St. Nicholas Cathedral - Prague

[Hikaribushi]

I took the three exposures used for this photo before sunrise at the Old Town Square in Prague last week, and I need to fix the fact that the photo is not level. :mrgreen:

I'd very much appreciate your insight and critique on this image. Thanks in advance!

 

[vipgraphx]

Your sky is a dirty blue and looks odd with a little bit of haloing. You can also use the clone tool or spot healing to remove that sensor dust sports in the sky. You have blown out lights that need to be fixed.

Looks like a really nice place to shoot.

 

[.SimO.]

Is it the awkward tone mapping that makes it seem blurry to me? Are you editing the images prior to merging them together? Something feels off to me. Nice photo though.

 

[Hikaribushi]

Thank you for the feedback! I'm not editing the images prior to merging them together; I'll see what I can do about the color of the sky and the blown out lights. :thumbup:

Edit: I should have brought the original photos with me to work so I could work on this during my lunch time instead of wishing I were at home so I could work on them instead. Time to close the browser and get busy here at the office.

Edit 2: As far as the "look" of the photo I used the "creative" tone mapping preset on Photomatix after merging the three exposures. Based on what I read in the tutorial in this forum it looks like a good option to address the sky and halo effects may be to use the de-ghosting tool to select the sky, and choose the exposure with the sky color I like best. Or I could try a different preset, but then I don't think I'd learn as much.

 

[Hikaribushi]

I'm not having any luck with the blown out lights in that first image, any suggestions on how to fix it?

The exposure information on the original 3 photos is as follows:

ISO 1250, 41mm, f/4, 1/20
ISO 1250, 41mm, f/4.8, 1/60
ISO 1250, 41mm, f/4, 1/6

I used a Canon 5D Mark II and a 28-135mm lens.