London sky line at night

[kate90]

Took a few photos of the view a friends balcony, was hard to keep the camera steady as i was shivering violently (even with a tripod!)
Let me know what you think though, tips of how i could improve them would be great
Thanks

[gahspidy]

I would crop from the sky down as there is nothing up there needed to remain, and that will also bring your horizon line out of dead center which as in this case is not usually a good thing.
I think its also best to take a night scene before the sky goes completely dark, usually just a few moments after sunset. Things are still somewhat lit and the sky still has a luminous and colorful glow to it.
I like the smokestack with the smoke billowing out of it and for me is the most interesting part of the image. I also like the street area and old building in the first composition.
the big killer here though and as you already acknowledged is the lack of any sharpnes. I was immediately thinking that you needed a tripod but you had one. If your camera has a self timer than you should use that so as not to touch the tcamera and set up while your shivering violently
Thanks for sharing

[SmartWombat]

Kate, are those the statues down by Woolwich?
How did you get up so high for this?

I was using a remote cable release and still had problems.
I found that with long exposures my tripod was much more susceptible to vibrations, and shooting from the bridges the pictures came out blurred at ISO100 and f/16 - people walking by shook it so much!
I had to push the ISO up to 400 and open up the aperture to get rid of the shake.

[kate90]

Thanks for the tips gary, i'll have a fiddle with cropping, and will bare in mind what you suggest about shooting just after sunset.

Paul, they are the statues by Woolwich, i was just on my friends balcony, he lives right a the top of one of the newer blocks of flats at the royal arsenal riverside estate.
it looks like we had the same problem then! i'll try playing with the ISO and aperture a bit more next time, to be honest, i didn't fancy standing out there too long to experiment as it was so cold!

[SmartWombat]

Your friend lives in a nice location!
I'd go visit often, and put together a series of sunsets or sunrises.
Particularly if you get a nice low mist over the river

[readingr]

Kate,

I like the lighting but agree with Gary that the sky can be cropped.

As for tips - What I would do if possible is to setup the tripod and camera with a weight hanging from the centre of the tripod to give it more stability. I would then set the timer and press the button and then get off the balcony and wait for the camera to finish.

You can however make a thing about the vibrations of bridges and one of my photos got some nice reviews and that was a surprise but it had a lot more shake. There is nothing that I found that you can do to stop bridges vibrating.

Roger R.