More flamboyant tombs

I went to Little Thurlow church to practise using my tripod. In this church is the immodest tomb of Sir Stephen Soame and his wife Dame Anne. Sir Stephen (1544-1619) was a merchant, a member of the Elizabethan Parliament, and former Mayor of London, whose charitable deeds are listed in gilt lettering on a large tablet of black marble. The monument was commissioned by his wife.

Little Thurlow church.
The monument to Sir Stephen and his wife. The daughters are kneeling at the front.
His wife appears to be as tall as he is, if not taller.
I had to focus stack this one. Unfortunately I moved the camera slightly between shots because my camera didn’t have a focus point on Sir Stephen’s head. I had to lift the camera to the nearest focus spot then return it to position, but the return position wasn’t exactly the same. If this happens again, I’ll use manual focus.
The dove of the heavenly spirit with a posse of cherubs.
One of the daughters
A family crest on the monument
The monument is crowded with praying figures – the children of Sir Stephen.
A child holding a skull
Time overlooking everything
Meanwhile, the rest of the church was also quite pretty.
The ends of the pews had individual carvings.

I took all these at ISO 400, with shutter speeds of up to a second for the darker subjects. I wondered if the quality would be better at a higher ISO, say 800, and a faster shutter speed. They were mostly slightly underexposed, due to my fear of overexposure, but I could try exposing to the right because darkened shadows will produce less noise than brightened highlights. I didn’t think of bracketing the exposures, either, when there was high dynamic range.

Still, I was pleased with how agile I was with the tripod, and the pictures are okay.