Like many people here, I have a fairly ridiculous amount of old PC hardware. I have at times thought about coming up with a searchable database to keep track of all my "inventory". Ideally, if I ever did this, I'd probably take photographs of all the components. I think generic photos wouldn't be as appropriate for that usage though, I'd want them to be pictures of the actual parts in my own possession.

A few years ago I bought what was, for my pedestrian standards, a decent camera. It was a Canon SX130is - nothing special, I just wanted it to be good enough for eBay, and it seemed to have more manual control features than most inexpensive cameras.
I've more recently been disappointed though to realize that it's not very good for circuit board photographs. I did some reading online to learn how the pros do it, and my camera just doesn't handle their methodology. They suggest zooming from long range, small aperture, long exposure time. When I do this (using a tripod with a short timer to eliminate any possible shake), I get lousy focus. I've tried a hacked firmware (CHDK) which expands the aperture range and other such things, but it doesn't seem to be able to help. I think I'm up against an optical limitation.

shamino wrote:

Like many people here, I have a fairly ridiculous amount of old PC hardware. I have at times thought about coming up with a searchable database to keep track of all my "inventory". Ideally, if I ever did this, I'd probably take photographs of all the components. I think generic photos wouldn't be as appropriate for that usage though, I'd want them to be pictures of the actual parts in my own possession.

A few years ago I bought what was, for my pedestrian standards, a decent camera. It was a Canon SX130is - nothing special, I just wanted it to be good enough for eBay, and it seemed to have more manual control features than most inexpensive cameras.
I've more recently been disappointed though to realize that it's not very good for circuit board photographs. I did some reading online to learn how the pros do it, and my camera just doesn't handle their methodology. They suggest zooming from long range, small aperture, long exposure time. When I do this (using a tripod with a short timer to eliminate any possible shake), I get lousy focus. I've tried a hacked firmware (CHDK) which expands the aperture range and other such things, but it doesn't seem to be able to help. I think I'm up against an optical limitation.

Yeah... the Canon SX130is is still a "Consumer" tier camera.. fixed lens. Basically if you want to start doing like they do you'd need to get in to the "DSLR" range, or Digital single-lens reflex camera, or more simply, the ones with interchangeable lenses. Those are almost all the "pro-sumer" category and offer a lot wider range of manual options for photo'ing things. More notably of the options are things like long zoom lenses, or lenses with optical macro modes so you can focus (manually) on things a few inches from the lens, etc. I had a Canon S3 IS for a number of years and moved up to a nikon D70 ProSumer DSLR after getting fustrated with the limitations on that one.

One of the better features of certain camera "bodies" is the long range of lenses. Most of the Nikon line use Nikon's F-Mount lenses, which you can use lenses all the way from the 1970's and 1980's old manual-focus metal-frame lenses, all the way up to the modern 2015 ones.

Now I've moved on to a Sony Alpha A35, mostly for higher megapixel resolution, but also for 1080i/60 video capabilities. And mine can use Minolta's lenses way back from the very old ones, up to the modern ones.

I think you can find Nikon's older 4MP DSLR cameras used on ebay fairly cheap. Like the D-70 or the D-40, and then look for some older lenses on ebay and get a decent setup that way without much expense if you wanted to try this sort of camera type.

As for this thread, I guess it's not going anywhere, I don't think anyone cares much for high res shots of old hardware 🤣

I think the interest level is one of those things where people will become interested when they "need" it, but until then it's more of a labor of love on the photographer's part. Such is the nature of archiving things. It doesn't hurt anything to take high quality pictures of hardware, especially older or more obscure things (or things that are becoming more obscure).

Also just a side-note on the camera thing: there are newer fixed-sensor cameras with interchangable lenses being marketed in-between the fixed-lens point-and-shoot cameras and DSLRs, which are not DSLRs or otherwise pro or pro-sumer gear (and I don't mean the new Sony Alpha fullframes). Just something to watch out for, as they generally aren't as broadly compatible as DSLRs. Another idea if you're on a shoestring budget and/or want things to be simple: a lot of really good images of hardware over the years has been done with flatbed scanners, as opposed to cameras, as it provides a much flatter perspective of the item, and is a lot easier to do.

obobskivich wrote:

I think the interest level is one of those things where people will become interested when they "need" it, but until then it's more of a labor of love on the photographer's part. Such is the nature of archiving things. It doesn't hurt anything to take high quality pictures of hardware, especially older or more obscure things (or things that are becoming more obscure).

Also just a side-note on the camera thing: there are newer fixed-sensor cameras with interchangable lenses being marketed in-between the fixed-lens point-and-shoot cameras and DSLRs, which are not DSLRs or otherwise pro or pro-sumer gear (and I don't mean the new Sony Alpha fullframes). Just something to watch out for, as they generally aren't as broadly compatible as DSLRs. Another idea if you're on a shoestring budget and/or want things to be simple: a lot of really good images of hardware over the years has been done with flatbed scanners, as opposed to cameras, as it provides a much flatter perspective of the item, and is a lot easier to do.

Ah yes, I've tried with scanners before.. my flatbed scanner has focus issues. Tried to scan an AthlonXP chip at one point and it got the DIE surface clear, but then the actual surface of the chip a few MM "down" from there was all fuzzy. So I kinda stopped bothering. It also got everything fuzzy that had raised capacitors on the surface too. Like sound cards.

And some day I aspire to move up to a full-frame camera, but even the old ones are expensive used. I'm still on a $400 APS-C or Crop-Frame camera, full-frames are usually in the $1k+ range. They're nice, but what I have is nice enough for me, for now.

I've only scanned a PCB once, with OK results: http://i.imgur.com/LjE7Flf.jpg (2200kB JPG). This was just a quick shot to map out the PCB traces, so I didn't put any effort in cleaning it beforehand.
Notice though, how the caps on the left hand side are scanned at an angle, while the right hand side does not show this effect. I wonder how that works. And it's somewhat fuzzy at full resolution, like a watercolour painting.

I don't know anything about pro-level photography, but one thing I found is that decent lighting dramatically improved the quality of my pictures. I use a small handheld 1000W halogen lamp now, pointed toward the (white) ceiling, and sometimes I spread out blank A4 papers around the subject I'm trying to photograph. This creates a bright yet diffuse lighting all around the room with very little shadowing, and allows me to take low-ISO pictures at a relatively short shutter speed.

When scanning 3D objects you should use a CCD scanner, not a CIS scanner. The newer-type CIS scanners have advantages (cheaper, light is instant-on because it's using LEDs) but also the disadvantage of a very shallow depth of field. I should definitely try to scan hardware on my CCD scanner. At the moment my father has it and occasionally scans some old photos/negatives with amazing results.