Great Way to Spend a Cold Spring Day .....

[mojalajab]

One of the few perks of living in the Northeast! There was me and about a handful of others with the entire museum to ourselves. Some mighty fine Garands on display.

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[U.S.G.I.]

Got any pictures you can post?

[musketjon]

I was there in June 2001. There was me, my wife and her dad and his wife. Talk about having the place all to ourselves. I can't wait to go back but I'm on the left coast and it's a long trip.

[mojalajab]

It's hard to take descent pictures inside the museum. The lighting is sufficient to see the displays, but not enough to take quality pictures without a flash. And since all of the firearms are behind glass cases, using a typical flash doesn't work due to the reflection. I plan to go back at some point and bring a tripod and a different camera which will then allow me to get some better photos.

Beside the firearms on display, I thought what was really interesting was the audio recording of a woman who was hired at the Armory right after Pearl Harbor. Her job was to repair and refinish the stocks of Garands that were returned for rebuilds during the war. She spoke about all the notes written by the soldiers that she would find in and around the stocks. To bad they weren't kept as it would have been interesting to see what they had written.

[JimF in CT]

Ahh for the good 'ole days . . .

When the museum first opened, after the "working armory" shut down in '68, I went to see it.

The newspaper I worked for had just done a lenthy story on the opening of the museum, and one of the highlights of the article was that ". . .it was to be an educational, hands-on, "working" museum. . . ."

Off I went.

The floor displays were filthy . . .covered in dirt/dust . . . BUT---

NOTHING under glass, and you could actually sit behind a machine gun, work it's action, etc., . . . hell, they hadn't even "bugged" the weapons with wires . . . yet!

Name-tags may or may not be present, and some were already so faded you couldn't read them.

All-in-all, if you didn't already know what you were looking at, you were out of luck, 'cause the "officials" knew less than you! (They were City of Springfield employees at that point.)

That didn't last long, of course, and over the years since, the displays gained "order and decorum" to what it is today.

As for taking pictures through glass, I find I can sometimes get good shots (much easier with today's digital cameras) by placing the camera lens AGAINST the glass to ELIMINATE reflection. --Jim

[A. F Medic]

Put your digital camera at an angle and snap a picture. Part of flash is directed away from the lens. Make sure that your camera says that the item is focused by the flashing square in yiour view finder.

Check your image in the back of the camera to see if that is what you want.

You can run the image through "Photo Shop" on automatic to correct the picture.

I hear that SA had moved all their items upstairs and were not viewable?

[MontaukTrl]

If you take a semi-transparent milk jug and cut a square out of it. Once you done that notch and or cut a hole for the lens, making sure that the plastic completely covers the flash. And there you have a flash difuser the poor man's way and it won't overly reflect off of much of anything, but you still get benefit of some of the light the flash puts out.

Try it out taking a picture of something at home with and without it and you'll be able to see the difference it makes.

MontaukTrl

[Art]

If your camera lens is threaded for filters just buy a polarizing filter. Problem solved.

[mojalajab]

I just took a "point and shoot" on this trip but will be taking my SLR next time I go. I do have the filter and will be sure to use it. Thanks for the tip! I really must get some close-up shots for the west coast folks.