Christmas Lights - National War Memorial - Confederation Square, Ottawa, Canada

[Manfred M]

I shot a pano of the Christmas lights at Confederation Square in Ottawa, Canada. The trees with their blue lights nicely contrast the illuminated cenotaph and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. East Block of the Parliament Buildings can be seen in the background on the left and the Chateau Laurier Hotel is on the right side.

As a side-note; Yousef Karsh, the renowned portrait photographer lived and had his studio in the Chateau Laurier for a number of decades. http://www.karsh.org/#/the_man/biography

I started with 9 RAW images to build the pano and white balanced on the snow away from the blue lights. Exposures were 4s at f/4.5 at 100 ISO with the f/2.8 24-70 Nikkor set at 24mm. This is a fairly busy site, so assembling the images took some time waiting for people to move on and road traffic to not interfere with the shots.

[Mike Buckley]

Very nice, Manfred. Anyone who doesn't review this image by clicking to enjoy the larger size is really missing out on a lot.

I'm curious to know what drove your decision to have the buildings on the left and right leaning outward. Considering the perspective of tomb and its memorial, those buildings would naturally be leaning inward. Coming from you, I know that's intentional rather than an oversight, so I'm interested in knowing why you made that decision.

[mknittle]

beautiful

[Donald]

Superb piece of photography, Manfred. That is one of which you should be very proud.

[Manfred M]

I'm curious to know what drove your decision to have the buildings on the left and right leaning outward. Considering the perspective of tomb and its memorial, those buildings would naturally be leaning inward. Coming from you, I know that's intentional rather than an oversight, so I'm interested in knowing why you made that decision.

I think that it might be a bit of an optical illusion. I shot with the camera totally level and square (checked both bubble levels during the setup), so there wasn't any inherent distortion in my tripod / ball head / camera setup. The nodal plate was level as well (third bubble level in the setup).

I checked by dropping a few guidelines in Photoshop, based on the comment and the walls of the buildings in the background appear to be vertical.

[Mike Buckley]

Wow! That's more than a bit of an optical illusion. Very interesting! It's worth posting again just to be able repeat that it's a marvelous image.

[Polar01]

very nicely done, going to have to get up there sometime, maybe 3rd week of January as I have to go to Montreal, skip up on the Monday to shoot Monday night, stay over and home on Tuesday.

Cheers: Allan

[JPS]

Hi Manfred,
A great image, well done. Well worth the effort.
Cheers
John

[Manfred M]

very nicely done, going to have to get up there sometime, maybe 3rd week of January as I have to go to Montreal, skip up on the Monday to shoot Monday night, stay over and home on Tuesday.

Cheers: Allan

Thanks Allan. Third week in January will be a bit late to catch the Christmas Lights - they get turned off on Jan 7.

[rawill]

Well Donald and others have said it well.

Very appropriate especially for this time of the year, or for us on ANZAC Day.

[FrankMi]

This is about as perfect a night image as I've ever seen Manfred. Very well thought through and equally well executed.

Based on the 'leaning building' comment, I just discovered something interesting about Lyte Box. You can click and hold on the image with your mouse and move it around so it is quite easy to verify if an image is level. Simply move the image until you can line the part you want to check with one of the borders on your monitor!

[Andrew1]

This and your one of the parliament buildings are amoung the best seasonal shots of the year. Well worth the effort you took to build them.

[Plumcrak]

Fabulous image Manfred. It makes me want to head North for a visit.