Istanbul, I need to go back.

Jacobovs

Spent 4 days in Istanbul and needed so much more. This was a great time of year to avoid the crowda and still have decent weather. I have lots of shots so hang on.

1 The Blue Mosque


2 Haig Sophia used to be a church and then converted to be a mosque


Inside:

This is inside the mosque, you can see the mosaic of Jesus and Mary at the top.












Two of the Christian mosaics in the moscque




3 The Blue Mosque at sunset







Inside:





Mosaic tiles









4 Small mosque in Sultanhamet square



5 Cool juxtapositioned mosque along the Bosphorus



6 Baroque mosque along the Bosphorus





7 An unexpected find was Sultan Hamet's toumb in Sultanhamet square. It's nice and almost no one goes there. Don't adjust your screens, it's a funky green




8 The Topkapi Palace Harem rooms are the highlight. Take a wide angle lens, the ceilings are astounding!







9 The views at night were also amazing






Night view from Galata tower






10 The Markets are a feast for the eyes, mouth and walet.

No joke, the kibble and pet market





you an get anything from this bird( he had his eye on me too)



to leaches ( not sure they make good pets)


The Spice Market










The Grand Bazaar







Main street in the bazaar, it's enormous



11. The people are the highlight. They were very friendly and helpful

The Dervish, no trip to Turkey would be complete without them







Local talent was nice



No trip would be complete without street people.



























Sorry for the length but I just got back and am still very enthusiastic.

All CC is always welcome.

adbsgicom

What a great set of memories. Loved the Blue Mosque at sunset, gorgeous!!! The B/W in the mosque is wonderful. Your street shots are fantastic as well, esp the couple of older ladies in the park, those three gents and the guy washing his feet. You should post some of the street shots in the steet/pj for better feedback on those. Wow.

grimace

adbsgicom wrote:

Loved the Blue Mosque at sunset, gorgeous!!!

I agree. The lighting and color on the Blue Mosque is perfect. Wonderful, wonderful series.

Awais Yaqub

Amazing Photography !

You can publish whole book on Turkey using these photos.

dadwtwins

Thank you for posting, great images

t-rev

Awesome!

Justiceiro

Fantastic stuff. I just got back from Istanbul 3 days ago, and I'm looking throuhg my photos- they just can't compare. How did you get that great, noise freeil ghting inside Aya Sofya? That place is a bear to shoot, particularly now with all the scaffolding. Dark as can be. What's your technique?

ChatKat

Istanbul
Istanbul was one of my very favorite places to shoot. I hope to go back again someday.

Loved your images. Thanks for the mini-vacation.

Art Scott

WOW great images......I would be in HOOKAH heaven in the grand bazaar.......:Drofl

Jacobovs

Justiceiro wrote:

Fantastic stuff. I just got back from Istanbul 3 days ago, and I'm looking throuhg my photos- they just can't compare. How did you get that great, noise freeil ghting inside Aya Sofya? That place is a bear to shoot, particularly now with all the scaffolding. Dark as can be. What's your technique?

You are so right. I had a hard time with the lighting. Way too dark in some places and too bright in others. I took a few pictures with out good results. So, out of frustration I decided to bracket the shots and tonemap them later. So All of my ceiling shots and the shots in the mosques are HDR( hand held). I used the bracketing feature in my D3 set the frame rate to 9fps and did a 5 frame burst. Later i combined them in photomix HDR, sharpened and NR in Noise Ninja and Voila. Hope this helps.:D

Ed911

Jacobovs wrote:

You are so right. I had a hard time with the lighting. Way too dark in some places and too bright in others. I took a few pictures with out good results. So, out of frustration I decided to bracket the shots and tonemap them later. So All of my ceiling shots and the shots in the mosques are HDR( hand held). I used the bracketing feature in my D3 set the frame rate to 9fps and did a 5 frame burst. Later i combined them in photomix HDR, sharpened and NR in Noise Ninja and Voila. Hope this helps.:D

These are incredible images. What a treat. A very nice documentary. I was looking at your shots and wondered if you had used an HDR trechnique...evident in some of them. It's nice to see that you didn't over do it...most people are familiar with the artsy side of HDR. I agree that you could do a book on Istanbul. And, by the way, I didn't think you posted too many images.

What ISO's were you using for the HDR'd images? Did you ever use flash? Was flash even allowed in the mosques?

Thanks for sharing.

RuiMLopes

Really great stuff! Your Istanbul images are among the best I ever seen from there, so far.
I can see that you visited a big part of the places I sugested some weeks ago. I hope that my information has been useful!

Jacobovs

Ed911 wrote:

These are incredible images. What a treat. A very nice documentary. I was looking at your shots and wondered if you had used an HDR trechnique...evident in some of them. It's nice to see that you didn't over do it...most people are familiar with the artsy side of HDR. I agree that you could do a book on Istanbul. And, by the way, I didn't think you posted too many images.

What ISO's were you using for the HDR'd images? Did you ever use flash? Was flash even allowed in the mosques?

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, I used iso 200 with no flash. People used flashes in the mosques but i did not think it was necessary.

choudhrysaab

SUPERB pictures - loved every single shot.
def. one of the places on my "to visit" list

thank you for sharing.

Jacobovs

RuiMLopes wrote:

Really great stuff! Your Istanbul images are among the best I ever seen from there, so far.
I can see that you visited a big part of the places I sugested some weeks ago. I hope that my information has been useful!

Thanks for all of the tips!!! I used them as a guide for my trip. Your tips saved me a lot of time.:D

dlplumer

Fabulous shots. Might I suggest you straighten some of your verticals. A few of them are quite slanted.:D

Jacobovs

dlplumer wrote:

Fabulous shots. Might I suggest you straighten some of your verticals. A few of them are quite slanted.:D

Thanks, I appreciate the CC.

Jacobovs

RuiMLopes wrote:

Really great stuff! Your Istanbul images are among the best I ever seen from there, so far.
I can see that you visited a big part of the places I sugested some weeks ago. I hope that my information has been useful!

I did go to the places you mentioned. your ideas were very helpful.:D

justin24

:jawdrop I need to visit turkey now after seeing those!

Jacobovs

justin24 wrote:

:jawdrop I need to visit turkey now after seeing those!

And I need to go back. There was so much more, and I did not even get to the Asia side of Istanbul.

LisaYang

Jacobovs wrote:

And I need to go back. There was so much more, and I did not even get to the Asia side of Istanbul.

Oh god. Istanbul was a dream; sweaterweather and hagia sofia, oceanside and golden skies. Amazing shots; feel free to check out mine
http://lisayang.smugmug.com/The-World-As-I-Knew-It/Istanbul/10324846_v5f2W#713789807_49T2y

Jacobovs

LisaYang wrote:

Oh god. Istanbul was a dream; sweaterweather and hagia sofia, oceanside and golden skies. Amazing shots; feel free to check out mine
http://lisayang.smugmug.com/The-World-As-I-Knew-It/Istanbul/10324846_v5f2W#713789807_49T2y

Nice shots

Allan FG

Stunning images of the Mosques

Jacobovs

Allan FG wrote:

Stunning images of the Mosques

Thanks Allan, they are a must see in Istanbul!

Professional

Terrific shots from Istanbul!

I never have been to Turkey before, but i am really thinking to go there someday, so how long did you stay there? and how much did it cost you there for almost everything [Accommodation, food, transport,...]?

Jacobovs

Professional wrote:

Terrific shots from Istanbul!

I never have been to Turkey before, but i am really thinking to go there someday, so how long did you stay there? and how much did it cost you there for almost everything [Accommodation, food, transport,...]?

Thanks, it was not very expensive at all. The food was relatively cheap. We ate at the small local restaurants. The hotel was roughly $150/night. It was a small boutique hotel. And the entry cost for some of the museums was minimal. All together it was less than $800 ground.

justin24

Jacobovs I keep coming back to this thread and it amazes me everytime. Beautiful Work.

Danspage

Jacobovs wrote:

You are so right. I had a hard time with the lighting. Way too dark in some places and too bright in others. I took a few pictures with out good results. So, out of frustration I decided to bracket the shots and tonemap them later. So All of my ceiling shots and the shots in the mosques are HDR( hand held). I used the bracketing feature in my D3 set the frame rate to 9fps and did a 5 frame burst. Later i combined them in photomix HDR, sharpened and NR in Noise Ninja and Voila. Hope this helps.:D

Thanks, this is one great post, thank you for the technique you used. I don't like the gray side of HDR but this post shows what you can do if you don't go to far.

Do you think the cheep photomix HDR would have worked on this? Not sure yet what I need to get photos like yours. I do like larger file output, and wonder how big the the file would be?

Jacobovs

Danspage wrote:

Thanks, this is one great post, thank you for the technique you used. I don't like the gray side of HDR but this post shows what you can do if you don't go to far.

Do you think the cheep photomix HDR would have worked on this? Not sure yet what I need to get photos like yours. I do like larger file output, and wonder how big the the file would be?

Thanks,

Not sure what you mean by cheap photomix, the version I used was not expensive. The files were in the 35meg range. Im sure the jpegs are much smaller.:D

Kian

Great stuff, iam hoping to head down to istanbul in march. any tips?

Jacobovs

Kian wrote:

Great stuff, iam hoping to head down to istanbul in march. any tips?

Thanks,

I stayed at a small boutique hotel near sultanhamet square. I would recommend that. The view from Galata tower at night was cool. I would not ecommend the show, very cheesy. The Big mosques were very cool and worth the visit. I would not recommend the Bosporus boat tour. The Topkai palace was one of the highlights. The spice market was very cool( some of the surrounding streets were nice as well for people pics) and the grand bazaar.

I did not visit the Asian side but will definitely go there next time.