Stairway to heaven
Oct, 2015Views
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People's Choice in Beautiful Geometry Photo Challenge
People's Choice in In The Middle Photo Challenge
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, I got up early that morning to take a picture of the sunrise over Canary Wharf, however we slightly mist it and it was to cloudy to be worthwhile. So we walked around the area to see what we could find and amongst other things I found this staircase.Time
It was morning around 11am, so the sun was quite high by that point which was good due to the skylight at the top of the stair case.Lighting
Not really other than to say, Im still a beginner, so I don’t know it all, this hopefully will improve with time. I did 3 shots, the first on Automatic, this gave me a base or should I say a banker that will give me the shot but perhaps not the best. Then I look at the setting and adjusted the shot slightly for the second shot and even more so for the 3rd. Each time going darker with the exposure, as I could see the first safe shot was to flat with not enough depth of light.Equipment
It was only a short stairs so I left the tripod in the bag and put the camera on the floor, hit the button and to my surprise the floor was level. Luck maybe but if you don’t try you won’t know. If I had used the tripod I would have lost 1/3rd of the stair case and that would have taken the balance out of the picture, unless you have a very wide angle lens which I don’t at the moment.Inspiration
Other peoples photos, we all love a spiral stair case, I think we imagine or fantasise about where they may take us. I don’t know what was at the end of this simple yet elegant stairs as it was out of bounds.Editing
I tried to make the best of the other two shots, but none of them came close to beating this shot. I did nothing to this one from my recollection, its as it was straight from the camera.In my camera bag
Till very recently a Canon 500D, which I used for this shot, I now have a Canon 7D Mk2 as well which I share with my wife. I have a tripod with a removable mono stick. A 10 stop ND filter, however I have still not used it, a spare tripod bracket, lens wipes, sun screen, headache tablets, spare glasses, a canon 70-200 mm lens, 50mm and a 18-70mm lens. spare 32gb and 16gb memory cards, camera battery charger and a detailed book on the 7D Mk2, however I feel I need this book with me but I never look at it!!Feedback
Yes go for it, 100% of my saved pictures are taken in full Manual mode, if you don’t take the picture you will never know, if your in a hurry, do a quick snap...whats the worst thing that can happen...you delete it, but you learn something along the way, however before you press delete always look at your ISO, f setting and speed so you know what you should not do. Soon you will know what works for you and your style...we all get different shots with different setting to suit our styles and post processing. If your a beginner like me do take 3,4 or more shots with different settings, one will be close and one might just surprise you. Ive been doing this as a amateur for about 2 1/2 years now, I take pictures only about once a month, however when I started I use to delete 95% of my pictures, now I delete 50% only because I still take to many. I’m very fussy with myself and rarely am I happy with my end results, however this is a good thing, as it’s this that drives us to do better. I’ve made a friend that is a much better photographer than me and he gives me good criticism such as warning me that I have gone to far with my editing and contrast has gone over the top, I think this is important to everyone as you do need someone to say its not right.
