I knew that Prague was a beautiful city to begin with but after seeing it in person, I can honestly say that it exceeded my expectations. Old Town Square and Týn Church are stunning sights whether you’re up above it all in the clock tower, or negotiating the crowded streets below.
I visit a lot of popular destinations and each one has it’s share of good vantage points for photography. After a few days in Prague however, I’m impressed with the incredible amount of these great views; all very easy to access and without any tripod restrictions. Even the main towers have no problem with tripods. The only things you have to watch out for are the people. If you take up too much space with your setup, you will get bumped into for sure. The towers only have narrow walkways to support the heavy foot traffic so I recommend being cautious and courteous with your setup. Take a small tripod and keep it as out of the way as possible. Without the legs extended, my RRS 4 Section TVC-24 Tripod fit fairly well on the railing, freeing up the floor for all the excited tourist traffic. For some of the shooting, I also used a Joby Gorillapod Focus and BallheadX combo, which secured perfectly to the metal hand railings that line the perimeter windows.
There’s also a Behind The Scenes photo available.
Technical Mumbo Jumbo
Camera: Nikon D800
Lens: 14-24 f/2.8
ISO: 100 (and) 500
Exposures at f/8 ISO 100: 0.6, 1.3, 2.5, 5, 10
Exposure at f/2.8 ISO 500: 1/20
I spent a couple hours up in the clock tower capturing the light as it changed from a brilliant Gold Hour and Sunset to a vivid Blue Hour. As the light faded and my exposures started to become longer, the people below turned into troublesome streaks. Since there was a cool little jazz concert going on down there, I wanted to preserve the scene as much a possible.
So in addition to shooting 5 bracketed exposures at f/8 and ISO 100, I also shot a single (faster) exposure at f/2.8 ISO 500 to account for the motion. In Photoshop, I manually blended the bracketed exposures -1,0, and +1 together first. Then, using a painted mask, I added in the high ISO frame to fix the people streaks. Since my camera was stationary, and after some color correction and noise reduction, the frames blended seamlessly.
