Church, Cathedral Photography - Thread

Devrij · 20 Dec 2011 at 09:36

Inspired by this thread I popped into Bristol Cathedral yesterday.

Here're my offerings

Neil79 · 20 Dec 2011 at 09:54

Clown said:
I can't do HDR. I'm probably better off for it.

Some people can make a church, cathedral look amazing with HDR without making it look HDR. However as seen by many hdr shots people wack up the sliders and think it's done, When I do mine I barely use 20-30% strength everything else is in processing.

With a very slight HDR or even just layer blending you can bring back a lot of lost detail

Neil79 · 20 Dec 2011 at 11:02

Throttle · 6 Jan 2012 at 22:33

i took a trip to St Giles in Cheadle today and the place is epic. It was designed by A.W.N. Pugin and finished in 1846. If anyone plans to go they are happy for photographers to take pics and dont mind if you use a tripod. Also the lights are switched on by a coin operated meter just behind the door as you go in.

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SkidMarkKing · 6 Jan 2012 at 22:39

This is one is pretty cool

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/oo159/The_Devrij/Untitled_HDR3.jpg

Andy90 · 7 Jan 2012 at 00:54

Throttle said:
i took a trip to St Giles in Cheadle today and the place is epic. It was designed by A.W.N. Pugin and finished in 1846. If anyone plans to go they are happy for photographers to take pics and dont mind if you use a tripod. Also the lights are switched on by a coin operated meter just behind the door as you go in.

It is rather spectacular isn't it. Especially when the lights hit their full intensity. Post no 100 in this thread are my shots taken last September

Throttle · 7 Jan 2012 at 06:10

cheers Andy90 i am impressed by your shots. I wanted to try and get a feel for the place and found the 24mm not wide enough. The images i took of the alter area are stitched from 3 or 5 seperate shots. The results arent perfect but it does show the wider view.

Mp4 · 2 Feb 2012 at 22:03

Anyone have tips for shooting a church? I have a college assignment i can choose from.

Architecture,cities,surface,streets,ruins,urban,abandoned,industrial,bridges, churches.

as i live in Eastbourne i thought of doing churches as there are a few about

but only have 18-55 (kit lens) Thats wide. & Then can't make up my mind to shoot at night or daytime.

Devrij · 3 Feb 2012 at 09:27

Mp4 said:
Anyone have tips for shooting a church? I have a college assignment i can choose from.

Architecture,cities,surface,streets,ruins,urban,abandoned,industrial,bridges, churches.

as i live in Eastbourne i thought of doing churches as there are a few about
but only have 18-55 (kit lens) Thats wide. & Then can't make up my mind to shoot at night or daytime.

Why not both? If you're shooting indoors in the day, you'll find exposure fusion or HDR useful so you don't end up with blown out windows (it's always pretty dim in churches). So bring your tripod!

djc_2005 · 3 Feb 2012 at 09:42

wow there are some nice photos on here - especially #122, i like that!

Mp4 · 3 Feb 2012 at 11:46

Devrij said:
Why not both? If you're shooting indoors in the day, you'll find exposure fusion or HDR useful so you don't end up with blown out windows (it's always pretty dim in churches). So bring your tripod!

yeah ill try both was going on sunday to get sun set. n blast it with tourch with permission ofc . what settings are best to use? going to take 50mm too

Guitarman0 · 3 Feb 2012 at 17:40

Few of a little church in Whitley Court

IMG_0721 by B_Alexander, on Flickr

IMG_0733 by B_Alexander, on Flickr

IMG_0743 by B_Alexander, on Flickr

IMG_0746 by B_Alexander, on Flickr

IMG_0755 by B_Alexander, on Flickr

engstrom0304 · 3 Feb 2012 at 23:48

Worcester Cathedral at Night by engstrom0304, on Flickr

Devrij · 4 Feb 2012 at 08:06

Mp4 said:
yeah ill try both was going on sunday to get sun set. n blast it with tourch with permission ofc . what settings are best to use? going to take 50mm too

TBH you'll probably spend more time using a wide angle lens to avoid cutting bits off and to capture the expansive interior

Mp4 · 4 Feb 2012 at 18:52

Its quite a small church so see how things go tomorrow. how do you lot do all the HDR stuff? n what settings are best for inside?

Devrij · 4 Feb 2012 at 22:07

Set your tripod up, bracket your exposure to cater for the level of contrast, and choose an aperture that suits your subject (in aperture priority mode). Set 2s timer or use remote to start the sequence and away you go. Shoot raw so you can sort white balance later (sometimes the lighting is a bit yellow). One mistake I made on my first go was not checking my shots were level so I got some weird angles on my shots. For straight on at the altar type stuff, make sure your symmetry is bang on or it'll feel "off". See my shots above for examples lol.

Steve M · 5 Feb 2012 at 17:27

P1010099 by Steve Millward, on Flickr

albert · 8 Feb 2012 at 10:18

Ilam in the Peak District. My 1st attempt at HDR photography. Taken with my old Panasonic FZ28.

Mp4 · 9 Feb 2012 at 21:28

^ Nice i really like that shot!

How does one do this HDR thing? do you have to use bracketing shots? (3x shots) to make HDR?

pecnarf · 9 Feb 2012 at 21:52

Mp4 said:
^ Nice i really like that shot!

How does one do this HDR thing? do you have to use bracketing shots? (3x shots) to make HDR?

you need three shots at three different exposure, so using bracketing does make it easier to do, then you need to combine them into one, so some graphic software will be needed. advance photo editing software like adobe elements, photoshop have plugins on them that help automate the progress to make a hdr image but you can still do it yourself without the plugin but it just take longer and quite abit of graphic editting knowledge/skills, hence why if you can find program that has hdr function then use that as anyone with basic computer skill can use it to make a hdr image.