Day 347 - The Cathedral at night

Christ Church Cathedral stands at the eastern entrance to Fredericton's downtown core. With a view of the St. John River, this Anglican Church is the architectural show piece of the city and it is especially beautiful when seen at night.

Last night, as part of our usual walk with our dog, Marlee Marie, Patti agreed to my slowing our wanderings down a bit by bringing along the Olympus and the tripod. I hoped to get some nice evening shots not just of Christ Church but also of the many beautiful displays of Christmas lights in this, the oldest part of Fredericton.

I'm glad to report that I am absolutely delighted with the results; Marlee, of course, was delighted with the extended walk, which ended up lasting more than two hours.

Patti, meanwhile, was not only an excellent companion for this photo safari but also a creative partner: this second shot, of an interestingly shaped bare tree against the other side of the cathedral, was entirely her idea, as were many other shots that you are likely to see over the course of the coming week. Patti sees things in ways that I don't and her ideas are usually great (no matter how hard I at first resist them).

As I have said so often before, the challenge with photos of this kind is deciding what the appropriate amount of light is to let into the camera. For the darkest of night shots, you end up setting the shutter speed at its slowest setting (15 seconds) and then open the aperture up as far as it will go (f3.4). When there's a little more light, you can close the aperture down to improve the depth of focus but you have to make sure you don't allow the in-frame light sources to create white bombs in your picture.

In the top photo, that light top left is actually the moon. If I had stopped the aperture down even further, I could have gotten rid of that starring effect but that would have meant that the building was too dark. So, not having any lens filters to help me, I have to accept the distortion of the moon (which actually looks kind of cool) in order to make the Cathedral visible. It's a worthwhile tradeoff, I think.