New Features Show Promise for Museum Imaging.
Canon today announced the 7D “Studio Version” (although it had been shipping for over a month). While aimed at wedding and portrait photographers, it contains several interesting features that may prove to be tremendously useful in museum imaging projects.
One of these is a “Lock Down” feature, that allows project managers to setup the camera parameters in several custom modes then lock those settings requiring a password to alter the configuration. This provides security against accidental changes that might happen in a bulk capture setting potentially ruining dozens of captures or it could also be used when running projects manned by operators with limited skills (such as interns), keeping them in a standardized capture mode.
The most exciting feature, however, that could be incredibly useful for digitizing collections, is the ability of the camera to link with barcode readers and embed the code into the EXIF data of captured images. Imagine shooting a collection of objects with barcoded labels which carry that objects’ unique identifier. This could be a collection ID, accession number, almost any alpha numeric string. The operator simply scans the barcode label attached to the object, the code is then stored by the camera and all subsequent captures made of that object have it’s unique identifier embedded in the image file. No longer is laborious and error prone data entry needed to link the object to it’s related data, the linking element is already carried in the file and needs only be exposed to the relevant systems for attachment.
These features, coupled with the 7D’s already impressive imaging and video capabilities, make it a compelling choice for museum digitization projects.
Museum Imaging 