rome st paulus basilika

[fotoscheu]

how to improve this shot? - was not easy ... dark place .... needed more than 30 secs ... like the gost like appearence of the old man on the left ....

[gahspidy]

A beautiful structure. i like how you framed this , not centered but as a nit pik you could straighten out the columns on the left with the frame. But it is not important . I think the lighting is very flat and uniform and takes awat from there being any real feeling of dimension or depth. For a 30 sec exposure, these people were not moving around very much. But the fact that they are there and blurry does not help the scene.

[Steph_B]

how to improve this shot? - was not easy ... dark place .... needed more than 30 secs ... like the gost like appearence of the old man on the left ....

I often asked myself what to do when photographing buildings/monuments with people around. Since it is unlikely that an opportunity where there is no-one in the frame might arise, you have to deal with unwanted 'guests'.... Ghosting them out is a very good idea. As long as you effectively blur them, ie. you need a very long exposure. For a 30 sec. exposure, I would have expected a little bit more ghosting, mostly from the left person. There is not much you can do with the school group that are sitting there...

Patience here is a virtue. I would take few frames and combine them (I would get rid of persons who are still). I would also desat. people that are wearing bright color shirts. A BW shot might work well here.

The overall pic is sharp and well-exposed, but it is flat (due to the lighting). I would have used a shorter lens (28 mm) to add dynamism to the scene (the columns would then converge 'faster' towards the center room). The question is whether you can live with the distortion. PS can help but there are limits.

I like the viewpoint. It makes us feel small and insignificant!

Cheers,

Steph.

[Steph_B]

how to improve this shot? - was not easy ... dark place .... needed more than 30 secs ... like the gost like appearence of the old man on the left ....

BTW: were you using a 50mm. Looks like the lines are quite straight! This would have been my first choice too. I do not know how much distortion a 35 mm would have added here.