EH.R: RE: Digital cameras for archival research

[Murray, John E.]

Dear Colleagues:

I wanted to thank everyone for the many collegial responses.  I also received the message below from a historian who does not subscribe to eh.res, and since it seemed to have some relevant information I pass it along with a few sentences omitted.  I am not attaching the images she sent me, which were plenty clear pictures of 18c documents.

Reminders to check on permission to photograph documents were points well taken!  Luckily the archive I intend to visit allows photography and has plenty of natural light.

Thanks again,

John Murray


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[From colleague:]

After my frustrating experience with our old digital camera at the beginning of this fellowship year, I invested in a really fine digital camera.  Last October, on the advice of a friend who knows this stuff, I got a Kodak EasyShare C875 camera.  It is the best technology investment I've made in recent memory.  It has both digital and optimal zoom lenses, so that I can enlarge particular areas of photos originally taken at a distance, without losing any integrity.  It's rather astonishing.  It costs $200.

I'm attaching some images of endorsement certificates and indentures that I've taken with this camera.  These certificates were among the most challenging, because of faded ink or eroded paper.  The indentures include both a typical boilerplate and the earliest hand-written one I could find.  The photographs are actually better than the original.  

Using Picture Manager or whatever program you have, zoom in on any part of the image.  You'll see how excellent the resolution is.  And as a further testimonial, I should note that several people at [this archive], after seeing what this camera does, have purchased the same one.