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Steindl's Staircase
Steindl's Staircase
riot


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Stairs (Standard Editing)
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Lens: Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM for Canon
Location: Hungarian Parliament, Budapest
Date: Nov 25, 2016
Aperture: f/8
ISO: 2500
Shutter: 1/13
Galleries: Interior, Architecture
Date Uploaded: Dec 1, 2016

Is it overprocessed? It is, isn't it? Way too much dodging and burning. Well, let's enter it anyway!

The title refers to Imre Steindl, the designer of the Hungarian Parliament building, who went blind before he could ever see it completed. There's a statue of him in this room.

I actually saw this staircase on a postcard, before I ever visited, and immediately thought "I want to try a version of that shot!"

The reality is always a little more fiddly than the ideal, though. I had to shoot hand-held in poor light, holding the camera out above the heads of pushy tourists and composing in live view... the lens distortion required a fair bit of correction, as did my imperfect framing which left this slightly off centre; the edge of the white portions of the carpet not meeting the corners of the image symmetrically bugs me, as does the slight asymmetry in the windows, and this lens loses a lot of quality in the very corners. To be fair it's designed as a 1.6 crop lens, shooting on a 1.3 crop body, so I shouldn't complain.

Editing consisted of lens distortion correction, perspective correction, cloning out some rubbish on the stairs (they don't keep that red carpet very clean), curves, excessively aggressive dodging and burning, resize, and a teeny tiny sharpen. Lately I've been noticing oversharpening more and more on some of my older work, and the works of others, so I've been consciously trying to dial it back more. Not yet sure if this is the right balance - will have to see how I feel about it in a week or so.

Statistics
Place: 4 out of 44
Avg (all users): 6.5000
Avg (commenters): 7.5000
Avg (participants): 6.7000
Avg (non-participants): 6.3000
Views since voting: 1025
Views during voting: 93
Votes: 40
Comments: 7
Favorites: 1 (view)


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AuthorThread
09/24/2018 02:19:56 PM
Great job!
12/10/2016 08:31:30 PM
LOL, the photographer always has those things that but the heck out of them that no one else is likely to notice. I thought it was really well executed ant I thought the processing suited the shot.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
12/09/2016 05:56:36 AM
Hello from the critique club

An interesting image that contributes well to the challenge

Difficult to imagine a more appropriate image for the challenge brief. What a magnificent place it forms a wonderful setting to those impressive stairs. I can relate to your sense of frustration with the slight imperfections that you have mentioned in your write up, whenever you are trying to get a perfect symmetry it mostly eludes to a greater or lesser extent but none of this is detrimental to the end result. Your question about the processing, well the high score and result is probably the best answer to that so well done for entering it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
12/08/2016 10:57:59 PM
Very impressive!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
12/08/2016 09:34:27 PM
Looks like some German or Hungarian palace but no idea where. Well executed shot.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
12/05/2016 10:47:08 PM
this meets the challenge!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
12/02/2016 02:13:12 AM
I would of darkened the highlights, but this is a great scene!
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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