I am doing a similar project. I do use a copy stand but I have used a tripod in the past. As was noted. make everything as square as possible. Use the appropriate lens to fill the viewfinder at the distance you are using. Use a relatively small aperature to keep things in focus. I focus and and check the alignment using the fold up screen on the back of the camera - live view (SLR) or normal view mirrorless. Then use the magnifier feature and focus peaking to get the focus perfect. Once set up doing a number of pages is relatively painless. I tend to use room light. Care is needed to avoid reflections.

I have 2 LED work lights 1000 Lumens each that I was going to use at 45 degree angles but opted for the small Canon 270 EX II flash, mounted on the 5D III that I have. It does the job quite well. Once you get it set up you just flip the page and take the picture. As my records start in 1845 there are literally thousands of pages and I am almost done. I did make a mistake on the first batch shooting at F4, now I shoot at F11, 1/125 sec, which is working quite well for me. Good luck on whatever you choose.

Well now, I can tell you that what you want to do is a significant, but not impossible task. I recently finished doing something similar with a scrap book my mom put together regarding my dad during WWII. I am what I'll describe as an advanced amateur photographer and I ditched my full frame Nikon D750 for a Fuji XPro-3 camera. I honestly think nearly any interchangeable lens camera will work and you will need to experiment with which lens is the appropriate focal length. I didn't use any special lens, but I would caution to stay away from shooting wide open (i.e. 1.8, etc) as some of the page may not be sharp.

The problem I faced was that the pages of my scrap book didn't fit on my Epson V850 scanner. In most cases what wouldn't fit was blank page so I was still able to scan. But, there were many pages that I couldn't scan as there was content that would be missed. I tried many different options to include using a tripod-mounted camera. The main problems I encountered were getting the pages aligned with the camera lens and lighting. I finally purchased a Glide Gear OH100 Professional Metal Overhead Table Top Mount Stand from Amazon for about $200 and lit the pages with a HAVOX professional photo studio box that I already had. At that point I had a workable solution but also a significant investment, even if you don't count the scanner. The problem that I had to deal with on every page I photographed was lighting, even with the photo studio box. I'm thinking natural lighting would be good, but I just don't have anywhere in my house that is appropriate.

Please note that it is my opinion that you don't need a very expensive scanner such as the V850, but the bundled software sure did help with fixing defects as I scanned the pages. I also had to do a bit of post processing (I used Capture One). Believe it or not, the main challenge I had was keeping all of the scans and photographs in order. The solution I landed on was taking a quick and dirty page-by-page photo, and that sure helped! I also backed up all of my work on Dropbox after each work session.

My project now sits on Mix Book's web site waiting for one final review. I will print it some day soon. Good luck!

I have used Shutterfly for several books. I usually get the 11x14 with max pages and design with individual prints. Usually 6 or so prints per page. Most of the time I use black background.

Once finished with design I wait for a sale of 50% off and unlimited free pages and free shipping. The cost is somewhere around $40 per book. Last book I made was of our family thanksgivings from 1990 to 2020. It showed the growth (aging) of both the people (kids) and family. When I finished the book I made it available to all family members and told them to wait for a sale and what sale to look for. Of course they didn’t have to wait and a couple didn’t. They could/can view on Shutterfly website and not print at all. We did buy one for each of our kids and for my mother in law. The aunts, uncles, cousins were on their own.

If your scrapbook is individual photos it would probably work best if you can scan/photograph each individual photo at a high resolution.

Anyway. Good luck with this project.

Chuck

I've done this many times. You don't need a macro lens, though I have used mine often. Just get the set-up as square as you can and shoot under an adequate and steady light source. Look at the photo on your monitor and tweak the exposure, (having the camera set on manual!). When you get it right for one page, it will be right for all of the pages. Even 6mb jpegs will be sufficient, no need to go whole-hog full res, as these photos will not be for big blow-up wall hangers; just fond memories. Put the photos in a digital folder and send the folder to all of your relatives. They can manage the images as they please, that way the entire project costs you an afternoon's work, and them however much they want to spend on having their own photo book made or whatever.

1. Perhaps it is possible to rent a large format scanner for a lower price.

2. My Olympus cameras allow me to make 80MP images which will allow for preservation of details. The resolution from a scanner can be higher but is probably not necessary. Indeed you only need adequate resolution to make life size reproductions of the pages.

3. You will need a copy stand of adequate size although a wall can be pressed into service if you can secure the pages to the wall. I have a artists easel that can be made completely vertical. I have used this to copy paintings. Lights arranged for copying are also necessary

4. A macro lens may be required for copying. Macro lenses have almost no pincushion or barrel distortion. I would check your 85mm lens to see how bad the distortion is when copying a flat object. You can use use an extension tube if necessary.

5. Once you have made a press quality pdf using Adobe Acrobat you may find that Lulu.com is a good choice. Lulu can publish in a variety of formats or you can distribute the pdf yourself.

Instead of a physical book for your relatives/friends, perhaps give them a digital photo frame and a thumb drive with all the photos in JPG format. Less expensive than a book. I have a NIX photo frame for many years now, and run a continuous loop of about 700 pictures at 5 seconds each (the time for each can be selected by user). I also have it set to shut off if no motion in front of the photo frame for 5 minutes. When someone walks by, it recognizes the motion and turns itself on again. I also have it set to go OFF during nighttime sleeping hours.

See: https://www.nixplay.com/

There are other manufacturers of photo frames, but in my research, I believe that NIX is the best quality.

I am in the process of copying minute books of our Lodge that date back to 1845. The size of the open book is 12" x 16". I am using a Canon 5D III and 24mm -105mm L lens on a tripod with camera slung beneath. The distance from the book to the camera lens is about 13". I tethered the camera in Lightroom to take the pictures using a small Canon 270EX II flash, then crop them in Photoshop CS6 to the page size. I haven't printed any, but see no reason why I couldn't. This is so I have a backup of the records and I will give flash drive copies to several members as security. Copy stand and Macro lens may be better, but this setup works very well for me.

You could give family members each a printable digital copy, preferably a PDF.

They can enjoy it on-screen or they can pay their vendor of choice to print all or part of the book. Maybe some will choose a certain special page as a poster print and enjoy the rest digitally. Just one example of why not to print a whole book for other than yourself. It’s even cheaper to give some members a tablet than a paper copy if they need a PDF reader.

BTW if the original is a typical black page scrap book, you need to alter that background to just a pale texture (ghosted wood grain ?) or else the printer will consume enormous amounts of black ink, and heavily inked areas can also locally warp the printed page.