One of the greatest cathedral interiors in the world is the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, Russia. It bears this name because Alexander II, czar of Russia, was assassinated on this spot in 1881. I used a Sigma 14mm f/1.8 wide angle lens to include as much as possible in the shot. This was a challenging image to take because it's quite dark for photographic purposes, and while I was using an exceptionally fast lens, I chose an aperture of f/5.6 because of the close proximity to the supporting columns. The closer the lens is to the foreground, the more challenging complete depth of field is. What I didn't want was any part of this composition -- either the immediate foreground or the distant ceiling -- to be 'almost' sharp. That's why I closed the lens down a few f/stops. I took this picture 5 years ago when noise was more of an issue than it is today, thus my ISO was 3200. I didn't want to go higher than that. Due to the low light level, however, that forced the shutter to be 1/20th of a second. That was really risky, but I held my breath, pressed my elbows against my body, planted my feet firmly on the floor, and squeezed the shutter gently. As you can see, I was able to take a sharp picture but only because I was using such a wide angle lens.
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