Has anyone tried to use a digital camera to take pictures of xrays,ct or mri scans to be displayed/projected for teaching purposes. I am considering the Nikon 900s, kodak 260 and minolta dimage 1500. You need to get close for the ct and mri images (single panel may be 3"X3"). Good gray scale resolution would be needed.Would like to get 256 shades of gray. I think the nikon 900s has the best macro specs at 3" distance. Has anyone tried or have suggestions.

-- joseph parravano (parravano@iname.com), February 10, 1999

Answers

Why not use a scanner? Less expensive and you can get better resolution.

-- jay holovacs (holovacs@idt.net), February 12, 1999.

Thanks for comments. A scanner would work and is actually used when films need to be digitized. The purpose of a camera would be to take a shot while the film is being viewed on a viewbox. This would occur if there is something interesting found in the course of reviewing numerous films. I'd want to minimize the time taken so one can continue to work reviewing films without going to a scanner and spending the time to scan one image. I am also investigating scanners and which might be able to handle films without going to the indusrtrial agfa models. film sheets are 14" X 17" and Imay only want 1 or 2 panels 3"X3" to save. I don't know if typical transparency adapters can handle that size of film. Do you know if they can digitige a small portion from a sheet the size I've mentionned? Thanks Joe

-- joseph parravao (parravan@nye.nscee.edu), February 12, 1999.

The 900s did indeed have the best macro performance, but is now discontinued. Stay tuned for a bit - Nikon's announced that they have a new model coming, and I guess it's no secret that it will be called the 950. (Lots of other threads here mention it, so I guess I can too) Check back ~Wednesday or Thursday next week, and there'll be info on the site on a couple of new cameras you'll probably find interesting.

In general, what you're contemplating should work fine. Two caveats, though, both having to do with light: 1) A good strong backlight would definitely be a help, given the density of some x-ray films. 2) Also given the density, you'll want some kind of tripod or copy-stand arrangement to hold the camera, as it's probably going to need to use pretty long exposure times.

FWIW, I've frequently used our Oly D-600L with front-element auxilliary macro lenses to grab quick shots of slides (before we got our slide scanner). It worked great, we just never had a stable backlight/camera support setup.

-- Dave Etchells (detchells@imaging-resource.com), February 13, 1999.