Digital Camera for taking pictures of papers?

[FOBSIDE]

My dad is looking for a digital camera that he can take pictures of paperwork, more specifically blueprints. He doesn't need to take pictures of a whole blueprint, necessarily. He will probably take pictures of 8.5" x 11" sections at a time. Does anyone know what kind of megapixels I would need on a camera to take pictures? Also, can anyone recommend a specific camera? I would want the camera to be very intuitive as my dad would not be taking the pictures and having someone else taking them, so good auto-focusing and good flash/lighting settings. If anyone could help me out by testing their camera on a sheet of paper and letting me know how it turns out, that would be great.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[mooojojojo]

I have a Canon A10 which is pretty lowend and I have used it for such a task several times - it does the job just fine. You want a camera with a good macro capability (which the A10 does NOT have, but decent - yes) and perhaps 2MP. So maybe Canon A60.

It does take a few tries to get the right picture, but once you have get the settings on the first picture the others go smoothly (i.e. no fiddling with the controls).

Another thing to consider is whether you intend on printing the blueprints? If yes - maybe get the A70 (same as A60 but 3MP).

You can of course go with the cameras from Nikon or whatever manufacturer. I think that practically all >= 2MP cameras will do the job.

 

[nickaskew]

Imagine what follows is in the style of Beavis and Butthead, heh, heh heh, heh, heh...

I am presuming the photographing of said blue prints have been approved/condoned by the creators of the blue prints..

If however you DO NOT have permission to photograph said blue prints... I would thoroughly recommend you use another device (http://www.mobilkompagniet.dk/default.asp?Action=Details&Item=1406) - It is a completely independant pen scanner (ok, it is a little big bigger than a pen) but it is easily concealable, has its own memory to scan anything paper based and store until connection to a PC later.. 400 dpi too! - no loss of circuit clarity (lets say you saw the blue prints for the AMD64, it would capture the tracks as well - stores it in b/w uncompressed format so no image data is lost.. there are others around that do the same job, some bigger, some not.

You stripe it accross whatever you want to scan, in as straight a line as possible, and it 'stitches' the thin images together to make up a larger image - automatically - incase you were wondering what the point of having a 15mm wide scanner was for..

Oh yes, you can choose whether it BEEPS after the scan too.. so you don't have to run for your life after you've grabbed the image!

Regards & very, very, very good luck..

Nick

Disclaimer: I have never worked for a major chip manufacturer and so have never had the opportunity to scan anything of a confidential nature from such companies.. dang.

 

[FOBSIDE]

This is all legit. My dad is looking to get copies of sections of blue prints from factories and such so he can see what kind of equipment they need. Basically he is one of the few people in his company that can read the prints, but he doesn't want to have to go out every time just to read them. Instead he wants to send someone else to bring back a c opy of the prints. A camera would allow this without having to tell his clients to prepare a copy.

 

[kaizersose]

the key for your dad is to get a camera with a macro feature. 2mp will be plenty if he is only taking pictures of a section. if he is willing to part with about 5 bills, i would go for the sony 7 series with the carl zeiss lenses. i havent seen more beautiful pictures from any digital camera (excluding digital slr's that will run you $2000) and they have an excellent, easy to use macro feature. just push a button on the side of the lense to toggle back and forth.

 

[aceO07]

One of my friends has a Nikon Coolpix 2500. I remembered him showing me a mode for 'making copies' of papers. I'm not sure of the quality or anything else. If you're interested you might want to look into it.

 

[sniperruff]

my friend had a 3MP sony (P71 or something perhaps?) and took pics of a notebook and it looked decent.

i say anything around $200 is good.