Cruse GmbH Digital copy stand scanner, designed by Hermann-A Cruse.

Cruse GmbH is a German company so you get German engineering. Kurt Ernst heads their USA office. View at the PMA trade show, Orlando. They also exhibit at Photokina, Cologne, Germany and other leading international trade shows. Contact: Mike Lind, [email protected] (for years the sales and installation outlet for this company) and/or Kurt Ernst, [email protected] (managing director of USA office of Cruse GmbH of Germany)
	This is the ZBE Satellite. The lights are from Videssence (based on standard lighting for a TV studio). Scan back is from PhaseOne, which unfortunately came in behind at PMA jury rating (BetterLight came in first two years in a row). Note that the ZBE is components, not a system. The FLAAR photo crew spent three years researching reprographic stand (copy stand) systems at PhotoKina, DRUPA, Seybold, PMA and other tradeshows. We concluded with selecting the Cruse system.
Close up of the Cruse digital system showing both potential light systems. The patented synchron lighting system is at the level of the painting. The alternative raised lighting is above. Sometimes you want to capture raised relieve which requires a light at this level. Of course there is an identical raised light on the other side. The synchron, in distinction, travels across the painting. The scan is taken through the open space down the middle of the synchron unit.

FLAAR does photography for two museums on our university campus. Actually FLAAR has been doing photography of rare and fragile antiquities for thirty years in museums in Japan, Switzerland, Germany, England, throughout Mexico and across the USA. Based on our experiences we recommend the Cruse digital scanner system for universities and museums.

Shortly we will evaluate the Cruse system for photographing rare books. Here it's a real advantage that this is a German-designed and German-made system. Europeans know how to preserve rare books for centuries. Europeans have much higher standards for preservation.

FLAAR editor Dr Nicholas Hellmuth has a background in this since his PhD is from Karl-Franszen Universitaet, Graz, Austria. He is one of the leading archaeological photographers in the world. National Geographic has published his photographs on Mayan antiquities.

So he would not select the Cruse digital system if there was anything better anywhere else.

Cruse reprographic scanner, the most accurate digital camera for recording fine art or actually any object under 4 inches in depth, at dimensions of 36 x 48 and above (many larger models available).
Here we see the Cruse synchron table model in the FLAAR area of Siggraph tradeshow '03 (Guerilla Studio).

The reason Dr Hellmuth recommends this brand of reprographic digital camera is because he has personal experience using it. FLAAR has a larger and different model at Bowling Green State University. For scanning fine art paintings to reproduce as giclee, for scanning textiles (or maps, old photos, books), this is an indispensible partner.

Most recently updated Jan. 15, 2002.