Thread: NARA Seattle
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Old 29th December 2008, 10:16
Mikael Olrog's Avatar
Mikael Olrog Mikael Olrog is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Sweden
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Re: NARA Seattle

Regarding taking photos of documents I've developed a method which saves my back and enables me to take high number of photos of real documents with fairly great ease. I've mounted my DSLR on a tripod, making the camera point downwards and then I've got remote controll for the "fire button" which means that I don't have to look through the camera for each shot. Sometimes I also mark the space on the table which I should keep the document within to be sure it is fully covered in the picture. The only drawback I've experienced is that possibly one photo out of 100 or so becomes unsharp so I've taken the precaution on very important documents to check the results in the camera or make paper copies.

Obviously it draws some attention from staff and other visitors when you mount a tripod on a table in the reading room, but I've been able to take large volumes of photos of documents and at the same time be seated in a comfortable position turning pages and snapping the shots whenever I find something of interest, or just fire away to get it all and sort out it later when back home.
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