Fighting a dragon

by Slovak

This is a statue of St. George fighting a dragon in the courtyard of the Primate's palace in Bratislava, Slovakia. I was considering to make the picture almost a square one by cropping it at the bottom of that lantern hanging from the ceiling, thinking that the top part of the door and the ceiling don't add anything to the picture. But then I gave in to a photographer's desire to 'get it all'
Pentax DA70 Limited
The shutter speed isn't 1/6 sec. really, this is an HDR image (my first one, actually) - the statue is lit by lights that are much stronger than anything else visible in the picture, so I had to go for an HDR.
Uploaded01/10/2012 - 00:46
CategoryArchitecture
Shutter Speed3/5
Aperturef/5.6
LensN/A
ISO80
Focal Length70mm
Views/Likes60/0

alfpics
Posted 01/10/2012 - 10:43 Link
A nice 'natural' looking HDR. I like th different colours from the different lighting
Andy
Andy
tyronet2000
Posted 01/10/2012 - 14:36 Link
alfpics wrote:
A nice 'natural' looking HDR. I like th different colours from the different lighting
Andy

I agree
Regards
Stan

PPG
Slovak
Posted 01/10/2012 - 16:24 Link
Thanks for your comments, guys! I had no intention to go over the top with the HDR, it was just a necessity to do it - when I had the columns right, the statue was washed out, and when I had details in the statue, the columns were so dark they were barely visible and the ceiling even worse. So I tried to create an HDR that would show the scene roughly how I saw it with my eyes. As I said, this was my first HDR and I'm not 100% happy with it (I have a feeling that the statue looks a bit unnatural), but it's the best I can come up with at the moment. I also liked the different colours, which were there indeed, but I enhanced them a little with a bit of tweaking.
If anyone's curious, you can see two of the original pictures here:
link
alfpics
Posted 01/10/2012 - 16:30 Link
Thanks for the link to 2 of the images; what programme did you use to merge them?
Andy
Andy
Slovak
Posted 01/10/2012 - 17:23 Link
PS CS3, and I had to watch 3 tutorials, I think, in order to get it done
alfpics
Posted 01/10/2012 - 17:32 Link
HDR is hard to get right! I use Photomatix Pro, dedicated to HDR - and still get mixed results!!

Andy
Andy
pauljay
Posted 02/10/2012 - 06:31 Link
There are certain scenes that just cry out for HDR and this was clearly one! Nice result.
Paul.

Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried! (Bill Brandt)
PPG
Slovak
Posted 02/10/2012 - 07:58 Link
Thanks again! It's nice to see that someone, somewhere likes the picture that I took, it means that the effort wasn't worthless. 'Cause when I look at the pictures on Google maps, or other numerous photo galleries on the web, I get the kind of feeling like 'Everything's been shot before... this bridge, that building, a macro shot of this bug, or that flower... so why bother again'
tyronet2000
Posted 02/10/2012 - 08:36 Link
Quote:
'Everything's been shot before... this bridge, that building, a macro shot of this bug, or that flower... so why bother again'

Of course you are right. Pack all your Pentax equipment into a box and send it to me and I'll dispose of it wisely for you
Regards
Stan

PPG
Slovak
Posted 02/10/2012 - 11:40 Link
Ok, deal! Just let me use it a few last couple of thousand times
szgabor
Posted 07/10/2012 - 04:14 Link
Great HDR shot with natural look. I do like it.
Regards,
Gábor
My website

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