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St. Stephens Basilica Budapest



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Image taken during Mass at Saint Stephen's Basilica, Budapest, Hungary.
Vertical panorama stitched in lightroom, post processing work done using On1 ...
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Image taken during Mass at Saint Stephen's Basilica, Budapest, Hungary.
Vertical panorama stitched in lightroom, post processing work done using On1 Photo
Read less

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken at St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest, Hungary over a weekend of a business trip. I tend to stop in churches when possible and take photos of older or interesting ones when allowed

Time

This was probably early in the morning, assuming it was around 10am or so as there was a Mass in progress. It is rare that you are permitted to take photographs during masses in these larger cathedrals, and I was pleasantly surprised the ushers allowed it (and didn't complain about my tripod either!)

Lighting

The lighting was entirely from the dome over the altar, it lit the entire front of the church with a wonderfully (divinely?) diffused, warm light that worked well with the paintings, gold leaf, and the sculptures throughout the building

Equipment

This was taken with my older Nikon D7000 crop sensor and the kit lens and a tripod - simple setup and easy to lug around while traveling.

Inspiration

What inspired me to take the shot? Look at that dome over the altar! I wanted to capture the full height of the cathedral and set up a two shot vertical panorama. It was a beautiful building and I wanted to try and do it justice.

Editing

This photo had a lot of post work to pull it together. Firstly it was a two shot panorama, with each image comprised of three bracketed images for HDR (+2/0/-2). The HDR images were created within Lightroom's HDR functionality and then stitched together in Lightroom as well. Once the final color image was completed and cleaned up a little in Lightroom for exposure, etc., I opened it up in On1 Photo Suite to convert it to black and white, bring out the paintings and lighting on the dome above the altar and darken the pews and people in the congregation. Once I brought the black and white image back into Lightroom, I did push the clarity up a bit more and tweaked the noise reduction a bit. I really do find On1 to be extremely flexible and straight forward to use for nearly all my post processing and conversions.

In my camera bag

I travel light as possible. Since this photo was taken I've upgraded to a full frame Nikon D610 and it will typically have a Tamron 28-300mm walkabout lens on the body, and a wide angle and fisheye in the bag. I'll also have my tripod or monopod, extra battery/grip and some lens cleaner ... and bottles of water - using the camera bag with full water bottles makes a great weight to hang on and stabilize the tripod for shots like this!

Feedback

Patience. That and be friendly to staff wherever you are shooting. I've found that simply asking and showing that you are being respectful, careful and most importantly out of the way will get you very far. Most places wont allow tripods to be used, and neither did this location - but after showing how I could do it safely and unobtrusively I was allowed. Kindness goes a long way - especially when you are a guest in someone's house of worship.

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