Means for photographically copying book pages

Claim 1

Optical projection apparatus for use in photographically copying an image of a whole page of a book comprising: a. a casing having rectilinear side panels and a light source therein; b. a regular 45* -45* prism supported between the side panels of said casing and positioned therein; c. the edge of the prism formed by the intersection between its larger side face and one of the smaller side faces, facing upwardly to support a book with its spine extending along said edge and said whole page of said book in contact with said one of the smaller side faces and further positioned generally above said light and oriented with respect to said light source so that the page to be copied is illuminated and an image of said page is directed inwardly toward the larger face and reflected therefrom and out through the other smaller face; d. a plane reflecting mirror located below said prism with the plane of said mirror being at an angle to the larger side face of said prism, whereby, with the casing in the upright position, said mirror and said larger side face both lie at an angle to the horizontal; e. said mirror defining a reflecting surface which transmits a natural image of said whole page to be copied as a result of the reflection of the light from the inner surface of said larger side face, said inner larger side face surface reflecting a reverse image as the incident image to said mirror reflecting surface; and, f. photographic copying means along the optical axis of said reflected beam from said mirror.