Russian Chapel I by John Opie

This gigapan is of the Russian Chapel in Bad Homburg, Germany. It is a Russian Orthodox Chapel, still in use (and closed except for services).

It was built between 1896 and 1899 by Lous Jacob, architect was the St. Peterburg architect Leonti Benois, the grandfather of Peter Ustinov, the actor. The Russian state advisor Alexej J. Proworoff initiated the project. Proworoff (also called the Rose Cavalier) was a frequent visitor to Bad Homburg to take the waters at the spa there, and organized the financing of the building of the chapel with the Russian church in Berlin (head priest Alexej Maltzew and the Brotherhood of the Holy Price Vladimir. The city of Bad Homburg donated the land.

Building started on 16 October 1896, the Russian Czar Nicolaus II and his wife (born Alix von Hessen-Darmstadt) Alexandra Fjodorowna were present. The chapel was opened (without the presence of the Czar) on 22 Sep 1899.

The style is of a Russian church from the 17th century.

Technical info:

Gigapan Epic 100
Olympus E510
Leica APO Telyt-R 180 f 3.4 via adapter
ExposureTime - 1/60 seconds
FNumber - 11
ISOSpeedRatings - 100

Unfortunately, rapidly moving clouds made this difficult...operational risk for any Gigapan. Also the relatively limited dynamic range of the digital sensor - an inherent problem wth any digital camera, not the 4/3 sensor alone - meant that my exposure here, aimed at maintaining excellent shadow detail, ended up blocking the highlights. Will have to retry this either as an HDR or with losing the shadow detail to maintain the highlights. Then again, the dynamic range of the original was also quite large, given the bright sky and the darker shadows...