Roadtrip Images

The Castel Sant’ Angelo in Rome makes for a dramatic scene, especially at night. Add in a bit of rain for atmosphere too!

The Castel Sant’Angelo or Castle of the Holy Angel was first constructed as a burial site for Emperor Hadrian between AD 134 and 139. It was later used by the Popes as a fortress and castle. It is now a museum. Legend has it that the Archangel Michael appeared atop the castle in 590 AD signalling the end of the plague. This gave rise to its current name. You can read more about its history here.

It’s a popular site today along with the pedestrian bridge that leads into the castle. It also makes for a dramatic photograph especially at dusk when the lights come on.

To make this photograph at dusk required a long exposure. Long exposures require a tripod. This is a busy location with many people walking the bridge coming and going to the castle. Setting up my tripod in the middle of the bridge was a little conspicuous but no one seemed to be concerned about it. The composition was straightforward. I wanted the bridge to be a dominant leading line into the castle. I also wanted to include several of the statues on the railing. I chose a spot far enough back to include enough bridge walkway as well as the statues. Having some light rain was a plus as it gave nice reflections off the wet walkway.

Why not just use a high ISO and grab the shot hand held? Three reasons. High ISO exposures contain a lot of noise. I shot this at ISO 64 to ensure a clean image. This required a shutter speed of 15 seconds. The second reason is the shutter speed itself. I wanted to drag the shutter so that most of the people on the bridge would not register in the image as long as they were moving. This saved a lot of clean up work in post later. The third reason was so that I could bracket my exposures. I knew I’d need an under exposed image for the lights themselves as they’d be blown out in the normal exposure. In order to blend images together they need to be made on a tripod.

Another nice composition of the castle and bridge is made at river level. I have included that one below. For this one I wanted the bridge to still be a leading line into the castle. Finding the right angle to the bridge was important. Standing too close to the bridge made the bridge too dominant and almost the subject of the photo rather than the castle. Too far to the left and it no longer served as a leading line. It was just another element in the scene. Finding the sweet spot required moving left and right until it just felt right.

This image also was a long exposure of 15 seconds. It did a nice job of smoothing out the river in the foreground. The sky was dark and foreboding with light rain falling and adds to the overall scene.

The post processing of the main image was pretty straightforward. I did do a blend of the normal exposure and the under exposed images to knock down the highlights. This was mainly the lights themselves but also the reflections on the bridge walkway. Once the highlights are blown out you can’t pull them back so another image is required to capture that detail. I did this with a luminosity mask for the highlights and just brushed the detail back in from the under exposed image.

I did a minor amount of people removal as the long exposure took care of most of the work. There are still some people in the image right next to the castle that I was not able to remove.

Nightscapes in Rome are great subjects to photograph. Visiting in the off season makes for a less crowded experience but the weather can be a challenge at times. We visited in January and it rained most every day. It comes with the territory I suppose. We still had a great time in Rome and saw a number of places on our bucket list. When we go back it may be during a more dry and warmer season though.

As always, you can see higher resolution images on our Facebook page. Please give us a like while you’re there.

Nikon D850 with Nikkor 16-35mm at 22mm. f/11 at 15 seconds. ISO 64.