HDR interior of smallest Catholic church in Southern hemisphere

[ClaudioG]

Hi all, just started a thread about not trying to make my new images look HDRey ( New word) in the editing Forum, but heres an HDR image of a tiny church here in South Africa near an area call Van reenens pass, it is really small and the image was taken from the doorway with my 18-55mm kit lens. Ive used 7 images, to be honest, im not great at capturing architecture, HDR or Processing HDR, so this one is just me playing around.

This is some info i got from this site about the church.

http://www.nightjartravel.com/cultur...rch-van-reenen

Most likely the smallest Roman Catholic church in the world, the structure was built as a memorial by a father for his lost son. Also called the Llandaff Oratory, the church is a lasting tribute to Llandaff Matthews, who died rescuing 8 miners in a mining accident in 1925. The 8 seats within the church are representative of these miners. In active use to a portion of the wider Van Reenen community, the church performs a commemorative function to the remaining Matthews family. It is also a National Monument.

PS, it can cater for a wedding of 8 pple

[Polar01]

That is a nice little church, to my eye it is just a little bright inside. I see that there are two large windows on each side plus the two front ones makes it really hard to shoot. Maybe a curves adjustment to bring it down would also help with the glass. They are really hard to shoot and you did a great job for someone who does not usually do this type of shots. Sometimes it is the only way to do it, to capture the beauty of the light in such locations. Again nice work.

Cheers: Allan

[ClaudioG]

Thanks Allan, i will try tone down the Light coming through the windowa and see what i can come up with. I see especially on top left window kinda draws the eye quickly.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[Downrigger]

Nice image and interesting background. I too think it would be good with a little more dimness effect within.

[dabhand]

Claudio - perhaps when you try Allan's recommendation you could try dodging the two figures of Christ and perhaps the centre area of the pages of the open bible - just to give them a little lift - otherwise there's some super textures captured.

steve

[Kris V]

Nicely done. I agree with the others toning down the bright windows.
I particularly like the shadow play on the brick walls and the floor.
How small is this church, really? Do you have an photo of the outside?

[ClaudioG]

Hi Kris..theres some images of the outside of the church at the site which i put up here... i dont want to lie. Its small though..probably about 5 natural steps to the altar and your life is sorted LOL

[Wavelength]

Excellent image; Praise the Lord

[Kris V]

Hi Kris..theres some images of the outside of the church at the site which i put up here... i dont want to lie. Its small though..probably about 5 natural steps to the altar and your life is sorted LOL

I just did a Google church - There are some really nice photos there of the exterior.
Quite a difference from the church I used to go to when I was in High school! It would probably fit in there 100 times over....

[Stagecoach]

You have done a good job of this Claudio I especially like the colouring and detail of the wooden pews.

Grahame

[Colin Southern]

Hi Claudio,

When you capture image like this you need to be particularly careful about getting the sensor exactly vertical so that lines run parallel. In this case you're had the camera pointing slightly upwards and as a result, your verticals are diverging towards the top. This can also be fixed in PP, but you'll lose data because of it, so getting it right in-camera is always best.

HDR software lowers the brightness of midtones significantly - which in turn often results in a significant apparent saturation boost. If one wants a photorealistic result then one may often need to knock the saturation back a bit.

[ClaudioG]

Thank you Colin for your advice and comments, I will try rectify both the straightening and the saturation. Thanks

[Colin Southern]

Thank you Colin for your advice and comments, I will try rectify both the straightening and the saturation. Thanks

Hi Claudio,

You're welcome. For what it's worth, the increased saturation usually looks better in my opinion -- but it does shift the look away from photo-realism too though. Often you can get a more realistic result by choosing the best single frame of the multi-exposure bracket and just revealing the dark areas with a lot of fill light control.

[chauncey]

One rarely does things correctly in their first rodeo...use this as a learning experience and reshoot using the knowledge that you've gained from this experiment. Although, excepting the difficulties with the verticals, I really liked the image.