TRAIN IN WAITING

It has been awhile since I posted to this Blog. This train is from Colorado.  They had a contest to see where it would travel to and one of the cities on its stop was Cape Girardeau.  This jewel was stationed right under the Bill Emerson Bridge that extends over the Mississippi River linking Missouri with Illinois.  This made for beautiful night shot. I used my Nikon D700 full-frame and used the Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 lens set at 27mm.  This picture was taken on 7/23/2011 at 9:14PM.  At this time of year the sun sets between 8:30PM and 9:00PM.  I shot in manual mode, with the aperture set at f/8 my ISO was at 200 and I used a long shutter speed of 20 seconds. Naturally this is no hand held job and requires a tripod.  I used a cable trigger device to ensure no camera shake.  Most of the time when shutting on a tripod I use a 10 second delay to take a shot or I use the cable.  What is the difference between the two?  Using the delay method you have to wait 10 seconds before your camera takes the picture were as using the cable the snap is instant.  I prefer the cable when shooting 3 shot bracketed exposures because I can hold down the trigger and capture all three shots instantly while keeping my hands off the camera.  No matter how careful you are you can get camera shake causing blurring by using your finger to activate the shot.  You need to use a good tripod and get and keep your hands off the camera.  Although I did not shot with the mirror up a lot of pros will raise the mirror as the opening and closing of the mirror can create just enough movement to prevent a crystal clear picture.   By the way f/8 is probably the best aperture setting for night shooting but try different settings until you get what is most appealing to you.  Sometime this is a trial and error process.