366 Days of 2012, Day 234 - Adelaide Arrival

One of the challenges of taking photos everyday when you have a 'day job' is finding the time.

Bring on the night! Taking photos outside of normal 'day job' hours means night photos at least it does during our Winters where the days are still quite short.
Night photography can be challenging but also very rewarding with some quite spectacular views of daylight ordinary subjects.

This image is taken from the beach just a short walk from where I live. A long time exposure of 30 seconds has captured the arrival of an aircraft into Adelaide Airport.
I like this photo for quite a few different reasons. It's were I live, its visually pretty, it feels like our cold winter evenings and that incoming light trail has left an interesting little tell-tail about getting sharp images.

If you look really closely at the initial incoming trace of the aircraft lights you you will see a vertical oscillation which lasts about 2 seconds before decaying away. This vibration had been caused by either the mirror, the sync-curtain or both. Even using auto mirror lockup on a 2 second timer the vibration is evident. I'd have to repeat this image again using a 10 second timer and if the vibration remains, then I'd know is was caused by the sync curtain and not the shutter.

In any case this reveals just how critical the issue of lack up sharpness due to mirror/sync-curtain vibrations in the exposure range of 0.1 - 4 seconds is. This will of course be affected by the lens and mounting. The only perfect solution for super sharp images in this exposure range is live-view where both the mirror and sync-curtain are both already actuated.

Enjoy your arrival into Adelaide!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 234 - Adelaide Arrival'. 30.0s f/4.0 ISO-320 75mm