[Taxacom] Digital herbarium

[Gurcharan Singh]

Dear members

For some time I was thinking of initiating a thread on digitising herbarium specimens, but was reluctant because whenever there is mention of digital herbarium, there is always mention of a scanner. I have worked with scanners (though not high end ones), but always find a good digital SLR camera giving very good results. I had started this with old photographs in our family albums, and when I thought of digitising my personal and College herbarium specimens, I found Digital SLR camera much more handy and useful. Today I got this encouragement from MBLWHOI Library Digital Herbarium.


"Specimens too bulky or fragile to be scanned will be photographed with a digital camera" 


Personally I feel Digital SLR camera is much more useful, as it saves a lot of time as compared to a scanner. My question is if Digital SLR camera can give good results with fragile and bulky specimens, and is much more faster than a scanner, why not to use it in routine procedures.
   May someone with good experience with both can give better opinion.


Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College
University of Delhi, Delhi
India
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45