Anyone for Dinner? by Kevin Perkins
Via Flickr:
The word sumptuous came to mind when we entered the State Dining Room at Inveraray Castle. I must admit I’ve been looking for a stately home type interior to shoot for some while although this shot presented something of a technical challenge. For a start it was extremely gloomy both inside & out and, as you can probably imagine, the castle operate a no flash /tripod policy so I was stuck with having to handhold this hdr. I wouldn’t usually use an ISO of 3200 and large aperture but it was the only way of achieving a decent set of shutter speeds. Brace….. two deep breaths……slowly exhale and squeeze. The resulting 5 frame burst embarrassingly woke everyone in the room. Alight, they weren’t asleep but you know what I mean. The shutter on my D700 isn’t what you’d call quiet. I was happy with the results when I got home and looked at the shots. I could have done with a bit more depth of field but something had to give. My slowest bracket of 1/10 sec was nice and sharp aided, no doubt, by the lens vr. Needless to say I had a good bit of work to do in photoshop with all the high ISO grain but topaz de-noise did a great job of controlling this element. For those interested in the room the elaborate panel painting was completed in 1784 by two French artists Girard and Guinard. So we were informed this is the only location where their work survives today. It is of a quality unparalleled in Britain at that time and it is of little surprise to find that Girard was one of the principal decorative artists employed by the young Prince of Wales when decorating his grand residence Carlton House. The delicate tapestry dining chairs with gilding by Dupasquier and original Beavais tapestry upholstery were commissioned by the 5th Duke on one of his visits to France in the 1780’s. The dining table, by Gillow of Lancaster dates from about 1800, the outstanding ormolu-mounted sideboards are from the late 18th century and the Waterford chandelier is circa 1830. For the Downton Abbey fans the castle and this room were used in the 2012 Christmas Special; more info here <a href=“http://www.inveraray-castle.com/Downton-Abbey.html” 5 shot, handheld, hdr (-2 -+2). I created a couple of additional brackets off the -2 to control the light coming off the chandelier/lamps. Nikon D700 with 16-35 f4 VR at 16mm, f4.5, 1/10 - 1/160 sec, ISO 3200