Antique underground water cistern, Istanbul, Turkey

Hi all,

This is my thirteenth post of a picture in this forum. The picture is stored on the Swedish site http://www.fotosidan.se , and there will be some text in Swedish. So I write a little about it here in English.

This picture was taken in Istanbul, Turkey, where my wife and I were on a week's holiday in February - March this year (2005). The picture shows an antique underground water cistern, which existed long before the turks conquered Constantinopel (now Istanbul) in the year of 1453 AD. The cistern lies near the old palace Topkapi. It is very big, about 40 meters wide and 60 meters long, I think it was.

I took the picture with my 20D hand-held (with some support) and with my EF-S 17-85 IS USM lens at 17 mm. 0.5 seconds shutter time, aperture value 4, and ISO 3200. A-DEP.

Please click on "Förstora" to the right under the picture, beside my name "Sten Edebäck". Then the picture will be enlarged, and it really looks much better then. Do not click on the name, because then you will probably just be prompted to sign in.

http://www.fotosidan.se/gallery/viewpic.htm/537092.htm?set=lp

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Sten Edeback

I don't know why no one has responded to your post. Beautiful image.
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ckb

I am glad you like my picture!
)

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Sten Edeback

I really like the reddish color from the lighting.

Are the metal rods something that's been added in modern times to shore things up or is that part of the original structure?

I'll bet the acoustics in there are very interesting. I can just imagine the sound of dripping water reverberating off of all of that stone.

Thanks for posting the shot.

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Jim H.

Sten - I like the picture. In the past, I've tried to share a similar photo with you in return, but I don't have one quite like yours this time.

Looks like an interesting place. The image is not as sharp as if you were to use a tripod, but for the light levels you were dealing with (0.5" at 3200 ISO) it's pretty amazing what you can do handheld these days. IS makes a very positive difference.

In this case, the softness is not a drawback. The red tone and the subject matter makes this more of an "out of the box," artsy treatment that does not necessarily benefit from sharpness. It's the digital equivalent to doing a Polaroid transfer with a 4x5 large format camera. The result is quite striking. I might tone the red down just slightly.

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Brian Kennedy
http://www.briankennedy.net/

This place was in the movie "From Russia With Love"

I am glad that you liked the picture!

Yes, the reddish lighting was fascinating. I was careful so that no lamp was directly visible in the picture.
My guess is that the iron rods have been added lately to stabilize the pillars.

As I remember it, the acoustics were normal. Probably the water surface moderated the sounds. The room was not very wet either.

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Sten Edeback

Thanks for your kind words about my picture!

I know it is not as sharp as it would have been with a tripod, but like you I think it is OK anyway. As you say, IS is fantastic.

You may have a point in that toning the red down a bit would be appropriate. I will think about that.

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Sten Edeback

Thank you for giving us this info.
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Sten Edeback