FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

I had the chance to spend time in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Naturally I went to the mineral hall. I took a few pictures, which for the most part do not overlap with ones already taken. There some some duplicates, but since the picture is different, it seems worth posting anyway.

I hope you enjoy. And please remember this is a crowded busy museum with all minerals behind plastic which is ioften scratched and somewhat dirty - so make allowances for the photography :-)

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

These are all from the same display case, showing that one mineral can have many different shapes

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

Wulfenites from their One Mineral Many Shapes case.

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

The above wulfenites were part of a suite of "one mineral many shapes" Here is the whole case.

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

Ok, now on to the case called "Mineral Friends"

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

These two are form the India Minerals Case

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

Now from the zeolites case

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

Now from the Silicate Gallery

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

From the phosphates, Arsenates, and Vanadates Gallery.

Matt_Zukowski · Site Admin Joined: 10 Apr 2009 Posts: 660 Location: Alaska

Thanks to the Simonoffs (Jessica? Bob?) for another series of photos from another place displaying minerals. Separately, I have been reading about Googles efforts to photo/map the insides of museums, just like with their Street View app. The Simonoff picts prompted me to go see if Google had mapped the insides of the mineral hall yet. What i found instead was a wonderful app from the Smithsonian that does the same thing. Go to:
https://www.mnh.si.edu/vtp/1-desktop/
(link normalized by FMF)

Look to the upper right of your screen and click on the button marked "second," which will take you to the second floor. Clicking that button also brings up a map, and you can click on any of the blue dots in the hall of minerals to fly to that location. When you walk around, you sometimes see a camera icon that you can click to bring up better photos of areas.

I have just spent the past fifteen minutes virtually walking around the Smithsonian, trying to put the excellent Simonoff pictures in context. Much FUN!

I wonder when Google or other museums put similar things up on the web.

Tobi · Joined: 07 Apr 2009 Posts: 3626 Location: Good Old Germany

Thank you for this wonderful pictures!

Jordi Fabre · Posted: Jul 22, 2012 03:55 Post subject: Re: Smithsonian 2012

John S. White · Posted: Jul 22, 2012 04:48 Post subject: Re: Smithsonian 2012

Bob:

Those are some of the best photos that anyone has posted of minerals on display, very nice work! It is not easy to obtain such fine photos of minerals behind glass.

bugrock · Joined: 24 Nov 2008 Posts: 137 Location: Michigan

Agree these images are great for objects behind glass. Can you share your methods?
Did you edit these images to avoid reflections?

George

simonoff · Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 161

Wow thanks everyone! What a wonderful thing to see first thing in the morning. I have taken photos at the Smithsonian before and gotten glare (even somehow gotten photos of myself instead of the case contents). I tried using my hand and/or paper as a diffuser and still was not happy. So I took these without flash, as an experiment, to see what would happen.

I set the camera to Av mode. This pinned the aperture to my selected setting, f4, since that would let it in the most light. Then I turned the ISO to the lowest number that allowed enough time so the shutter would stay open for more than 1/60 of a second. For most cases that was 800, but for some it was 1600, like the cat's eyes that will be posted later on. Then I braced as best I could for each shot. When the first 2 were minerals ok, I shot the rest. I also found that placing the camera lens against the plastic - yes lens touching the plastic GENTLY - eliminated almost all reflections of me, other guests and kids doing things I won't mention.

In Photoshop, I use white balance and unsharp mask automatically on all pictures. I found that in all cases where the color still looked wrong, after white balancing, Auto Color Correction seemed to fix it. There were a small number of pictures that had glare from the plastic, probably because of a picture being taken behind me. After some experimentation I found that gamma correction reduced or eliminated the glare when it was not too bad. Several of these pictures, however, were not fixable by me without doing artwork, so they are not posted. Unfortunately, one was a Les Farges pyromorphite that was incredible. There were a few shots that were embarrassingly crooked, Photoshop has a fix for that. I try very hard to use ONLY tools that keep the picture honest and avoid those that create artworks. The tools I listed are really the only ones I know other than cropping :-)

I hope that doesn't disappoint you or ruin the photos for you. But I have found Photoshop to be helpful when used in small doses. I have tried very hard to make accurate pictures of the minerals using these tools and these tools only. And I threw out about 2-3% of the pictures as not salvageable. I honestly think the biggest help was in getting the best picture within my skill initially (no flash, Av mode, camera against the plastic), since only a small number of shots were rescued by gamma correction..

Bob