Cameras for rapid digitization in library environments

[Isara]

Hi everyone:

After an awful lot of research, I'm coming up with a few mixed results, and I'm hoping someone can sort me out.

We're having a book scanner built for my organization by a local high school. They'll be using Book Scan Wizard, I believe. But I want to make sure that we're getting reasonably good cameras for archival and rapid scanning purposes, at about $500 each (we're a nonprofit support organization that digitizes materials for libraries, archives, and museums, with potentially millions of pages to image)

So my research says that I should look for cameras that
1. Offer a lossless format (RAW or TIFF)
2. Has manual focus
3. Has remote triggering via a computer
and 4. (if possible) 12-14Mp

I looked at what people were using here, but it was unclear which of the cameras fulfilled these requirements. I'm currently looking at the Canon G10, but elsewhere on the forum, it seemed the image quality with these isn't really that great for archival purposes, so now I'm wavering again.

Does anyone have any advice for me that the requirements listed above are correct and if they have any pointers about which cameras I could look at? Would the G10 work?

[daniel_reetz]

If you can spend 500 each you should definitely be looking at the Micro 4/3 cameras. For the project we're doing in Haiti we are using Olympus EP-1s with the kit lens and getting great results.

I highly recommend them although there may be better options. I am traveling at the moment but other users here, including Misty and DonnaA, have them. Combined with BSW and the new Internet Archive Upload Button, you have free OCR, eBook creation, and more. It's a good time to be DIY'ing.

I'm traveling right now so all my anbswers have to be unfortunately brief. Maybe Misty can weigh in...

[Isara]

First off, that sounds like a fantastic project, Daniel! I remember reading something about it, but not all of the details.

Second, what results are you (and Misty and DonnaA) getting in terms of speed and number of images captured? I did read elsewhere that the Olympus EP-1s were a bit slow in low light, but maybe that was just a bad camera for that reviewer (and a firmware update may fix that).

[daniel_reetz]

You'll definitely be able to scan as fast as you can turn pages -- and your scanner shouldn't be a low-light situation. Put bright lights on it, and that problem is no longer a problem!

[Isara]

Duh. Of course you're right. Thanks for the advice!

[Misty]

I second Dan's comment that that won't be a problem. Without seeing the review in question I can't say exactly what they mean, but most likely they're referring to the camera's high ISO speed capabilities - and if you're in an environment where quality is important enough you want a lossless format, then you will want to be using the camera's lowest ISO speed anyway, which would be similar for any camera.