I had a work trip to Jersey last week. I was last there in January and had to go to the office for a 7am call. When I looked back from Jersey to the sunrise over Manhattan, I kicked myself for not taking my camera – it was spectacular.

I got a couple of reasonable shots this trip, but came to the conclusion that my hacked tripod wasn’t a runner. I was never able to find an imperial measure bolt that fitted my Manfrotto head, and so have been using a pretty low tech piece of cardboard to take the bolt I was using up a fraction in diameter to make for a reasonable fit. Unfortunately, setting the position of the head, and then using the live view at full magnification [something I routinely do for night shots], I could see the image drifting ever so slowly.

I’ve heard it said more than once on podcasts by professional photographers that if you are contemplating getting a tripod, you might as well go ahead and get a good one. It’s a false economy to buy a series of increasingly better ones – which I did. So a quick trip to the trusty J&R’s, and I had furnished myself with a Manfrotto 732CY carbon fibre number. I didn’t get the chance to use it this trip, but it’s a good balance between packability and load bearing capacity [3.5kg].

1.3seconds at F14, ISO100 at 105mm

The shot above has been through the mill, as the original was a bit hazy, with much lower contrast in the clouds. I’ve used Silver EFEX Pro, with a preset called High Structure. I’m not sure if this is one of the installed presets or something that I downloaded. I’ve then gone back into Aperture and tweaked the exposure up a few clicks. Actually, it’s worth having a look at the original shot straight out of the camera:

1.3seconds at F14, ISO100 at 105mm

I might try going further north in Jersey if I try to take another shot of the Empire State. The picture above is looking diagonally across the water, and going closer to parallel might reduce the haze.

30 seconds at F6.3, ISO100 at 24mm

The shot above might be a bit better as a narrower crop. The water is dead space and, despite a bit of dodging and burning, the sky isn’t up to much either.