Ecuador — Cuenca; Dusk to Dark

Ministry of Social Welfare

It was getting late, and Ursula and I were getting hungry. So, after receiving some recommendations from the locals, we set out on foot to a restaurant that was so good we visited it twice, the second time with a couple from our tour group who asked to accompany us on the return. You’ll see a review of this little gem on this week’s Fun Food Friday.

Cuenca Street Scene

Dusk was starting to settle, so I had to get creative on exposure control and finding ways to hold the camera steady (see: Available Light Photography without a Tripod). I still had a little time to work some handheld magic, but that time was rapidly running out.

New Cathedral

The following picture was taken near the restaurant were we eventually dined that evening. For the following picture I pushed the camera to the limits of the sensor at ISO 800, which is asking a lot from a 1-inch sensor. This is a rather impressive government building on the corner of Simón Bolívar and Presidente Borrero:

Ministry of Social Welfare

But I went even further on this next one, going up to ISO 1250:

Cuenca Street Scene

This next shot was taken at ISO 3200, which I thought at the time was going to be a total disaster, but the Panasonic FZ1000 seemed to handle the image with relatively little loss of detail and not too much noise:

Cuenca Balconies

Here’s another shot at ISO 3200, since I could not find a place to balance the camera (I wouldn’t want to blow up this shot to poster size, but it worked for probably anything at or under 6×9)::

Iglesia de San Blas

Finally, I was able to drop down a bit to ISO 1600 for this last night shot:

Del Buen Pastor — The Good Shepard