Tonight on the way home I was kicking myself for not carrying my tripod (I have 3 of them) with me as one of those rare sunsets was unfolding over I80. None the less I made it to my favorite spot for 50 miles in either direction and I pulled off the exit and decided to take a chance with the camera (hand held). What I hadn’t remembered is that my camera was still setup for my 500/1000mm lens kit. The kit requires that I use a 2 second timer all the time because it picks up even the slightest vibration and translates it into blur…… the clock is ticking… I have moments left before this amazing sunset is going to change colors on me again.
So just about everybody understands that if you move a lot while taking a picture you end up with large amounts of blur in an image and generally speaking very poor photographs. And of course everybody thinks that high end camera make all of this go away. Let me be the first to tell you, nothing is further from the truth. In the world of photography (digital or otherwise) the heavy hitter when it comes to speed is the lens that you use. And let me tell you that all the really fast lenses are not cheap. I only have a couple “fast” lenses. and none of them cost over $200. To counter a slow lens one often must use a tripod and other tricks such as a 2 second timer to get a good stable shot that is free of vibration…. enough of the techno babble..back to the pictures.
So I have literally moments left before the clouds change colors again and I push the button not realizing that a 2 second timer is going to kick in. The timer starts and I blow the first shot. I can stop and burn off 30 second or so messing with the camera or I can suck it up and work with what I have…
In the end my split second decision paid off very nicely. I captured 5 shots and all of them were in my book “keepers”. 30 ish seconds after I had started taking the photographs the color did shift and the amazing reds I was witness to faded away to replaced with the dark blue of clouds just after the sunset. The end result is that a simple 2 second timer forced me to take my pictures “slower”. And now…because of this success I am seriously considering leaving the timer on all the time. Ther eis something to be said about being forced to stop and enjoy the view every now and then.