Church in the Marais Paris – HDR
This weekend I figured it is time to get out of the “single lens” dillema so I went to get myself a new lens. I got a Nikkor 50mm that opens at 1.8 it’s a pretty inexpensive (nice way of saying cheap) lens which is very fast and thus great for bokeh shots.
As we were walking around in the Marais in Paris I wanted to try it out. The weather sucked so there was no nice landscape shot to take. But as we were walking down a street in the Marais (I think it was Rue Verrerie) there was choir practicing in a church. So we went in to listen a bit, and it was really pretty. As the choir left I took this shot, it is handheld and inside a church with 5 photos it was not an easy task.
But with the 1.8 lens it turned out pretty good. I had to do some work on sharpening it in Lightroom but overall I really like the colors. Yes the stained glass window is burnt out but if it wasn’t the shot would look weird – it’s just not natural. So I left it like that.
Hope you like it too.
Martin Soler Photography 
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Five shots in a dark church, hand-held? I was wondering how you did that! I’m surprised you were able to get so much of the church into the frame with a 50mm lens. Nice work!
Thanks avital. the 50mm lens on a full frame camera is called a standard lens because it shows as much as the eye can see. As I don’t have a full frame it shows a little less – but 50mm is pretty much. To manage to make a handheld HDR in lowlight I had to open the aperture to the max. In this case 1.8 and thus let in as much light as possible. Shutter speed was “acceptable” at 1/30th of a second which is actually a little too low – it should be about 1/60th minimum. I also had the iso at 250 when I normally have it at 100.
The problem with this method is that large aperture gives shallow depth of field – so you can see Jesus on the cross isn’t sharp while the sculpture behind the statue is. And of course handheld has movement. But using some of the precision shooting breathing techniques from the army helps reduce movement. 😉
Haha! The Army breathing technique…breathe, hold, squeeze! I know exactly what you’re talking about! I really like this one, and being hand-held it’s quite amazing.