M8 settings for digital projection

[Bangor]

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Greetings-

 

My first post. I'm giving a "slide" talk, but the images will be projected through a digital projector. I'll be using a 2/35 ASPH on my M8. I have a proper copystand with halogen lights illuminating the books I'm shooting. The camera setting is for FINE@10MP RGB. I can't tell you what specifications the digital projector has. How concerned should I be about image quality that will be seen through the projector? Is it "if it looks good on my calibrated iMac monitor, it'll be good projected on the screen?" I have LR 2.7.

 

Thank you,

Walter Tisdale

[ho_co]

Walter, welcome to the forum!

 

Quality at least partially depends on what you're shooting.

 

I've never done what you're doing, but two things come to mind:

 

First, the projector may have lower resolution than the computer monitor.

 

Second, for 'verticals' (today called 'shots in portrait orientation'), the projector can use only the shorter dimension of its (probably) 16:9 aspect ratio. That's a big difference from 35mm transparencies, where verticals and horizontals both had use of the full long dimension of the frame. The height of verticals in digital projection is constrained to the shorter dimension of the frame.

 

The only place those points are likely to make a difference is with text, particularly if you're photographing pages aligned with the longer side of the frame and are illustrating details.

 

It sounds as if you're working with large originals, since you're using the M camera for the work. If that's the case, and especially if you're not doing text and can stick primarily to horizontals, your results should be good.

 

Some will doubtless recommend shooting RAW, but since it's copy work and you'll be able to adjust your results while shooting, JPG will be fine.

 

Good luck.

 

(Needless to say, if someone who has done what you're doing disagrees, toss my suggestions out the window.)

[pgk]

The resolution output required will depend on the projector. Early cheap ones used 640 x 480 or 600 x 800 pixels I think, XGA projectors (now pretty standard) are 1024 x 768 pixels and newer ones can be even bigger up the HD (I can't remember the pixel dimensions of this offhand).

 

I give a fair number of talks and have used various projectors, none of which have had a quality anywhere near that of my calibrated screen - most still have highlight problems - and unless you have access to the projector when adjusting your images then its a bit pot luck still in my experience. However, assuming that you will project in a darkened room then most people will 'adapt' and get a reasonable view if the projector is half decent (unless they are all highly critical photographers who are the worst!). And since you can't do much about it there is no point worrying.

 

But why copy the books with a camera at all - in all honesty it is far easier to simply scan pages with a flat bed scanner.

[Bangor]

Howard & Paul,

 

Thank you for your replies. Most helpful! I was not aware of the vertical issue. The scan option won't work this time, but I will keep that in mind if & when I do this again. In some cases the audience will get to handle the books afterwards.

 

Cheers,

Walter