During the 2008–2009 expedition season, CSNTM photographed two previously uncatalogued manuscripts in the United Kingdom. The first, Fragment B at Christ’s College in Cambridge, is an eleventh century, two-leaf minuscule from John’s gospel. The second is a tenth century, 284-leaf gospels minscule manuscript held in a private collection. Both of these manuscripts are now posted in the “Manuscripts” portion of the website.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
New Uncatalogued MSS on the CSNTM Website
Jeff Hargis, field director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) has announced on the textual criticism discussion list that two additional uncatalogued manuscripts have been posted on the CSNTM website.
"The second is a tenth century, 284-leaf gospels miniscule manuscript held in a private collection."
ReplyDeleteI'm quite disappointed by the image readability. It looks like something done with a handheld digital camera under poor lighting. Did the private collector put such restrictions on its photography that it will have to be re-done under the next owner's austices?
auspices. For some reason it's not as easy to preview as it used to be.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite disappointed by the image readability. It looks like something done with a handheld digital camera under poor lighting.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
Some images just aren't sharp.
Closing the aperture more and not trusting the autofocus normally helps.
The lighting isn't optimal. The parchment is glittering.
Also the images are underexposed.
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ReplyDeleteI would like to hear other opinions on these photos. I thought they were fine, but I may be missing something. I prefer a moderate amount of light, as I can digitally add more to suit my tastes.
ReplyDeleteIf an image is underexposed, the dynamic range of the sensor is not fully utilized.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the histogram of the images, everything is in the left part of the diagram. The camera probably got fooled by the glittering of the parchment. There are some pixels that are just white and the camera adjusts accordingly.
So, first use better, more diffuse light, to remove the glittering. Then expose to the right (of the histogram). A slight underexposure may be justified, but here it is clearly too much. You are losing almost half the range.
Couldn't they open the codex up in such a way that the pages lay flat? There's already plenty of evidence that it's not in its original binding anyway.
ReplyDelete