Ben Rubinstein
pro member
Hi,
For the past 2 months I've been working on the preparation of a proposal to accomplish a project which involves the photography of some 3000 handwritten books which are hundreds of years old. These books are owned privately and consist of a huge wealth of Jewish thought, law and philosophy over the past 500 years. The vast majority of this work has never been seen or published.
I posted some photographs here of a large library collection held by an organisation which I have been working. This charitable organisation runs several colleges and research institutions. They own this incredible collection of work. One of the organisers met a photographer called Ardon Bar Hama who was one of the forerunners of concept of digitalising ancient works and has photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as numerous other collections worldwide including some works for the Vatican where he was commissioned by the pope. He me this photographer at a wedding and afterwards gave me a call and asked me if I could put together a rough budget for them to open their own studio to digitalise their collection. I called back an hour later and suggested a budget based on a 5DII, copy stand and some simple lighting. When they heard the figure of $7000 they laughed at me and told me to come back with a quote for a lot better equipment than that. Not that they know anything about photography but they wanted high end.
I got in touch with Yair Shahar who is the Leaf representative for Europe and he immediately gave me an idea of what would be involved and arranged a meeting with me and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem to see their setup and get a better idea of what was involved. I went there, they are incredible people working there as you can imagine, and not only did they show me round but they arranged a shoot with some of these ancient books to show us the quality of the Leaf Aptus 22 they were using though they recommended we get a higher model. We did the shoot and I had plenty time to play with the files before arranging a meeting with the Leaf representative here. They actually took me back to Yad Vashem and demonstrated the 40 megapixel back with me as well as a long session where they agreed with my choice of a Mamiya RZ for the project.
A bit about the equipment. Yad Vashem were using an AFI but that of course is a practical dead end. The photographer there had also begged me to only buy into a system where I could afford to buy more than one lens! Yair had suggested an RZ as when shooting on a copy stand a WLF is a must for composing and photographing. The RZ's bellows system also allows much more close up photography than MF lenses usual MFD so that each lens could work harder. Last of all they're stupidly cheap! The Leaf representative showed me the Phase One DF camera however the MFD on the lenses is long, on a copy stand the 80mm Schneider lens wouldn't hold focus position (the focus turned under it's own weight when pointed down! Apparently the 110mm Shneider also does this) and what really suprised us was that the beat up el cheapo 110mm RZ lens was as sharp as the super expensive designed for digital brand new design Schneider lens. Even the Leaf guy was very suprised though after talking to some people they aren't surprised, those RZ lenses really are incredible, bellows focusing allows superior lens design and these backs are using just the centre portion of the lens.
I had posted my findings so far on a forum populated by MFDB gurus when two issues came up. Firstly Stefan Steib, the owner of Hartblei looked at the sample pictures we had made and was horrified at the use of a regular copy stand for such ancient material. Ancient (or even new) books are photographed when opened at 90 or 120 degrees but not open flat at 180 degrees as that will stress or even snap the spine. As the consultant for the Workflow of the Bavarian State Library who run one of the largest digitization departments in Europe he is a true expert on these issues. He nursed me along in general with many many other questions I had as well as pointing me to this incredible resource http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/foerderung/programme/lis/praxisregeln_digitalisierung_en.pdf, the work of the past 10 years of results, trial and error and daily work of several of the largest german libraries and museums. This gave me a far clearer picture of what was involved in a project of this size.
He pointed me also to Manfred Mayer head of the reproduction department of the University of Graz in Austria who manufactures book stands specifically designed for this kind of work. There are other options but the combination of quality, personal attention and custom build together with price made his Grazer Traveller unit the one of choice. I spent many long emails and a long phone conversation with Mr Mayer working out our precise requirements. Again an exceptionally nice individual who was not only willing to design a unit for our specific needs but also was far more interested in me making the right choice even if it meant a different manufacturer. As it was, his, especially the custom build, is perfect for our needs.
At the end of an exhausting month of research I had the following to recommend to the organisation. A Leaf 40 megapixel Aptus 7 II back on a Mamiya RZ system working with both a custom Grazer Traveller book stand, a Kaiser copy stand for documents, a pair of Profoto D1 lights (for consistency in power output and colour page by page). Oh and an imac with about a zillion terabytes of raid storage mirrored offsite for backup.
I presented the information in a meeting two weeks ago and was told this week that the project is approved but it will have to wait for funding and that is not so certain. As I will be the photographer doing the work (I'm trying to give up wedding photography as I am undergoing surgery 4 times this year and my body is just not up to standing for 12 hours any more) this is rather fustrating but I am waiting to see.
This has been a huge and in depth project just to investigate nevermind when/if it actually gets under way. I've not even gone into the many other options of copy stands and pros/cons that I had to decide upon. But I'd be glad to talk about it if anyone else is interested.
Oh and if anyone's going to ask why not have used a 5DII, sorry but even with the Aptus 22, night and day, no comparison. Heck it's made me think of a MF back myself though I'd have to sell a kid to even think about it!
Couple of pics albeit with the Aptus 22:
crop
For the past 2 months I've been working on the preparation of a proposal to accomplish a project which involves the photography of some 3000 handwritten books which are hundreds of years old. These books are owned privately and consist of a huge wealth of Jewish thought, law and philosophy over the past 500 years. The vast majority of this work has never been seen or published.
I posted some photographs here of a large library collection held by an organisation which I have been working. This charitable organisation runs several colleges and research institutions. They own this incredible collection of work. One of the organisers met a photographer called Ardon Bar Hama who was one of the forerunners of concept of digitalising ancient works and has photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as numerous other collections worldwide including some works for the Vatican where he was commissioned by the pope. He me this photographer at a wedding and afterwards gave me a call and asked me if I could put together a rough budget for them to open their own studio to digitalise their collection. I called back an hour later and suggested a budget based on a 5DII, copy stand and some simple lighting. When they heard the figure of $7000 they laughed at me and told me to come back with a quote for a lot better equipment than that. Not that they know anything about photography but they wanted high end.
I got in touch with Yair Shahar who is the Leaf representative for Europe and he immediately gave me an idea of what would be involved and arranged a meeting with me and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem to see their setup and get a better idea of what was involved. I went there, they are incredible people working there as you can imagine, and not only did they show me round but they arranged a shoot with some of these ancient books to show us the quality of the Leaf Aptus 22 they were using though they recommended we get a higher model. We did the shoot and I had plenty time to play with the files before arranging a meeting with the Leaf representative here. They actually took me back to Yad Vashem and demonstrated the 40 megapixel back with me as well as a long session where they agreed with my choice of a Mamiya RZ for the project.
A bit about the equipment. Yad Vashem were using an AFI but that of course is a practical dead end. The photographer there had also begged me to only buy into a system where I could afford to buy more than one lens! Yair had suggested an RZ as when shooting on a copy stand a WLF is a must for composing and photographing. The RZ's bellows system also allows much more close up photography than MF lenses usual MFD so that each lens could work harder. Last of all they're stupidly cheap! The Leaf representative showed me the Phase One DF camera however the MFD on the lenses is long, on a copy stand the 80mm Schneider lens wouldn't hold focus position (the focus turned under it's own weight when pointed down! Apparently the 110mm Shneider also does this) and what really suprised us was that the beat up el cheapo 110mm RZ lens was as sharp as the super expensive designed for digital brand new design Schneider lens. Even the Leaf guy was very suprised though after talking to some people they aren't surprised, those RZ lenses really are incredible, bellows focusing allows superior lens design and these backs are using just the centre portion of the lens.
I had posted my findings so far on a forum populated by MFDB gurus when two issues came up. Firstly Stefan Steib, the owner of Hartblei looked at the sample pictures we had made and was horrified at the use of a regular copy stand for such ancient material. Ancient (or even new) books are photographed when opened at 90 or 120 degrees but not open flat at 180 degrees as that will stress or even snap the spine. As the consultant for the Workflow of the Bavarian State Library who run one of the largest digitization departments in Europe he is a true expert on these issues. He nursed me along in general with many many other questions I had as well as pointing me to this incredible resource http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/foerderung/programme/lis/praxisregeln_digitalisierung_en.pdf, the work of the past 10 years of results, trial and error and daily work of several of the largest german libraries and museums. This gave me a far clearer picture of what was involved in a project of this size.
He pointed me also to Manfred Mayer head of the reproduction department of the University of Graz in Austria who manufactures book stands specifically designed for this kind of work. There are other options but the combination of quality, personal attention and custom build together with price made his Grazer Traveller unit the one of choice. I spent many long emails and a long phone conversation with Mr Mayer working out our precise requirements. Again an exceptionally nice individual who was not only willing to design a unit for our specific needs but also was far more interested in me making the right choice even if it meant a different manufacturer. As it was, his, especially the custom build, is perfect for our needs.
At the end of an exhausting month of research I had the following to recommend to the organisation. A Leaf 40 megapixel Aptus 7 II back on a Mamiya RZ system working with both a custom Grazer Traveller book stand, a Kaiser copy stand for documents, a pair of Profoto D1 lights (for consistency in power output and colour page by page). Oh and an imac with about a zillion terabytes of raid storage mirrored offsite for backup.
I presented the information in a meeting two weeks ago and was told this week that the project is approved but it will have to wait for funding and that is not so certain. As I will be the photographer doing the work (I'm trying to give up wedding photography as I am undergoing surgery 4 times this year and my body is just not up to standing for 12 hours any more) this is rather fustrating but I am waiting to see.
This has been a huge and in depth project just to investigate nevermind when/if it actually gets under way. I've not even gone into the many other options of copy stands and pros/cons that I had to decide upon. But I'd be glad to talk about it if anyone else is interested.
Oh and if anyone's going to ask why not have used a 5DII, sorry but even with the Aptus 22, night and day, no comparison. Heck it's made me think of a MF back myself though I'd have to sell a kid to even think about it!
Couple of pics albeit with the Aptus 22:
crop