Kentucky Derby bans interchangeable lens cameras

[Greg McCary]

Only P&S. not even a Leica M. WTF?
Kentucky Derby Bans All Interchangeable Lens Cameras for 'Security Purposes'

[wfooshee]

So I guess it's not going to be televised any more?

[Old Timer]

To put it mildly, "That sucks!"

[mattb]

I took my K-5 with a little pancake on it to a "No interchangeable lenses" concert in Austin last summer. With the pancake it looked enough like a bridge camera they didn't care. But then I only had 40mm of reach which was still better than if I had only brought a P&S.
But it's going to be harder and harder to bring anything anywhere now, especially in a backpack.

[Axle]

Never ever bring a backpack. I was at an outdoor concert with my then girlfriend a few years back now, it was a country music festival, a genre I'm not too fond of, so I figured I may as well entertain myself by doing photos. I packed the full professional rig, D300, 70-200 f/2.8, 17-55 f/2.8 ect. Of course I was stopped very quickly by security and ejected. I was allowed back in, but without the camera, they wouldn't even let my D300, and 105mm and 35mm lens in, and that was without a backpack.

They did however let my folding SX-70 in with me and a couple packs of Impossible film.

I wonder what the 'security reasons' are? And does it extend to the official media?

Time to start forging press passes?

[Speed]

It used to be this was a no brainer - the pro's who had access kept the rest of us out.
Today, it's because of the terrorist threat. So the terrrorist have won another one, but taking that much more of our freedom away... There are more and more places where you can't take a camera, or take pictures these days.

[Sandra Pinkerton]

It is becoming a society of paranoia, gone are the days of greeting people in a spontaneous manner. There are more and more restrictions and, in some cases, fees for being able to photograph even simple subjects.

[OldClicker]

This has nothing to do with security; it's all about money. People make money off of those images. - Terry