and preview the scans on its LCD screen. Plus up to photo quality printing (probably not as good as the best Canon or Epson photo printing but very good enough). Plus the usual all-in-one printer features - autofeed scanning of documents, fax, print from SD card, the rest. And cheaper ink compared to C or E.

Take an album cover and an SD card and try one in the store.

(This may sound like ad spam but I promise I have no connection to Brother.)

http://www.brother-usa.com/MFC/Color_Inkjet_Multifunction/

 

Or you could get one of these puppies. Has a scanning area of 18" x 24". But as the old saying goes, "If you ask to ask the price you can't afford it". Here's a link with pricing. Make sure you're sitting down. I guess that most large format scanners are expensive given they're effectively manufactured for a niche market and there are so few of them made. Wish I could afford one so I could easily scan all of the articles in the larger (size wise) music magazines from the 70s/80s suck as NME, Sounds, Juke, RAM, etc in my collection.

 

there are PCI-express scsi cards, but they are mostly over $150.

vuescan seems to solve a lot of problems if native drivers etc no longer work.

I also have an Epson 836XL. I am trying to migrate it off the XP machine I have hanging around -- in order to have one less workstation on my desk.

If I have any success under win7 I will post it here.

 

If you succeed, please let me know what SCSI card you end up with. I have a modern PC with both PCI and PCI-express slots, but I couldn't find a driver for my old PCI SCSI card for anything newer than XP. Bonus points if you find a PCI-express or USB adapter that works with a Mac.

 

after months of not using it... my 836XL is not powering on. I am at a loss to understand why this is.

Yes, it is plugged in.

 

If the scanner is 11X17 how do you scan an entire album cover? Is the scan area actually wider than 11 inches?

 

It's actually larger. There's just the smallest bit of clipping on the sides, but I usually end up trimming more than that to hide damage at the edges anyway.

Here's a sample of something I scanned with it: