Basic Photography Tips; Taking Pictures in a Museum

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Taking pictures in museums can be challenging for the photographer. There are some restrictions for the equipment that you can use in museums also limitations which art-work can or can not be photographed. In most museums cameras are allowed in (depends on country), but you are not allowed to use flash because of the possible damage to the works of art. Also tripods are not allowed in most museums, which is another problem, because of the low light in the museum, it is hard to take pictures without a tripod. But in some museums you can take pictures with tripod in certain days of the week by taking permission from the officials. You should ask about the policy about photography equipment allowed in to the museum to the information center or information kiosk of the museum. Also don’t forget to ask if there’s any art-works that are prohibited to be photographed before starting to take pictures.

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So we are not allowed to use flash, tripod and the light is not enough to take sharp pictures in the museum. Since we have to take pictures by holding the camera in our hands, we should look forward to find a way to increase shutter speed in order to prevent any camera shakes and blurry images. However it will create images with high grain we should use a fast film with a high ISO speed (If you have a DSLR increase the ISO speed) like ISO 1600 and higher values. For example in “Metropolitan Museum of Art” of New York City light was not enough to take pictures with ISO1600 and f/3.5 in some rooms. So increasing the ISO value sometimes is not enough to get the results we want. Try decreasing the f value as low as you can, f/3.5 , f/2.8 etc. this will increase the amount of light that enter into your camera and allow you to take pictures faster with faster shutter speed. If this is not enough there’s not much thing you can do. But you can try taking pictures at -1 exposure level. If you are using you camera in shutter priority or aperture priority modes, you can set the desired exposure level with the help of a bar in the digital screen of your camera or from the menu of your camera. If you don’t know how to to it read the manual of your camera. If you are taking pictures in manual mode you can just do it manually, (increasing the shutter speed to a level that you won’t shake the camera). This will cause your pictures to be darker than normal, but you can increase the level of exposure after you download the pictures to your computer. But i strongly recommend to take pictures in RAW so when you increase exposure level in your pc the level of corruption will be lesser.

One last thing don’t forget to bring a polarizer filter with you. It is really important to take pictures in museum. If you don’t have a polarizer filter, buy one. A polarizer filter prevents the unnecessary reflections caused by glass or liquid surfaces. This ability of the filter will help you photography the art-works behind the glass showcases. To learn more about filters read; Filters