City Lights

by Jeffrey
(New York)

Jeffrey submitted more than one photo to this section of the site. This is the first.


The City Lights picture was taken on a very, very windy and cold night here in NYC.

I have a small tripod about 11 inches high and I positioned it on the park bench and held it still with the shutter open for 15 seconds at f7.1.

The best night picture I ever took.


Jeffrey's photo is indeed stunning. And by using a tripod he has been able to capture a brilliantly crisp city skyline, but the water (which moved as the shutter was open) has blurred nicely.

Jeffrey must also have used quite a small aperture because, if you look carefully, the lights have little "starbursts" on them. This you only get with smaller apertures.

If I were to be picky (sorry!) I would clone out the tripod leg on the far right of the photo. This is easy to do, and here's a tutorial on repairing photos with the clone stamp tool. (If you don't have Photoshop but have some other image editing software you probably also have a clone stamp tool - it just might have a different name)

Thanks for the submission Jeffrey,

Darrell.