Photographs of Church Interiors in Italy

mjruffus,

Interesting question..... Normally the best place to get Postcards is AT the site, but it sounds like that wasn't an option at the Frari Church. As I recall, there were LOTS of postcards and other items for sale in the gift shop at the Basilica of St. Francis.

The Frari Church has an "images" section but I couldn't find a gift shop on the website. The Basilica of St. Francis does have an online gift shop (appears to be only in Italian), but I wasn't able to find any Postcards on it.

I don't know of any websites for downloading images. Given the rules against no photos, it's unlikely there will be many pictures in Flicker or other websites (although it wouldn't hurt to look).

I also try to respect the "no photos" rule when there are signs posted, but when I was at the Basilica of St. Francis in June, there were LOTS of people that were ignoring the rule. The Priest finally got up on the Pulpit and told everyone to CLOSE THEIR CAMERAS, and that seemed to achieve the desired result.

Good luck!

I am not sure if its what you are looking for but I ordered a few pictures from the Frari Church a couple years ago from art.com

I thought you were going to raise a different question about photos in churches. I was in Italy just recently, and along with churches that allowed no photos at all, as you mention, there were other churches and other sites that did allow photos, but only without flash. I had a good quality but very small digital camera, and found that inside, without flash, I could not pick up anything at all, just black or nearly just black. Yet all around me were people having no problem taking well-exposed photos without any flash on their smart phones and iPads with cameras. I did not have any of those with me. I was kind of surprised they could do so well. I looked into that once I got home, and was told that smart phones, iPads and such were all designed with the idea that they would be used in many low light situations, and also, they had computers in them. My camera was designed to use the flash in those situations and did not have so much of a computer inside it. You can be sure that I will be upgrading before my next trip.

@Larry,

The experience you describe is one of the main reasons I always pack along a cumbersome DSLR Camera. It provides a LOT more flexibility for a wide variety of situations, including low light. In my experience, photos taken with a Smartphone in low light conditions are possible, but they're often quite "grainy" and the quality is not always too good. Low light pictures with moving subjects seems to be a REALLY difficult situation for Smartphone Cameras.

Cheers!

On our recent trip I determined to pack light. Resisting temptation to carry a better (read: larger and heavier) camera, I took only a pocket-sized point-and-shoot, my iPhone, and a GoPro Hero 2.

The tiny GoPro takes decent extreme-wide-angle stills (nice for interiors), and if placed on a flat surface it can do a creditable job in low light.

Examples:

Kloster Marienmünster, Dießen am Ammersee, Germany

Church of San Stefano, Assisi

The Pantheon, Rome

@Jeff,

Nice pictures! That's somewhat of a "fish eye" view, so really is an extreme wide-angle. I use a wide angle Lens on my DSLR to cover a similar range.

I've been looking at the GoPro Cameras to see whether that might be a good option to add to my camera kit, but haven't really made any decisions yet.

Jeff, those are great shots, but I agree with Ken that they are all quite fish-eye. Did you just share those particular photos to demonstrate the widest angle, or is the camera limited to wide angle? If possible, could you share also some non-fish-eye photos? Thanks!

You may be able to get photos of the churches on Pinterest. They have tons of photos of everything and all sorts of churches in Italy. You can print the photos out.

Pinterest is a great source to find photos of anything you want to see and excellent source to see photos of places you want to travel to.

I agree with Ken that they are all quite fish-eye.
Did you just share those particular photos to demonstrate
the widest angle, or is the camera limited to wide angle?

Mine is the older "Hero 2" model, with only one setting for stills. For video it has the option of wide angle (170°) or medium (127°) field of view. I don't even have the optional LCD viewfinder, but with such a wide field of view you just aim it in the general direction and be assured you'll get what you want; then straighten and crop in the computer later.

The newer "Hero 3+" has two field-of-view settings for stills, "wide" and "medium".

Yes, it is very limited and certainly cannot replace a capable full-size camera. But for its size (1.6” x 2.4” x 1.2”) and weight it does a nice job. I'll accept a little fish-eye to get the expansive Pantheon interior in one frame.

This video compiles video footage and stills from both the GoPro and my little Samsung point-and-shoot. Years ago I lugged heavy cases of camera gear to Europe; now I have multiple still and video cameras in my pocket. Wow.

@Jeff,

Your video was nicely done. I was also in Assisi this year, and it was great to see those familiar sights again.

I hope you don't mind a few questions....

• How did you carry the GoPro when you were walking?
• Are they equipped with image stabilization?
• What type of software did you use to put the video together?

I have been getting a few videos on every trip, but so far I'm just using my P&S Camera, which produces reasonably good results. However, I really like the HD images on the GoPro so it's probably only a matter of time before I buy one.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the kind words. In answer to your questions:

-- I just carried the GoPro in my hand at belt level, as smoothly and inconspicuously as possible. There's no viewfinder and no playback feature, so I didn't know what I had until I got home (I could at least look at the GoPro's still photos by connecting the memory card to the iPad). The result of the "walking videos" wasn't as smooth as I would have liked, but they preserve some memories and complement my still photos.

-- As far as I know, none of the GoPros have image stabilization, but external stabilizer mounts are available.

-- The video was edited with iMovie on a Mac -- very basic.

Try the Web Gallery of Art on-line http://www.wga.hu/index1.html. I just used the search function, putting in the full name of the Frari Church (santa maria gloriosa dei frari) , and got 69 images, though many are duplicates. I'm not a techie, but I've been able to copy images from this website to Word documents for private use.

Thanks to everyone for suggestions. Will follow up later today. I did have good luck by going to the images tab on bing and found interior pictures with good pixle size photos for just about every church except the "Frari". Tjanks again to everyone who answered my plea