Tripont at the National Photo Archive

Tripont has been present on the Hungarian photo and video technology market for more than 25 years. As the Hungarian ambassador of the Phase One camera system, it can use the medium-format camera to produce digital reproductions of flat objects, transparent materials and 3D captures. In June 2021 the National Photo Archive (Nemzeti Fotótár), which is also one of the largest press photo archives in Central Europe, and Tripont launched a joint pilot project. During the project Tripont’s digitisation specialists helped the staff of the National Photo Archive with the use of the camera system. The Photo Archive’s holdings consist of nearly 13 million items of analogue raw material, captions and reportage books. The collection was raised to the status of a protected museum collection in 1993; it includes the Photo Archive of Magyar Televízió, with nearly one million photographic negatives, and the photographic material created after 2001.

The Phase One iXG 100 or iXH 150 megapixel camera, with the Rodenstock lenses designed for it, provides its user with a perfectly suitable tool even for digitising flat objects that seem impossible. In a single capture the camera can digitise A/0-sized flat objects. The camera system includes the Capture One CH (Cultural Heritage) software, which makes possible efficient, fast and, not least, precise post-processing of the images made with the camera. The device goes beyond the strictest museum-technology standards.

In the first half of the joint work, using the Phase One camera system, Tripont’s specialists digitised 1,550 nitrocellulose negatives, and in the second half of the cooperation other types of media from the Photo Archive came under the camera’s focus.

The Phase One IXG is revolutionising flat-object digitisation in Hungary, as it offers hitherto unseen possibilities to those working in the museum and archive sector. By using the camera, MTVA plans in future to process 20,000 photographs a month.