Kuwait Bans DSLR Cameras Use For Non-Journalists 446
DaveNJ1987 writes "Kuwait has banned the use of Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras in public places for anyone who is not a journalist. The ban, which was passed by the unanimous agreement of the country's Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Finance, prevents the public from using DSLR devices on the streets of the Middle Eastern State. Tourists are to be affected by the new laws and must be aware of this before travelling to Kuwait. Smaller digital cameras and camera phones are exempt from the ban."
what about non-digital SLRs? (Score:4, Interesting)
What about regular SLR cameras? Why ban D(igital)SLR cameras?
Re:funny and ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
An ironic twist I think... I know many people whose DSLR pictures totally suck because the camera is beyond their ability to master even simple photographs. Also, ironically, anyone who would want useful information from digital pictures can readily shoot quality pictures with non-DSLR digital cameras. Is this for real?
I think the idea is to cut back on some form of spying. Lets face it, if you are a journalist, you want REALLY good pictures for your articles, like national Geographic quality if possible. Thats why they're allowed DSLR's.
But if I'm a spy, and I see a hand off going on between some military personel and some 'civilian' - I'll be all dressed up as a tourist with my nice HUUUUUGE Telephoto lens, snap a few quick shots. If someone gets suspicious you either delete the pictures if you don't have much time or if you think you can without noticing, switch out the memory card.
Asta Lasaugna, don't get any onya.
Re:funny and ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
Forgot to mention: the point being that you can't get that kind of zoom level with a regular digital camera, in case I didn't make that point obvious.
Re:funny and ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
How exactly these beliefs persist, I'm not quite sure, when any moron who spends ten minutes in the camera aisle at Best Buy can see that contemporary happy-snapper gear is pretty competent(particularly when paired with contemporary flash memory that will give said happy-snapper 10,000 chances to get it right for under $40...) and trivially available stuff like Photosynth [photosynth.net] demonstrates the power of huge numbers of shoddy images combined with some algorithmic cleverness...
Re:funny and ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
Non-SLR digital cameras have gotten very good in recent years. As an old-school 35mm SLR user, there are times I'd love to have a DSLR, but a 10MP non-reflex camera with a 10X optical zoom lens (such as the one I have) can take pretty much the exact same photos, albeit with marginally lower image quality due to the optics. So they're accomplishing nothing except to require amateur photographers to use smaller and less expensive cameras.
Re:what about non-digital SLRs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:London (City) does this too... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, they issued new guidelines [ephotozine.com], relaxed restrictions on "registered photographers" [epuk.org], stopped using section 43 and 44 of the Terrorism act [police.uk], had a 'snitch campaign' [boingboing.net], hassle people with commercial permits [amateurpho...pher.co.uk], and even push people down stairs [prisonplanet.com].
If you aren't aware of the myriad ways in which the London Police have gone completely batshit crazy with photographers .... well, you haven't been paying attention to the news. Do a google search for "london photography police", and read.
There are loads of documented cases of some cop or another deciding they have a law on their side which allows them to do almost anything to photographers. And, in fairness to London, I'm sure this isn't the only place this happens.
The citation for what the GP suggests is bloody easy to find.
Tourists?! (Score:5, Interesting)
"Tourists are to be affected by the new laws..."
What tourists?! I live and work in Kuwait... As a country, it's really not a tourist hotspot! Any tourist coming here, even if they took snaps of the the most interesting features, would leave with only images of scrubby desert, busy highways, shopping malls, a few skyscrapers, and the Kuwait Towers.
But, yes, it's a daft rule, and it may well affect the local amateur photography enthusiasts. However, Kuwaiti law is not consistently applied: If you're a Kuwaiti citizen, you'll often get away with something that a non-Kuwaiti would not - especially if you have a bit of 'wasta' (i.e. your father knows the second-cousin of the minister's uncle!)
DSLR doesn't mean superior (Score:2, Interesting)
"Banned" Nikon D40 DSLR
6.1megapixel
Standard 18-55mm zoom lens
"Legal" Nikon P7000 digital camera
10.1 megapixel
28-200mm zoom lens
Both cameras feature an "automatic" setting that allows the camera to take great pictures. The legal one looks much less conspicuous and doesn't have to be held at your eye to take a photo.
Re:London (City) does this too... (Score:3, Interesting)
But, surely you're aware of many of the high-profile things that have happened in London with police and photographers? They certainly talked about a permit system [epuk.org] for "registered" photographers. (Now, that appears to be within a narrow area, but ...)
Seriously, you may live there, and maybe this goes under-reported for you ... but google for "london photography police".
There have been several Slashdot stories over the last few years covering this kind of stuff. He's hardly pulling claims out of his backside. London police have been well documented telling people they can't photograph in public spaces when that is patently false.
this law is PERFECT for the US (Score:2, Interesting)
Thankfully, we dont have LAWS like the one in Kuwait!
Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side note, despite what some security officers or law enforcement might say, they can't force you to delete the photos under any circumstance. Either it is not illegal for you to take the photo or it is and you'd be destroying evidence. Which they can't order you to do.
Re:this law is PERFECT for the US (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yeah sure. (Score:3, Interesting)
Except most of the murders are not committed using guns, and even if you excluded gun murders the US would still have a very high murder rate by developed country standards. On the ohter hand lots of places have high gun ownership and low murder rates.
When the UK strengthened enforcement of its guns laws (i.e. making for effort to find and seize illegal guns) the result was an increase in knife murders.
I have always lived in countries where civilian use of guns is tightly restricted, and my instinct is to sympathise with the ban, but I think the "guns don't kill people. people kill people" lot have the facts on their side.
Re:Yeah sure. (Score:3, Interesting)
It didn't affect many people since not many people had semi-automatic weapons anyway. It was a reaction to an event where a guy with a semi-automatic rifle killed 35 people and wounded 21 others. The answer to all the "they could have defended themselves with a handgun" idiots is to think about reality and not movies where the hero can hit a fly testicle at a mile with his magnum. If the victims had handguns they would still be dead.
Re:Yeah sure. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have always lived in countries where civilian use of guns is tightly restricted, and my instinct is to sympathise with the ban, but I think the "guns don't kill people. people kill people" lot have the facts on their side.
Ah, but that's clearly not reading the statistics right. The correct formulation would be, "Guns don't kill people. Americans kill people." If you contrast the prevalence of guns in e.g. Norway (tons of guns, more than the US) the adage becomes "Americans with handguns kill people."