I gotta tell ya, this was the one place I had to go to when I was in London, seriously, I could have skipped the rest and been OK on my side of things. There were lots of things I wanted to see, but HAD to, was St. Paul's Cathedral. I went there once before again back in the day, summer of 1997 it would have been when I was at a clinical placement at Stanmore Hospital in July. I mentioned I was in Physiotherapy School in Scotland before right? Anyway, I went there and did not really get much of anything, one photo looking straight up at the dome with a nice beam of light crossing. But, really nothing but memories. 

Now, going there is one thing, actually getting any photos I liked would be another thing altogether, I remembered the incredible scale of the building and that the lenses I had back in the film days were simply not able to "Get it all in." that phrase is a little fraught in photography/photographer circles by the way as it indicates maybe an indiscriminate or non focused approach, where you just go wide and take a boring photo that while showing the interior does not have a focus point or subject. That thought in the back of my mind being considered, I still felt that wider can be useful and I have a certain amount of experience with wide lenses to rely on. I already had the Pentax 15-30 f2.8 superwide but, like any respectable photographer I wondered if I needed to go wider than that already considerably wide field of view I can get at 15mm. My APS-C kit had a Fisheye lens from Rokinon, it gives you 180 degrees field of view from corner to corner and has a pleasing projection that is less distorted than other fisheye lenses. I really liked mine, BUT it was not full frame. Taps fingers on lips pensively... what to do, what to do... A quick google search filled me with joy. https://www.slrlounge.com/rokinon-12mm-f2-8-full-frame-fisheye-lens-review-urbex-extreme-adventure-photography-lens/ They made one for full frame and it is VERY well reviewed!

I then sallied forth and bought said lens to add to the kit. Scratching an itch I knew I had and it felt GOOD! Now, I have all the focal lengths covered that I would likely need, a camera with a great sensor and the eventual prospect of a cathedral to photograph. Still, I knew there would be challenges, lots of people around, (I kinda hate having people in my architectural photos, but here that can't be avoided.) and the lighting, or lack thereof inside. Our eyes are amazing, we can go into a dimly lit building and as they adjust see quite well. Camera sensors have come a long way, but still cannot capture light the same way as our eyes and that poses a challenge. Increasing the ISO, or sensitivity of the sensor, adds noise and reduces the fidelity of the color captured. I knew this would be a challenge in many buildings and castles on this trip and I needed to game plan to find the happy spot that will give me the results I wanted. Eventually, for most things I settled on ISO 1600 as my baseline shutter speed and varied the aperture a little as needed but would start at f6.7 and maybe go up to f8 where my lenses tend to be the sharpest. As you will see as we go along, I think I did OK. There is some noise in most photos, a fair amount in some where I had to really push the shadows. 

Now, the day of the visit. I had booked my tickets many months before, which I was glad to have done as the line to try in without one was long, really long. I started off with my 15-30 f2.8, as soon as I got inside I remembered that I had forgotten the size of the silly thing!

15mm got me the perspective and scale I wanted, but at the cost of distortion. Yes the walls are actually straight and level in real life, but that is not how lenses work, nor the perspective of looking up, our brains compensate when we look up and correct things, the camera combined with the lens just captures things differently.

I soon reached for that 12mm fisheye and was glad I had it. This is an... interesting cross and capturing it and placing it inside the greater context of the building was a task that I am not sure I could have accomplished otherwise. 

In a style that could likely be termed "Distort and Conquer" I tried to capture this column and carving details and again place it within it's context. I think I did OK.

The Exterior is a source of delight for me as well.

The details really crack me up at times. The intricacy and effort put in never fail to impress me.  

I have learned since processing these that some of the things I used to have to do no longer need to be in my toolkit. I have an unsharp mask setting I have long used to add contrast that seems to give me pronounced haloing it really shows up in this type of photo. Probably need to re-visit this one day.

I'm going to jump ahead in time now to our last night in London before flying home. I deliberately booked a hotel just down the street from St. Paul's to facilitate some night photography. I was lucky enough to have it rain just before I set out, which was... sigh... just lovely. One of my favorite ways to see a scene differently is to lengthen the exposure at night and capture the movement around the subject while it sits still and sharp. Or to have the subject move while the framing sits still. This was a good night for this. I have included many shots here just to illustrate how each shot can be different even if the camera does not move much or at all. The best part of this type of photography is that you really don't need any special equipment, just a good tripod, some type of cable or IR remote and your usual lenses. And...   some luck helps too. Again the starbursts are the result of the small apertures needed to get the longer exposures.

This was a particular favorite, having the stopped buses and flow of the light to them really adds to the action.  

This was a shot I wanted to get since the final Harry Potter movie, seeing the Millennium Bridge and it's proximity led me to some internet searching and finding photos like this made me interested in replicating them with my own spin. There were a lot of pedestrians which initially annoyed me, but I adapted and actually I think the ghostly movement adds to the overall photo. Making each one unique. I was worried that vibrations from footsteps would degrade the sharpness but really it didn't cause problems. 

In the balance, I am happy with what I was able to capture, I was trying to not be a spray and pray tourist and maybe was a little too stingy inside the cathedral, but I can live with that.

As always, thanks for reading, assuming you made it this far, comments are welcome!