S50 New User Taking pictures of old photos

[Jolene621]

I really need some advice here. I just bought the Canon S50. The main thing I want to use this for right now, is to take pictures of old photos. I am working on my family history, and as I visit different family members, I would like to copy their old family photos. Since all our family is out of state, taking home the pictures and scanning them is not an option. I went with the S50 because of the 5MP. I want the option of cropping these pictures and blowing them up, and the pictures looking good. I would also like to do the same with my wedding photos. After being in a magnetic photo album for a number of years, they really look bad and discolored. I scanned them and tried to fix them, and they do look a little better, but there is much room for improvment. I was hoping with this camera, that I would be able to take pictures of the photos and crop some and maybe get an 8x10 of decent quality of my wedding. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I am pretty new to digital cameras. My last digital was a Sony Mavice, with the floppy disks, so I think I have a lot to learn! Thanks in advance for any help!

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Jolene,

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high about the quality you can get, but to improve your chances I think you'll need to set up some kind of portable studio. Some stuff I reckon you need to do:

- get the photo's as flat as possible
- at 90 degrees to the camera
- have camera on a tripod
- have lighting so the pictures are evenly illuminated without reflections
- set the camera to use the slowest speed and smallest aperture possible

Regards,

[UK_Terry]

I agree with roger about quality, i have tried it and failed.

remember not to use flash, that just blows them out.

[Conk]

Here is a link that should interrest you. It will give some details on how to do exactly what you are talking about.
http://www.adimaging.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=42