What is a Document Camera?

As the name suggests, a document camera is a camera but not used for clicking photos! It is actually an accessory for a display device like an LCD Projector. In a presentation, if some one wants to show a document page or a brochure or even a small object to everyone in the room, normally they need to scan it before hand and show its picture from the PC. But what if suddenly a question comes up, and a picture (in hard copy) needs to be shown to all the people? Well, use a document camera.

A document camera is a camera lens mounted on to a long and flexible neck so that it can be adjusted to focus closely on the top of a paper or a document or a small object. It has the normal video output that can be connected to a LCD projector input. Now, the small document page or brochure can be displayed on the big projector screen or even in the display screen of a television.

Some Features of a Document Camera:

Most document cameras come with a basic scanning camera (high end ones come with a clickable camera that can click and store the picture on to a computer or a USB drive) that is mounted over a long and flexible neck. The camera holding unit may also include a lamp in order to illuminate the surface where the display object/ document is kept (This comes handy in meetings which reduce the illumination to get maximum visibility for projected images on the screen). The document cameras have connectors (Normal Video connectors – BNC type or S-Video type) which can be connected to the input of projectors or video conferencing devices. They have a working surface (that is normally white) over which the documents or objects can be kept for viewing. They may include white balance features for better display. There is a focus ring on the camera to enable best focus for display and there is also a zoom functionality (although its use is not recommended as you can pull the neck containing the camera and place it as close as required to the source). The camera has a fixed resolution, and higher the resolution, the better. Some document cameras also come with a remote control.

Applications:

There are two main applications of the document camera. You could use it along with an LCD projector as discussed earlier or you could also connect it to a video conference unit and use it in a live video conference. When using it with the LCD projector, you could also use it to display the transparent slides (which were used in the older OHP’s as the background is white, or you could keep a blank white paper and display the slides over them) on the projector screen. In a video conferencing session, you could use this to show document pages/ small objects to the members of the other side of your video conference session.

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