Originally posted on July 28, 2011 by Canicus

Today I visited the Vatican Museum. There is too much to see there in one day. While they obviously allow photography in much of the museum–even areas where Renaissance frescos could be harmed by thousands of flash cameras (and some were using flash cameras). But photography is apparently not allowed in the Sistine Chapel. It is too dark to take pictures in there anyway without a tripod.

The museum was quite crowded. Most of the people I have encountered have been courteous. The first day in Rome a lady tried to help me find my hotel (even though she was clueless). And a gentleman offered to carry my suitcase up some stairs. There seems to be a universal courtesy that when someone sees someone else trying to take a picture to step away or not walk in front of the camera. Today I met the first couple who were totally out of it. I was trying to take a picture of a statute in the museum and they were standing directly in front of it discussing what their tour guide book said. They were not looking at the statute at all. Both looked directly at me standing there with my camera poised to take a picture. But they went on discussing whatever (obviously not the statute). After several minutes of this waiting for them to move, I finally had to ask them to move to the side so I could take the picture.

Before visiting the museum I did spend some time in the plaza in front of St. Peter’s. I had lugged a couple of special camera lenses that I thought would be fun. One is called a “horizontal fisheye.” The fisheye lenses have a 180° field of view. There are two types: 1) circular which appears on the “film” as a circular image which is essentially a “hemisphere view” and 2) horizontal which fills the entire “film” with an image which is a little less distorted and less than a full hemisphere view–particularly the vertical axis. Because of the layout of the plaza I thought using that lens would be fun. It was. The other lens is an extreme wide angle lens (10 mm to be exact) which produces a less distorted image which is not a full 180° field of view.

I am having a great deal of difficulty getting the slide shows done with Photoshop on the laptop. It seems to want to search everything–even though I have narrowed down what I want to put into the album. I think I finally managed to get the few good shots from yesterday done and up on the website. But I think I wait to put up the today and the rest of my stay until I return to Dallas. If nothing else, I will be able to work on them at a desk instead of my suitcase on the only chair as I sit on the bed.

It doesn’t look like I am going to make it to Naples and points south or the Venice. Rome has kept me pretty busy. I think I may return when finances permit, but make Naples the base. Trying to deal with the reservations (not the trains, but the reservations) here in Rome is too much.