Good Day Nan and fellow researchers: My experiences with microfiche readers various between NARA, LDS Family History Centers, and Libraries; the small places that have one machine can be difficult for just the reasons sighted. You might try asking when are the machine is least used. Many of these places have book indexes of the individual's index listing page numbers and film numbers to aid in quickly locating people on the film and you are right about having to stop, take it over to the printer in many cases, load, then print, then return the reader and start all over again. On my recent trip to Edgefield, SC Probate Office they had one machine that was newer that read and printed. The first day we got access to it, but found it slow by the time you aligned the screen for the sheet size, moved the dark lines to crop printing black perimeters, and focused in on the image. The next visit, some was on the machine, so we were asked if we wanted access to the vault and original records..well, duh! Almost four hours later and closing we had photographed over 240 documents where as we copied 26 the day before spending the same amount of time. Some of these were so fragile that photocopying was defiantly out of the question. Everywhere we went digital cameras deemed a safe way of photographing documents. At libraries, I found that it was very helpful when finding a book with just a few references on family in it, I took a photo of the cover page and pages of interest and I was done. No photocopying or checking out of the book needed. I have not used my digital camera to take photos of images of microfiche yet, but I will give it a try. Several years back I took my digital video camera and took picture of a roll of microfiche with success, but you have to freeze frame to see thing and let's say it was awkward! I have also found that the images on the machine screen are just as good as you get even when printed (watch out for dirty or marked up viewing surfaces). However when photographed digitally one can improve the image by lightening or darkening, sharpening, and contrast. You can't do all of that on microfiche printers! Make sure you can down load your images on the computer in files that you can later import into genealogical software. We are also doing the same with our voice recordings. The beauty of at lease the Sony's I have used is that they can compensate for dark lighting and produce well lighted images. This last trip we found on "AUTO" there was no indication to use the flash by the camera. We took photos of books, newspapers, old photos, grave stones, people, and places. We down loaded over 1300 images which we are just getting to catalog. The other aspect is that these can be zoomed into to read documents better or to see details in old photos better. Watch the type of image stick, disk, chip, because they are all different in what they will do. A friend of mine got the Sony that uses a CD inserted and you can't zoom in much before it breaks up in pixels. We are using the "XD" chip which allows greater image manipulation. I hope that you find this helpful and I wish you great success in your research!!! Robert Temples Edmonds, WA -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2004 9:43 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: SC trip documentation In a message dated 5/16/04 11:51:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: If any of you have questions regarding this you may contact me at [email protected] Hello Robert, A tremendous task that you will enjoy the results of "forever." My question is in regard to the Family History Center microfilm readers. I can never get past twenty minutes of winding the roll, which must be unwound to be placed on the printer. All by hand, my shoulder freezes and it's a complete waste for me to order films. I ordered one that has tons of my ancestors data. If I spent one day winding to find page numbers, it still doesn't work because there is only one printer available. Others are waiting to use it so I can't tie it up indefinitely. Have you used your digital camera to take photos of microfilm on one of these readers? If so, are there any tips that I should be aware of? I have a bunch of memory cards and rechargeable batteries and could take lots of photos. I'm wondering about the light on the reader, should I use my flash? If you have any thoughts for me, I would welcome them with great appreciation. Thanks for taking the time to assist me. God bless, Nan