Friday, February 14, 2014

First tripod efforts...


Well, I am finally the owner of a Tripod - after having wanted one for a long time. My family bought one for my birthday this week, and I have been trying it out for the first time. I've been pretty pleased with the extended exposures it allows me to take without camera shake all over the images. The top one is a fairly simple shot out across Perth with the tower of St John's Church nicely lit and some nice shimmer off the Tay in the foreground.

This second shot took a little more effort.. for anyone interested, the details are below:


In the dark the Autofocus wouldn't work so I did a manual focus on the little light on the right of the picture which is adjacent to a tight curve on the railway line.Then I looked up when the next train was due (on Realtimetrains.co.uk) and so was ready at the right moment. I had the camera set to Aperture Priority, and reduced the aperture to f36 at ISO100 on a 300ml zoom. This generated a 30 second exposure, and as I do not yet have a remote control, I set the drive to a 2 second delay to prevent 'trigger wobble'. Realtimetrains were spot-on with their timing, and so I was poised at exactly the moment to press the shutter-release just before the train came into view at the start of the curve. Any camera geeks want to tell me what to try next?

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