On 27/03/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I went to the V&A last week and took photos of everything I could, which I really should upload some time sooner rather than later. In fact, I want a better camera for low light just to do the V&A.
Their photo policy is "feel free", just don't use a flash and don't be a nuisance. There are a limited number of exhibitions they ask for no photography in (there's the Design in China one at the moment, for example), but mostly you can take pics of anything.
So - apart from those of you with cameras that are good in low light photographing every damn thing to be found in the entire V&A ...
The next generation of high end point and shoots may include an increasing number of low light features (well they will if the manufacturers decide that 12 mega pixels is enough for now).
- Do we have a list of photographer-friendly museums?
The various national museums (science museum, Natural history museum, Fort nelson etc)
Pit rivers (although the light levels there mean that you may not be able to do very much)
Never run across issues with English heritage
County museums vary
The biggest problem from our POV is the national trust. Not only do you need permission to take photos but their permission system suffers from being over centralised with the result that the closest description they can get to the average wikipedian photographer appears to be freelance. In cases like this to make working through the system worthwhile you would really need a group of people looking to take photos.
Is it possible to get a Image Department together, so the average wikipedian becomes a nonprofit photographer?
geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: On 27/03/2008, David Gerard wrote:
I went to the V&A last week and took photos of everything I could, which I really should upload some time sooner rather than later. In fact, I want a better camera for low light just to do the V&A.
Their photo policy is "feel free", just don't use a flash and don't be a nuisance. There are a limited number of exhibitions they ask for no photography in (there's the Design in China one at the moment, for example), but mostly you can take pics of anything.
So - apart from those of you with cameras that are good in low light photographing every damn thing to be found in the entire V&A ...
The next generation of high end point and shoots may include an increasing number of low light features (well they will if the manufacturers decide that 12 mega pixels is enough for now).
- Do we have a list of photographer-friendly museums?
The various national museums (science museum, Natural history museum, Fort nelson etc)
Pit rivers (although the light levels there mean that you may not be able to do very much)
Never run across issues with English heritage
County museums vary
The biggest problem from our POV is the national trust. Not only do you need permission to take photos but their permission system suffers from being over centralised with the result that the closest description they can get to the average wikipedian photographer appears to be freelance. In cases like this to make working through the system worthwhile you would really need a group of people looking to take photos.
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 1:12 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
The next generation of high end point and shoots may include an increasing number of low light features (well they will if the manufacturers decide that 12 mega pixels is enough for now).
Forgive me for rolling my eyes on that one. Except for Fuji (and even that in a limited way), every time the p&s camera makers are faced with a choice between more megapixels and better image quality, the megapixels win. It's been that way for at least the last five years; however, in going beyond 10 megapixels, we seem to have reached a point where there is no longer even a little real benefit to greater megapixels; there's none at all. No real extra resolution is being produced.
I'd like to see it, but I don't see it happening.
Heck, it happened even in DSLRs; everyone except Canon suffered worse performance in bad light going above 6MP. The Nikon D3 is an exception, of course, and the new Sony 12MP sensor appears to be much better, but things really took a dip for a while.
-Matt
On 27/03/2008, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 1:12 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
The next generation of high end point and shoots may include an increasing number of low light features (well they will if the manufacturers decide that 12 mega pixels is enough for now).
Forgive me for rolling my eyes on that one. Except for Fuji (and even that in a limited way), every time the p&s camera makers are faced with a choice between more megapixels and better image quality, the megapixels win.
With Fuji, between the spectacularly good F31fd and its mediocre replacement the F50fd, even Fuji fell afoul of that one. The F50fd is 12MP instead of 6MP and ... has the same functional resolution of image. And worse low-light performance. There's a reason second-hand F31fd on eBay are now going for around £200 on eBay when they were £150 new.
I'm likely to try to get myself a superzoom, which at least has a bigger light bucket on the front even if the sensor is the same as the compacts and ultracompacts. Even old DSLRs still hold their price annoyingly well.
I'm assuming a tripod will be considered excessively annoying behaviour if one uses it on every damn thing in the place. But they observably have no issues with people wandering around snapping everything they can. Lots of people had their cameras there doing just as I was, and only a few were boorish to use the flash.
- d.
It's been that way for at least the last five years; however, in going beyond 10 megapixels, we seem to have reached a point where there is no longer even a little real benefit to greater megapixels; there's none at all. No real extra resolution is being produced.
I'd like to see it, but I don't see it happening.
Heck, it happened even in DSLRs; everyone except Canon suffered worse performance in bad light going above 6MP. The Nikon D3 is an exception, of course, and the new Sony 12MP sensor appears to be much better, but things really took a dip for a while.
-Matt
Commons-l mailing list Commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
On 27/03/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm assuming a tripod will be considered excessively annoying behaviour if one uses it on every damn thing in the place.
Most ban them outright.
See
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Museum_photography
On 27/03/2008, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/03/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm assuming a tripod will be considered excessively annoying behaviour if one uses it on every damn thing in the place.
Most ban them outright. See http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Museum_photography
I'm not surprised. Tourists taking photos are one thing, tripods are even more annoying than people.
- d.
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 6:37 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Museum_photography I'm not surprised. Tourists taking photos are one thing, tripods are even more annoying than people.
- d.
I think a tripod would only work if you make arrangements and get permission. I suspect some places would let you come before it opens to the public for the day, with prior arrangements. Some sort of Wikimedia identification would help to be granted permission and you would need to fill out a form.
Probably don't need to mention, but it helps to show up looking professional, with a good camera and wearing business casual or something, rather than look like you are a tourist a on vacation.
Thursday, 27 March 2008, David Gerard wrote:
On 27/03/2008, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Most ban them outright. See http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Museum_photography
I'm not surprised. Tourists taking photos are one thing, tripods are even more annoying than people.
That's an understandable stance. People tripping over your tripod could become a liability issue if the venue were aware of your use of it. Monopods reduce this risk by having a smaller footprint, so ask about it, but don't be surprised if they haven't considered it and take the same stance there as for tripods "just to be safe."
It's nice to hear a few positive anecdotes about photography policies for a change, by the way.
On 27/03/2008, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 1:12 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
The next generation of high end point and shoots may include an increasing number of low light features (well they will if the manufacturers decide that 12 mega pixels is enough for now).
Forgive me for rolling my eyes on that one. Except for Fuji (and even that in a limited way), every time the p&s camera makers are faced with a choice between more megapixels and better image quality, the megapixels win. It's been that way for at least the last five years; however, in going beyond 10 megapixels, we seem to have reached a point where there is no longer even a little real benefit to greater megapixels; there's none at all. No real extra resolution is being produced.
I'd like to see it, but I don't see it happening.
We've reached the point where the resolution matches the theoretical resolution of film and the images are getting so big in terms of megabytes they are becoming tricky to handle.
Commons throws up warnings at 5 meg.
Back to the original topic Fort nelson doesn't have a problem with pics. Evidences:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Royal_Armouries_at_Fort_Nelson
(there will be more when I get around to uploading them.