Monday, November 29, 2010

Musings on a Munday

Earlier this fall I spent many hours at the Midwest Genealogy Center reviewing microfilm of church records from Kelpsau, Baden, Germany from the 1600's - 1800's.  Initially, I was printing the documents that I was interested in but soon realized that they were just not very readable.  I started taking photos, with my digital camera, of the images as they were displayed on the microfilm screen.  This method worked best when the lights in the room were very dim or off and the flash on my camera was turned off.

Once I downloaded the pictures from my camera, I was able to use my photo software to lighten, darken and sharpen as needed.  I took over 200 photos of images and almost all of them are readable.  One of the images I photographed is in this earlier blog post.

6 comments:

  1. What a great use of your digital camera! I'll have to remember this tip! Thanks for sharing!

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  2. So glad you posted this. I've wondered about doing this and if it would work, now I know. And I guess you don't use flash? Thanks Jenns.

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  3. Barbara, no I didn't use the flash and it worked best when the lights were very dim in the microfilm room. It's really the way to go, so much easier than paying for all the copies and hoping they turn out readable.

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  4. I'll add this to the many uses for my new digital camera. Thanks for sharing this tip, Jenna!

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  5. I'm horrible with a camera. But, the best thing about the Midwest Genealogy Center is there is a microfilm reader that will take the pic a screen, and you can download right to your flashdrive or email it to yourself. I love that machine (in the computer classroom). It has saved me budles of time, allowing me to have all of my microfilm finds electronically and printable!

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  6. Thanks for that tip Kathleen, I never go into that other room. As for the camera, it works great...if you have a steady hand. I did end up with a couple of blurry shots, but for the most part they turned out great.

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