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Watch our guidance video
For further information, watch our guidance video on how to photograph documents safely during your visit.
Photographing documents in our reading rooms
At The National Archives, you are welcome to take photographs of the documents you view in our reading rooms. Explore how you can do this safely below.
How to photograph documents at The National Archives
Imaging of documents using a hand-held camera, smartphone, tablet, or laptop is permitted in the reading rooms for personal use only, including research and study. It is important to remember that when imaging documents, good handling takes priority, so please be aware of the following:
- Ensure you have room to accommodate your document and you have all handling aids needed.
- Work carefully through the document, turning pages individually, respecting its vulnerabilities and adjusting handling aids as needed.
- Always retain the document order – if you require assistance with tags, please see a member of staff.
- If a document is difficult to remove from or return to its housing, or is difficult to handle, please ask a member of staff for assistance.
- Dedicated camera stands with a standard screw-in mount are available in our reading rooms. Universal adapters that enable smartphones or tablets to use these camera stands are also permitted. We do not have enough camera stands for every visitor to our reading rooms. You are more likely to be guaranteed a camera stand if you book your visit in advance.
- Flash photography is not permitted in the reading rooms, so this function must be switched off prior to use.
Devices that scan images, have an integral or external stand, or are extendable (e.g. a tripod or selfie stick) are not permitted. However, USB cameras are permitted if they conform to the following specifications:
- They have a single freestanding column of up to 60cm (tripods or mounts that touch the document surface are not permitted).
- A preservation barrier is placed between the stand/column and the document.
- Any integral light source, flash or sound function is disabled.
- Cables between the camera and the image storage device do not touch the surface of, or impede handling of, the document.
Accessing high quality images
Please be aware that this guidance relates to photography for your own personal use only, including research and study. If you require high resolution images for publication, exhibition or broadcast, our Image Library contains over 80,000 images already digitised and searchable online.
You can also request digitisation of a document by contacting the Image Library directly, if a high quality image of the record you require is not available,
Our Record Copying service can provide digital or paper copies of documents from our collection. We also offer bespoke and at-scale digitisation solutions, both for our own and external collections.