Guy Davies, EPSA  

St. Stephen’s Basilica Statue by Guy Davies, EPSA

January 2025 - St. Stephen’s Basilica Statue

About the Image(s)

Taken on 30th October last year on our river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam. This is in St Stephens Basilica in Budapest, which is a beautiful cathedral in the city centre. Stephen was the first king of Hungary and is the nation's patron saint. I presume this statue is of St Stephen but I have not been able to confirm that. I was struck by the splendid setting and the symmetry also. Camera was my Lumix FZ1000 with the built-in Leica 9 - 146 mm lens (25 - 400 equivalent) set at 66 mm. Exposure was 1/30 at f/6.3 and ISO 3200. Back home I used NoNoiseAI in ON1 RAW which I find normally does a great job in cutting out noise. Also in ON1 RAW I adjusted the whites and highlights to take out some small blown white patches and I adjusted the colour temperature to reduce the yellow cast from the artificial lights. There were several possibilities for cropping and I settled for a square crop to cut out small distractions.

Regards and Happy New Year to all our group.

9 comments posted

R Gary Butler   R Gary Butler
Guy, these statues at High altars, etc are hard to capture correctly, but I feel you have done a fine job of getting the shadow detail without blowing out the highlights. I think your adjustment to color temperature was spot on as well.

If you have moved just a slosh to the right you could have gotten complete symmetry in the background detail.   Posted: 01/11/2025 14:33:46
Guy Davies   Guy Davies
Gary, you are quite right that the symmetry is not perfect. I did not notice it at the time and it's too late when you get home! It was a bit busy there so maybe I have an excuse!   Posted: 01/11/2025 16:14:58
R Gary Butler   R Gary Butler
Guy, Not too late. Would you like me to show you a fix? I'd be happy to do it.   Posted: 01/11/2025 17:05:21
Guy Davies   Guy Davies
Hi Gary. Yes please, I would like to see your fix.   Posted: 01/12/2025 13:38:44
R Gary Butler   R Gary Butler
Here you go Guy. Two easy steps. Use magnetic Lasso or equivalent to get the area outside the pillar on the left. Modify by expanding and feathering a couple of pixels. Make a new layer and flip it.

Expand the canvas on the right to accept the larger piece. Move the new layer to the right side.

Essentially do the same with the area inside the left pillar. This one requires a small but of erasing after you move the area to the right side. Then collapse into a single layer.   Posted: 01/12/2025 15:58:15
Comment Image
Guy Davies   Guy Davies
Thanks Gary. Very helpful.   Posted: 01/12/2025 16:47:49
Dr Isaac Vaisman   Dr Isaac Vaisman
Guy, nice record image of the Statue, and you were able to bring out all the details in the shadows. Indeed Gary is very picky about symmetry.   Posted: 01/11/2025 15:39:20
Erik Rosengren   Erik Rosengren
Sharp and offers good color. The symmetry may not be perfect however the vertical and horizontal lines are perfect. The important thing is that our photo work puts viewers in front of images that many would ever see.   Posted: 01/11/2025 18:04:44
Ian Chantler   Ian Chantler
Hi Guy
As Erik said you have given us an image of an object we may not have seen or ever will see.
For me the crop is spot on lovely job with the temperature adjustment for me its as good a record shot of this statue as you are going to see well done.   Posted: 01/13/2025 21:21:12

 

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