Parliament in a Glass Building

Vinh

Just catching up on my delinquent posts, this particularly theme occurring when I was on my honeymoon which I could not attend to.  Anyhow, I took this shot a few weeks ago with my new at the time Ultra Wide Angle Sigma 10-20mm lens ( I love this lens by the way but am selling it, so let me know if you are interested :-D ).

This is the view I see from a bus stop every Friday at the corner of Wellington Street and Bank Street (google street view here).  It’s basically a reflection of the West Block of Parliament Building against the Currency Museum (insert your own pun here).

For composition, I wanted to correct the vertical distortion and thanks to Phil’s blog post back in August, I was able to fix it to the best of my abilities but noticed that my shot wasn’t straight on.  A neat little trick I learned was to use perspective cropping to correct it).  Phil’s post was true and I did lose a bit of the photo at the bottom corners when adjusting for vertical correction.  Nonetheless, it captures the main picture of what I wanted, including the top of the building.  I spent some time tweaking contrast etc., deleting some pedestrians walking, enhancing the lens flare slightly and adding a slight vignette.  I wanted to add a layered blue sky but my technical abilities don’t permit me at the moment, something I’ll have to work on.  Anyhow, hope you like the final result.

original EXIF: ISO100, 11mm, f9.0, 1/50sec.

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Update: I have added the crop version as requested by Phil with some tweaks.  I think the effect is rather catching and really plays with your mind a bit to decipher the image.

 

 

Cheers,
Vinh

Theme:

Posted on Wednesday, July 20th, 2011 at 9:16 pm.
  • http://LearningDSLR.com Philippe Dame

    Cool. I like it. Glad my post was helpful.

    I’d be curious to see this shot (or another of this subject) cropped so tight that you can’t fully make out the building that’s creating the reflection. You’d see the West Block all cut up into vertical lines without much explanation as to the effect.

    Why are you selling the Sigma lens so soon?

    • Vinh

      Thanks Phil.  Great idea, I will try the crop and add it as a 2nd shot. 

      I am selling because a great deal came up on a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 came up and I just had to get it.  It’s in high demand and doesn’t come on the used market often.  I do obviously lose some focal range (with just 5mm zoom range, it’s practically a prime, lol)  but most of the time I shoot at 11mm anyways. However, it’s much faster lens and a tad bit sharper in the corners wide open and better built.  The auto-focus isn’t as quiet or fast as Sigma but not an issue with landscapes.

      Both are great lenses and it’s with a bit of sadness that I sell the Sigma but I could definitely use the cash to cover the Tokina ;-)

    • Vinh

      Phil, now with the crop version attached. 

  • Jason

    As I said on the weekend… Nice shot Vinh!

  • http://LearningDSLR.com Philippe Dame

    I like the updated version. More interesting to me.