City Lights

by Jeffrey
(New York)

City Lights

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.