This week we tackled a patron digitization request for two HUGE maps of Turkmenistan. When I say huge, I mean one was about 5 feet wide (the other was about 3 feet wide), so we had to get pretty creative with how to photograph the map. Due to the unusual size, we were not able to photograph the map in our usual space, so we moved the lights and DSLR camera up to the reading room. We ended up using some taped-together archival boards as a backdrop/rest for the map (mostly to prevent the paper from catching and tearing on the carpet, but the grey boards also helped to prevent any possible color distortion that may have been caused by background ‘noise’ from the color of the carpet). We talked for a few minutes about how best to approach photographing the items, lighting, photography approach (i.e., photographing sections or quadrants of the map and then stitching the images together in Photoshop afterward), and how to position the camera. We ended up putting the DSLR on the tripod, extending two legs, and then using a particularly heavy archival box to anchor the camera and tripod. We put the map and backdrop on the floor and then slid the backdrop around to capture different quadrants of the map. This worked fairly well for the smaller of the two maps, but we ran into issues with the larger map due to how far away we had to place the camera. The distance ended up creating a sort of fisheye effect which made stitching the images together impossible.
We decided we would need to use either some other sort of rig for the camera, or let the patron know we did not have the equipment needed to digitize the larger map. One of the other staff members at the Lilly knows someone from the art museum in Indianapolis that could get us access to an overhead rig that is more along the lines of what we need to digitize the map, so Jody was going to reach out to that person and see if there was any way we could use their equipment for a little bit. It was really interesting and really valuable experience seeing the process behind how we think about strategies to handle large and/or unusually shaped items.
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