paleonet Re: Another digital camera use

["Toby White" <mwhite@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike:

I recently discovered that one of our local libraries has an amazing
collection of things like the American Journal of Science (the venue for
much of Marsh & Cope's feuding) back to issue 1.  The problem is that
they're all on "microcard," an obsolete technology which seems to have
involved placing tiny, fuzzy pictures on films between two sheets of
mislabelled, curled, yellowing paper, readable only by one dying machine
with no spare parts.  Any chance your technique might work to salvage this
resource?  I thought of scanning them, but even 1200 dpi probably wouldn't
be good enough, even assuming I can convince the University of Houston to
lend them to me.

--Toby White

The Vertebrate Notes at:
http://home.houston.rr.com/vnotes/index.html and
http://www.dinodata.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Everhart" <mike@oceansofkansas.com>
To: "vertpaleo list" <vrtpaleo@usc.edu>; <paleonet@nhm.ac.uk>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 2:14 PM
Subject: Another digital camera use


> All,
> If you are like me, you have hundreds of slides and old black and white
> negatives laying around, just waiting for that day when you decide to
> take them to the photo shop and have them converted to digital images.
>
> .......wait no longer.
>
> In the firm belief that most people haven't already heard of this or
> figured it out for themselves, I wanted to share a nifty new (to me at
> least) idea for copying color slides and black / white negatives.
>
> I have found that I can make digital images of a slide or B/W negative
> (color negatives aren't quite as easy)... I'm using a Sony Mavica FD-88
> camera and hand-holding the slide/negative in front of a light source
> (sunlight reflecting off a light colored surface works nicely for color
> balance).
>
> The camera is able to focus on the film image surprisingly well. I'm
> sure that if you devised a way to firmly mount both the camera and the
> negative, you could achieve even better quality.. I'm still learning,
> including how to mount B/W negatives so they don't curl.
>
> Anyway, I've posted some of the results on the net:
>
> A black and white image (1982) of the Xiphactinus audax 'Fish in a Fish'
> specimen at the old Sternberg Museum in Hays, KS.  The 35mm negative was
> poorly developed at K-Mart and is pretty low contrast. The "Negative
> Image" function in Paint Shop Pro converts it to a positive.
>
> < http://www.oceansofkansas.com/images2/test1.jpg >
>
> Next, a 35mm color slide of Castle Rock (in Kansas) from about 1985:
>
> < http://www.oceansofkansas.com/images2/test2.jpg >
>
> Finally, a 35 mm color negative of a mosasaur front limb (1979) in the
> Smoky Hill Chalk... I have not yet figured out how to convert the color
> negative to true color but the amount of detail is surprising.
>
> < http://www.oceansofkansas.com/images2/test3.jpg >
>
> Give it a try.... there's lots of room for improvement... It is a great,
> low-cost way of converting old images to digital.
>
> Best wishes for the holidays from Oceans of Kansas Paleontology,
>
> Mike Everhart
> Adjunct Curator of Paleontology
> Sternberg Museum of Natural History
> Fort Hay State University, Hays, KS