Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. And so it is with the Modahaus Steady Stand 200, a kind of combination light-box and camera support for shooting top-down pictures of... anything.
The Steady Stand holds your camera or cellphone 200mm (almost eight inches) above the desktop, and does it on a structure of white translucent plastic. Not only does this thin material fold down for storage and transport, it also diffuses light for soft illumination, while eliminating shadows. It also holds the camera square over the subject or object below.
The most obvious use for the Modahaus stand is turning your cellphone into a scanner of for use with a variety of apps that will turn the printed page into a fully OCRed e-book.
The Steady Stand comes packed with an embarrassment of accessories, all made from the same plastic material. There's a large white baseboard to give a clean background, anti-reflection plates to eliminate highlights on shiny objects, a range of adapters with lens-holes to fit compact cameras and cellphones, and a "smart wallet" to carry it all.
You might also swap in the optional colored seamless backgrounds to photograph your trinkets, but for me this looks like a very cheap alternative to something like the Doxie Go scanner. The Steady Steady 200 is available now for £30 ($47).
Modahaus Steady Stand 200 [Modahaus]
