We leave Thursday (Yippppppeee) for Rome, Florence, Venice & Tuscany. I am in process of getting my camera and film together. Can you tell me if photos and/or flash are allowed in such places as the Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, Accademia, Doge's Palace, etc? I am trying to figure out how much and what speed film to bring. Also, any recs for 1 hour, or quicky developing spots along the way? Grazie for all the advice thus far! I feel prepared for this trip thanks to all on this website.
Deb
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Posts: 24 | Location: Albuquerque,NM USA | Registered: 03 June 2003
I don't know about the places you mentioned in Rome, but no photos are allowed at the Uffizi, the Accademia, or the Doge's Palace, with or without flash.
Posts: 779 | Location: Birch Bay, WA | Registered: 02 December 2002
Museums vary greatly in permission to take pictures; rule of thumb, with the prominent exception of the Vatican, is that the larger and more famous the museum, the less likely they are to allow it. Flash tends to be forbidden wherever there are painted surfaces (and -- I speak as a victim of my flash here -- if permitted, flash is very difficult to use for oil paintings). You are far better off using a tripod and taking a long exposure if at all possible.
Often a museum's main source of revenue will be the rights to photographic reproduction; so even a small museum or a church, if it has signed a contract with someone, will forbid photography. (They then usually say that it's because flash damages frescoes, etc.)
Sistine Chapel is quite forbidden (pretty much the only exception to the Vatican rule), and to some extent enforced, at least to the extent one can control a buzzing mob of tourists wall to wall. They have a contract with Fuji, who paid for the restoration -- in exchange for reproduction rights.
I would strongly urge you patience: do not take beautiful photos and spoil them by going to a quickie developer! Your photos will suffer irretrievably, since the actual negative can only be developed once, and 1-hr. places do not do a good job.
And then you can always go to Tolentino, where I was amazed to find that the good Fathers not only permit, but encourage photography (in the best traditions of the scholarly Augustinian order, for which the sharing of knowledge is paramount) --
quote:Originally posted by Bill Thayer: Flash tends to be forbidden wherever there are painted surfaces (and -- I speak as a victim of my flash here -- if permitted, flash is very difficult to use for oil paintings).
I am a poor photographer with a sorry plastic thing as camera. As most of us, when at a museum I often wish to take that picture 8statue etc.) with me, but neither my skill nor my equipent are fit to the task, My own soution is to buy a few postcards. Such postcards even find a permanent place in my photo albums ^_^;;;
Alice Twain -- Te recuerdo Amanda / la calle mojada / corriendo a la fabrica / donde trabajaba Manuel La sonrisa ancha / la lluvia en el pelo / no emportava nada / ibas a encontrarte con el Ese cinco menudos / la vita es eterna en cinco menudos Victor Jara
Bill is right....save the photo processing for when you get home, and then go to a high-quality photo finisher. Don't use the one-hour joints, and don't take a chance anywhere with your precious negatives or slides.
Flash is forbidden almost everywhere, and even tripods are a no-no most of the time. In fact, you're not even supposed to use a tripod in the Roman Forum, although they'll let you tote it around if you want to.
The no-tripod rule isn't always enforced, though. A couple of years ago I set my camera up right in front of one of the entrance booths and carefully composed a photograph,then made several "insurance" shots just to be safe. Finally, as I folded my tripod to move on, the woman in the booth shook her finger at me and said "no tripode." I was properly contrite, said "mi scusi" in my best tourist-Italian, and we were both satisfied!
Posts: 215 | Location: Spokane | Registered: 10 June 2002
One more thing....be sure to carry your undeveloped film, both going and coming, in your carry-on, not your stowed luggage. Nowadays they use very powerful scanning equipment that will seriously fog your film, especially if it's the faster speed variety.
Posts: 215 | Location: Spokane | Registered: 10 June 2002
quote:Bill, I was thinking of processing some of my film as I go. You don't recommend that in Florence or Rome?
Definitely not, at least not in a 1-hour place: the processing machines make for grainier and foggier pictures, and are more prone to registration and cropping errors. Now if you go to a good developer, which need not take a week by any means, it's a different story altogether: Italian photo developing in my experience tends to be better than American.
If you have lots of film, those prints will weigh something and take up luggage space. As a result of believing in a very good Italian developer I had, I've struggled twice with a single Suitcase weighing nearly 130 pounds; in fact, each time, I had to buy the suitcase first....
As soon as digital gets really good (and it seems to be on the verge: even the Kodak Corporation believes that, judging from their financial news last week) all this will be a thing of the past, of course.
Not to worry about photos: you will have quite enough of them, and like Alice says, for most purposes -- certainly for remembering your trip -- postcards are better than what we take.
Among the types of photos you'll have no problem in taking, outdoors pictures of churches; this one is a bit of the roof of the Duomo of Milan: what passes for a human-interest shot with me, since there's a person in it.
Bill. This is a fantastic picture. It would make a very difficult jigsaw puzzle, don't you think? By the way, is this one of your famous tricks? Because I think I see TWO people here.
Deborah Horn
In a previous life I was an Umbrian sunflower farmer. I'd like to do a past life regression and stay there. ----------------------------------- www.petsburg.com
Posts: 4997 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: 04 September 2001
Hi Deborah! Yes, it would make a very nice jigsaw puzzle, and a few years ago I actually went to one of the big jigsaw puzzle companies but they immediately sent me back the print, saying that for reasons of self-protection they only accept material submitted thru an agent.
Asfer 2 people, I have a feeling my own little donkey's tail is being pulled.... I see only one -- the greyish person in the unnatural posture between the 2d and 3d crockets from the right pillar can't help it poor dear, she's made of stone.
Deborah - I saw the statue, then your post made me look closer ... until I found the human!
Bill, My local photo place will transform photos into one-off jigsaw puzzles; I'm sure other developers offer the same if you're interested. (Until you get an agent, I suppose!) Beautiful photo, Bill. Milan's Duomo is one of my favorites, and the ability to climb amongst its spires is an added attraction.
Posts: 14209 | Location: The Beautiful San Francisco Bay Area | Registered: 06 August 2001
And here I thought she was posing just for your camera! OK, time to find Bill an agent.
Deborah Horn
In a previous life I was an Umbrian sunflower farmer. I'd like to do a past life regression and stay there. ----------------------------------- www.petsburg.com
Posts: 4997 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: 04 September 2001
As a long time film photographer, I took my time and finally decided that the Nikon coolpix 990 was worthy of trying out (Time magazine gave it their award of the year a couple yrs ago). To my surprise this 3 megapixel camera delivered superior prints to my daughter's film Pentax camera. These days most 3 megapixel cameras will deliver excellent prints to 8 x 10 size and beyond. Get with it, buy a good digital camera. Costco delivers supurb digital prints for 19 cents. You can take your little storage card to one of the camera or internet sites overseas & they will put the images to a CD disk in most larger cities. Not to worry then about the image quality loss during passages thru scanners. Also, by the way, I just returned from Italy & they will NOT let you carry your film thru--it MUST go thru the scanners!! Also remember that the damage accumulates with each pass thru the scanner & the higher the film speed the greater the risk.
GO digital, film is dying fast. Digital has improved to the point that it is now nearly equal... & better is some areas, in fact.
Posts: 10 | Location: BELLEVUE, Wa USA | Registered: 21 August 2003
I will make the same arguement with Digital pics as I will with digital music. It is not digital inherently is not as good as analogue, but that the sampling rate is too small to get the details right. I have gone thru many a pro photographers albums taken with digital and film both and my accuracy of picking out which is which is near 100%. I have done AB testing of CD's and Albums on the same system with a high quality turntable and a higher priced CD player and the musicality of the album is evident.
I have a negative scanner for my film camera. It takes a 35mm negative and scans it into a 65 meg file. That is a full 10 times larger then the largest available file you can get right now. Digital prints leave out 90% of the information and thus are about 1/3 as detailed.
Digital has great features and convenience. But to say that it is better just cannot be supported by the science behind the process.
Of course if the issue is a medium or poor quality source in the analogue world (ie a low to medium quality camera or sound system), then the digital can easily be better as quality is cheaper in the digital world up to the level of medium quality. That is a Nikon Coolpix is almost as capable as a Nikon D1 for about a third to half of the price.
Raw files from my digital camera are 63.2 MB. I have a bunch of very high end film cameras (35mm and medium format) with many complementary lenses that I haven't used since my first digital camera two years ago. I like the idea of being able to print my own photos rather than having to send them out.
Peter
Posts: 1364 | Location: Essex Fells, NJ and Longboat Key, Florida | Registered: 21 July 2002
I'm with Dean; yes, it's been the sampling rate. For Web use, digital is starting to be pretty good at 3 megapixels; for publication, less sure. (On the side, I'm puzzled why a roughly 3-megapixel file should be 63MB raw size?? The raw scans for the pix on my site, around 2 megapixels, weigh in at just over 6MB; with the average actual JPG onsite at 210,000 pixels, a tenfold reduction.)
But all this is a matter of at most 18 months; the general principle is there: if Kodak itself is ditching film, it's about time for the rest of us. Speed, versatility, editability, portability, storage, you name it.
Ah. At 11 megapixels, that ought to be good enough for most anything. (A rule of three here still has me wondering a bit, since I seem to need only 3 bytes per pixel -- but wondering much less.) I'm guess you're happy with your camera: feel free to name a brand for this interested listener...
Ah, if you are REALLY serious about photography, AND want to go digital (sort of), then consider a FOVEON camera.
The Foveon chip is actually an analog interface, and was developed by Dr. Carver Mead, one of the main players with National Semiconductor (NSM). As a result, NSM owns a big chunk of Foveon.
Currently, you find it in (some) professional cameras, but once the major camera producers get off the dime and realize the vast potential with Foveon, the price will come down drastically, and it will begin to appear in consumer cameras.
Topic Closed
Because I think I see TWO people here.
