Truro cathedral looking up - commments please

Hi All

Tried to shoot inside a cathedral yesterday (Truro, Cornwall)for the first time. I'd welcome any comments as I'm keen to learn.

I found it very relaxing - organ playing and calming atmosphere all round - and a challenge as I had to forgo the flash and make sure I didn't intrude on the general public all around. This was all done under a permit with the cathedral si I had full permission.

I used the kit 18-55 lens on my K20d, and a tripod (obviously!).

I do intend going back again as its so close and use any advice you may have so I'm all ears!!


[IMG]http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af333/chispics/buildings/truro%20cathedral/IMGP4056.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af333/chispics/buildings/truro%20cathedral/IMGP4072.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af333/chispics/buildings/truro%20cathedral/IMGP4057.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks

jon

Jon,

I'm not the best technician and so others will have more considered opinions. I'd prefer a less exposure personally just a notch darker. They look good though and give a good sense of the place.

What aperture were you on? The focus has good depth but slighty soft?

And welcome. If you see a GX20 + Nokton 58mm attached to a man skulking about Cornwall, it might be me. I've only been a member for a few weeks.

Doug

Since you had premision to use a try pod I would have gone for HDR, that works very well in a church.

I do like how you compose the shots though, it shows you how big the church is.

Only with your last shot you choosed your focus point wrong, it's to close.
You should have placed it around the point the light hits the floor.

Nice shots! I've been itching to try something like this since I saw someone's internal shots of a Cambridge college (very churchy) somewhere on this forum.

Agree with Stefan that this is crying out for a bit of HDR. The blown out stained glass in pic 2 is one area that would drastically improve if you did that. I also find there to be a slight overall softness, most noticeable in the pillars in photo 3.

I agree about the softness which is possibly using the lens wide open or a less than rock solid tripod Were you shooting RAW of JPEG? Hoe did you fire the shutter - using the 2 second delay, remote or press the button?

Did you apply any sharpening after resizing? These images do need to be sharp (IMO of course!)

Mike

Hi guys and thanks for the comments - really appreciated!

They were all shot RAW, ISO100, using a cable release with a 2sec delay as well. I converted to TIFF after a review in Pentax Browser, then a small amount of adjusting in PaintShop Pro.

Pic1 - 18mm f/9.5 3sec, Pic2 - 18mm f/8 2sec, Pic3 - 18mm f/22 6sec.

HDR is a good idea (I have tried it a couple of times) and there is a good app on PSP, so I will give that a go on my next indoor shot.

I can see what you all say about the sharpness, but the original files are pretty sharp and compared to these are better in that respect. I dont think I did myself any favours by reducing the file size for my uploading to photobucket (pic2 has an originall file size (jpeg) of 2.79MB, the uploaded version is just 168KB. I assume that will have a detrimental effect on the final viewed quality.

Problem is I only have a broadband dongle, and its a balance to get files on in a manageable timeframe. Aim is to get broadband in-house soon!

Also, with regard to sharpness, can someone please explain what is meant by "focusing 1/3rd of the way into the frame" ??? This is always mentioned in the guides, but how does this relate to the real world??:


Thanks again for your comments, hopefully I will be making some progress in the coming months!

End of essay!

Jon

Jon,

Did you re-sharpen the images after re-sizing? If not this would explain it. Though the third does look even softer than this would account for IMHO (perhaps a combination of this and using the kit lens at f22 for 6 secs.?!).

For re-sizing I found Daniel Bridge's blog here link useful (although I do feel I've yet to crack this fully myself - my results currently seem variable, particularly when I go under 1000 pixels wide).

Hello Jon I said that I believe.
It has to do how to most effectively placing your focus for scene.

We're going to use a dof calculator for this one link

Simply punch in the numbers and you see what you get.
On the right you see Hyperfocal distance that is the focus distance you need to set your lens on so that the end of the dof just touch the horizon.

So with f/22 at 18mm you can capture 0.40 metres till the horizon with it, now with this shot that is not needed.
f/8 for example would have giving you 1.1m till the horizon.
Like Mhuni said the lens isn't sharp at f/22 it is at his sharps at f/8

we're going of subject here now.

1/3rd is roughly the place the hyperfocal distance is, meaning you use more of the range of the DOF and yes it does show in your photo if that means you can use a f-number that is between f/5.6 and f/8, for most lenses that's the sweet-spot.

With the K20D you've a DOF preview, you can further turn the on/off switch and it closes the aperture meaning you can look in the viewfinder what the effect of the aperture/DOF will be.

Nice one! Thanks for the links - will be putting them into practice soon!

Jon

Jon,

I used to wind up the aperture thinking I was getting best DOF until someone said f32 may not be as sharp as f8 it depends on the lens. I stay a lot lower now and the results seem better.

Doug