Bay sunrise

I posted a photo I took from almost the same spot a few months ago, but I think the colours here are amazing. Fuji Velvia is the film alright.

Bay Bridge

An early morning view of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. I'd been hoping for clear weather, but the clouds didn't turn out too badly either. I particularly like the lights of the port of Oakland in the far distance.

Morning, Buffalo

Waiting to take off at Buffalo Airport on the way back from Niagara Falls on Sunday morning. Pictures from Niagara Falls to follow.

Sunrise from the Brooklyn Bridge

Over the long weekend I got up early on Sunday morning to see the sunrise on the east side of Manhattan. Compared to the last time I took sunrise photos it was pleasantly warm, even though the sun came up at 5:30 it was 21 degrees Celsius! I headed out to the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, I had been planning to see how the sun lit up the office buildings in Lower Manhattan but the view over the Manhattan Bridge turned out to be the main attraction.

High finance

Pretty soon after starting to take photos I realised there was a problem that I hadn't anticipated: because of the cars passing over the bridge it shakes almost continuously, which made the tripod I had brought along useless. I took this photo with the tripod and it turned out blurry, so objectively it's a failure, but I'm still pleased with the way it turned out. (The Statue of Liberty is on the lower left.)

First glimpse

Once the sun started coming up I realised I should have paid attention to the weather forecast, since it was much cloudier than I'd been hoping for (it rained later in the day). Last time I observed that zoomed shots generally turned out better than wide-angle ones, so this time I tried to keep the number of elements in the frame small and focus in on the most colourful bit of the sky. I also reduced the exposure to darken the sky and reduce the foreground to a silhouette. This photo is from 5:47.

Full glory

At 6:05 I got an unobstructed shot of the sun rising.

Threatening clouds

Taken at 6:16, the sun is about to go behind the clouds and end the show.

Sunrise and sunset

Last week I took an early morning trip under the Hudson River to Hoboken so that I could take photos of the sunrise over Manhattan from Frank Sinatra Park. I'd been planning to do this for a few weeks now but it's hard getting up early in the morning when it's so cold! I left the house at 5:45am and took the PATH train to Hoboken, by the time I got there it was already past 6:30 and the sun was starting to rise. I set up my tripod and then it was time to take photos! 

42mm, f/22, ISO 100

Of course the Empire State Building should be the main attraction here, but I was too far to the south to get a good shot of it, the sun rose over an anonymous-looking stretch of buildings instead. Still a Manhattan skyline, though.

27mm, f/22, ISO 100

I took this photo at 6:48, at pretty much the climax. I stayed around for a while after this but this is pretty much as good as it got.

26mm, f/22, ISO 100

A few minutes later, taken at 6:55. The pink colour had mostly gone by this point, but the ferry in the foreground adds a dynamic feeling so I like this one too.

137mm f/22, ISO 100 

I took this at 7:24, just before I started packing up to leave. Since the sun had risen by this point the sky wasn't that interesting, but I took this silhouette photo by zooming on one part of the skyline. I like the way this one turned out, particularly the smoke from the chimney! I almost feel artistic.

My hands were close to freezing by now so it was time to get going, but packing up turned into a routine of putting a few things away, then warming my hands inside my coat, then repeating. The tripod turned out to be more of an obstacle than I expected since it was very cold by this point and painful to handle!

Overall I got a few nice photos out of it and some useful experience. I'll do it again sometime, but probably when it's warmer!

150mm, f/22, ISO 100

I took this photo in the evening from the opposite direction, this is a view of the Erie Lackawanna railway terminal in Hoboken (I took the photographs a little to the right of this picture). The sunset sky turned out to be nicer than the sky at sunrise, but for a lot of the photos I took my camera misjudged the exposure because of the sun and they ended up underexposed, all blue and red. I took this one just after the sun went down and it turned out more-or-less normally. Next time I will pay more attention to the exposure.

(All these photos were taken with either my Olympus 14-42mm or Olympus 40-150mm zoom lenses).