Downtown tampa high rise help (floors, clubs, vacation)

[ethang326]

Me and a friend are amature photograpgers here in tampa. One of our goals is to get up some place high, preferably one of the downtown skyscrapers (ie element, suntrust building, etc) to tak pictures of the city from a diffrent perspective. Sadly, most all buildings downtown are private: can anyone here perhaps help us get acsess to a high up floor downtown? I know some clubs require and invite to get in on upper floors, and some residental buildings require a key to get in, so if anyone could help us out, id appriciate it: perhaps enough to pay you for helping us out. Thanks.

[MortonR]

As a former landscape photographer who has an office on the 28th floor of a downtown high-rise building, I can tell you that attempting to take photos through the glass that is used in most buildings will yield less than satisfactory results.

Not only do you have to deal with reflection, which can only be eliminated through the use of a rubber lens hood stuck to the inside of the glass, or possibly the use of a polarizing filter, you've got reflective film and UV protective coatings on the glass that will distort the image slightly.

The only way you're going to get something better than a vacation photo is to gain access to the roof and take pictures outside.

Good luck with that. My building secures the roof and the several parapet areas of our building like they were Ft. Knox.

Sorry.

RM