Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

[VitalComputing]

Hi friends,

I am trying to take good quality pictures of rather large desktop motherboards for a project I'm working on. I had a brilliant idea of scanning them with a flatbed scanner I have but it only focuses on the bits of the board that are flush to the scanning glass. And the through hole components tend to lift the main board from the scanning glass. Everything else just looks out of focus. So it seems that that option wont run.

I have been capturing the images with my iPhone 11 and it's okay but wont capture the whole board. I have to grab it in sections and then stitch it back together in photoshop. I know that a lot of people have to put pictures of circuit boards up on the threads here, so what is the most popular way of actually doing this? Thanks all.

[CapLeaker]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

I use my IPhone 12 for this or my IPad, so I did with the XR and the 7. The IPhone 11 does have a dual lens. So one is 0.5x and the other is for 1x and up. I never had much of a problem using that. Just don’t zoom while you are taking the picture, and the lighting has to be good too (multiple light sources).
For real quality borrow a DSLR or mirrorless exchangeable lens camera. There is nothing wrong with stitched pictures either, just a tad annoying. I’d rather take the picture, then use my iPad to squiggle around. Only mistake I made was getting the 11” not the bigger 13” screen.

[VitalComputing]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

I use my IPhone 12 for this or my IPad, so I did with the XR and the 7. The IPhone 11 does have a dual lens. So one is 0.5x and the other is for 1x and up. I never had much of a problem using that. Just don't zoom while you are taking the picture, and the lighting has to be good too (multiple light sources).

Hey CapLeaker, I was waiting to see if anybody else would respond but apparently not!

I downloaded that Halide app on my iPhone 11 but I'm not sure it's much better. It does have a close up mode, but I don't see enough of a difference over the iPhone camera app. Think I might be able to get a free upgrade to iphone 13 on my work phone contract, as I know that it has the new macro mode. Maybe that is the answer.

[CapLeaker]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

My iPhone 12 has this mode too. I find cleaning the lens before taking a picture helps. To 98% the pictures I post are either talken with the iPhone or the iPad. Having good lighting is a must. Other than that I guess you’re looking into some sort of removable lens camera.

[redwire]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

I use an LED light box I made. Four pieces of plastic cardboard each with an LED strip on them. Basically a big version of Big Clive How I get my crisp macro shots with tupper-cam
The extra light has no glare and you get better depth-of-field with a camera's faster shutter speed.

[CapLeaker]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

I use a ring light

[VitalComputing]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

Hi guys,

I let the thread sit before responding in hope of a few more answers. I hear what you're saying about the light. A lot of guys with online channels use an anti glare light with their digital microscopes and the difference it makes is incredible.

I've been just trying a few more things with the basic iPhone 11 camera to see how good I could get it. The images are coming in at about 4MB each. I turn on the grid to make sure to get the image board square on. what you think - is it possible to improve on this with the iPhone?

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

The picture is very good I enlarge it and read the fine print on the board

[VitalComputing]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

Hey Sam, I guess the only thing I am missing is the text on the ICs. I will play with the lighting and see if I can get that any better. This would be one of the bigger boards that I deal with so the smaller boards should be even easier to capture.

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: Taking Pictures Of Large Circuit Boards

One trick you can do is positioned your camera and lighting a certain way to capture the text on a ic chip that is hard to read