Claiborne Avenue Bridge
I decided to go out Saturday evening to take a picture that I always wanted: a photo of the New Orleans skyline. There are many photos that shows the skyline up-close by the river front, like in Algiers across from the French Quarter. But I couldn't to go that far. A great alternative to go was beside Paris Road going into Chalmette.
There you can see the skyline clearly. You can see the Crescent City Connection, the Downtown skyscrapers, the Claiborne Avenue Bridge, and even parts of the the Highrise and the Danziger Bridge. The view would've been perfect.
What kept the view from being perfect? The weather. Earlier in the day it was rainy and by golden hour the sky was blanketed by clouds. The sun was nowhere to be seen, except for its light peering out from behind the clouds in the westward sky.
With my camera gear packed, I drove down to Paris Road. The drive there was quite relaxing. I listened to "This Week in Photo" the whole time. By the time I was there half of the podcast was over. After parking my car in shoulder about a mile from the Green Bridge, I set up my equipment beside the road.
** WARNING: TECHNICAL DETAILS
For the skyline, I decided to use my 70-210mm at f/4.5 with a fader neutral density filter. While I could've used something like my 35-100mm or go wider with my 28mm, I felt details would've been lost if I did. I was wrong.
Unfortunately my 70-210mm wasn't up to snuff. Of course this is not the fault of my equipment; it was human error. My shutter speed was too slow. I took my shots at around 1/125 or slower. To get sharp images, I should have shot at a faster speed, at least 1/200 or faster. But considering that I wanted to shoot at a low sensitivy, ISO 400 or less, shutter speed wasn't a priority for me. That said, maybe I should've shot using aperture priority.
Despite the lack of sharpness I did get a decent panorama of the skyline.
New Orleans Skyline at Sunset
The whole time I was there the sun never peeked out. Only while I was driving home that the sun decided to show up. Then I thought to myself, "I could've done HDR!" (High Dynamic Range photography).
Sadly I didn't turn around. I knew that if I took the time to plan out my shoot better, I might've gone away with better results. And HDR photography might've helped. But what's past is past. I may come back one day and redo the photos. Hopefully I'd remember what I did that evening and do much better.