Rookie Mistake

The title for this post may seem a bit strange. Although once you read through what lead me to capturing this image then it will make perfect sense.

Since getting my 16-35mm lens, I hadn’t really gone out much to use it. I got this lens purely for my long exposures and landscapes. One location I often shoot at but haven’t done a long exposure at is Darling Harbour. I decided one day after work I would go change that. I made sure to arrive there nice and early so I could find a good spot and setup before sunset. I found what I thought was a great spot, right in front of Cyren on the water front. The spot I chose was on concrete so I figured it was stable and safe.

I got out my ND filters and started doing my long exposures. One after another, I kept noticing the same issue, all my photos had slight motion blur and weren’t sharp. For the life of me, no matter what I tried I couldn’t figure out what the issue was. I readjusted my tripod, tried weighing it down more with my bag and even checked the IS on the lens. All of this did nothing to help and I was running out of ideas. I ended up taking a minute to just relax and only then I figured out the issue. I looked at the small bridge I walked over and noticed something, both the bridge and the platform I was on was slightly rocking in the water. The second I figured this out, I quickly moved to stable ground and tried to make the most of what light was remaining.

In new end I’m still happy with this image, I was just originally aiming to have some clouds streaking through the image which would have been possible if I didn’t make that rookie mistake.

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