Are wand scanners any good?

[RJ Bowman]

I was looking for a way to scan photos out of very old bound magazines at a university library.

Ideally, there should be a way to get an image of a page, or part of a page, without having to put the book face-down and press it flat, which could cause stress on very old, fragile paper. A camera might do the job, but you sometimes get lens distortion that is difficult to correct, and the resolution of a camera isn't always great.

I remembered old wand scanners from the early-days of personal computing, which would scan a swath a few inches wide in black and white. I did a web search and found that color wand scanners wide enough for decent-sized page are available. But I don't know much about them, and it seems like a hand-held scanner could produce really, really distorted images if your hand isn't steady.

Has anyone had any experience with wand scanners? What kind of results do you get?

[JVJ (RIP)]

I never could manage to spring for the $99 to find out, R.J.
But I HAVE done some work with a high-rez digital camera, a tripod and macro lens with decent results. Are you trying for print quality or just a good jpeg image?

Of course ALL of that equipment costs lots more than $99, but you might just try your digital camera with a tripod to see what you can get. I'd be very interested to learn if the new wand scanners are any good, too. I remember having one twenty-some years ago, before flatbed scanners were affordable. The results were marginal, at best, but technology can move a LONG way in 20 years!

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[JonTheScanner]

I fooled around a bit with one once.  The results were OK (compared to flatbeds at the time not sure about current ones) if and I say IF you could keep a steady straight motion. I could not, but then I can't draw a straight line either.

[narfstar]

I have a plantronics it seems to scan OK but the memory is really low. You could only do a couple of photos at a time then would have to put them on the computer and delete to scan again. I will sell it to you cheap if you are interested