Choir Stalls Bath Abbey Fisheyed Final

A stay in Bath over Christmas presented the perfect opportunity to try out my fisheye lens on the interior of Bath Abbey. I was attracted by the light stands in the Choir Stalls for this image.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Samyang 8mm fisheye lens at f5.6. ISO 1000 was required for a fast enough shutter speed. There were 3 raw images 2EV spacing for HDR. Opened in Photoshop first and each image noise reduced with Noiseware Pro and saved as tiffs.

Photomatix

The HDR was created using Photmatix and tonemapped using exposure fusion natural preset with some adjustments for the most natural look and the least noise.

Photoshop

First the Plus 2 EV layer was brought back in, excluded with a layer mask and then a brush used to bring it back in for shadow areas in the foreground to bring in more detail.

Next the Minus 2 EV layer was brought back in, excluded with a layer mask and then a brush used to bring it back in for highlight areas in some of the windows to bring in more detail.

General adjustments in levels to enhance with a layer mask used to exclude highlights.

Vibrance increased by 12 points.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

First duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 26 amount and 26 radius. A mask was used to partly exclude the effect from highlights.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the middle of the 3 exposures. Then the tonemapped image and then the final result.

Original at 0EV

Choir Stalls Bath Abbey Fisheyed Original

Tonemapped image

Choir Stalls Bath Abbey Fisheyed Tonemapped

Final Image

Choir Stalls Bath Abbey Fisheyed Final

For licences see Choir Stalls Bath Abbey Fisheyed

Edwin Jones