St. Therapont of Belozersk monastery and vicinities.

I should state that clearly enough, as a counterlight shooting here is a challengeable job, early – before sunset – arrival is the only way to take a good landscape series. The monastery is situated on a hill, so sun would hit through all of your lenses with no remotest possibility to escape it. Transient clouds sometimes provide a kind of shade shelter, but a white balance would be objectionable anyway. As we arrived at the spot at 14 o’clock, nature provided us with no other options, but using either cloud shades or ND filters up to 400th with aperture values like f13 in order to avoid overexposure. If your main objective is the landscape/panoramic shooting, including architectural, then while mapping out your trip it would be preferable to visit Ferapontovo first – in the morning – delaying Kirillov for the midday, since in Kirillov landscape views are so-so, the architecture is not only the must, but also the only object.

Ver. 1, CPL+gradient grey, f13, 1/80s.

Ver. 2, CPL+skylight L1A, f13, 1/60s. 

Ver. 3, CPL+gradient blue, f13, 1/40s.  

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and the church of Saint Martinian. CPL+gradient grey, f13, 1/60s. A counterlight shot taken while sun was covered by clouds. Since we arrived at 14 o’clock, lighting conditions were totally dissatisfactory. 

The Annunciation church. Direct counterlight. f13, 1/30s, CPL+ND2. Unsure of the second filter type, may be either ND2 or gradient grey. Extremely unfavorable conditions – direct counterlight. I my opinion, everything possible is done to process the source .nef image in order to achieve a satisfactory result. 

Ferapontovo village panorama. f13, 1/25s, CPL+gradient grey. 

Ferapontovo village panorama, position 2. 

Paskoye lake and Ferapontovo village. f13, 1/60s, CPL+gradient grey. 

Borodayevskoye lake. Two images taken with different filters. This one – with CPL+gradient grey combination, f13, 1/30s. 

The second image taken from the same spot is experimental: here I used ND400, by the way, with not too long shutter speed – just 1/2s, but open aperture. IMHO, looks better than its more conventional counterpart taken with CPL+gradient grey. 

St. Nilus of Sora church.