Visiting an old spot with a new lens

Woo hoo! First picture post! I re-visited an overpass with my new (used) 70-200 F4 non-IS.

CC Please

It looks a little soft to me. I have this same lens, and it's my sharpest. So I have to assume this was from a tripod and you were on a bridge. My bet is, traffic on your bridge caused micro shaking that transferred to the camera during a 30 second exposure. Also, f/32 might not be the sharpest stop for this lens, probably not.

Thanks! The reason I shot at 32 was because at other aperatures, the pictures were getting flooded with a bit too much light. And yes, you are correct in the micro shakes, there were a few cars driving by that caused the bridge I was on to shake . Besides a shorte shutter duration and maybe a steadier tripod, how else could I resolve this issue?

Well, since your using Av Mode, you could open the aperture to 16, then dial in ISO 100. Works out to the same thing. Maybe even dial in -1 Ev and that will speed the shutter up twice again, under exposing the shot by one stop, which you then put back in ACR or DPP, since you should be shooting in RAW anyway.

For this kind of shot though, shoot in Manual Mode and Evaluative metering. It gives you a lot more control. Take a shot, then preview it and take another one if you need to adjust.

Thanks Mitch! I will try again in the future. And yep, I'm shooting in RAW mode and PP in Lightroom. Of course, my PP skills aren't all that great yet, so I've still got a lot to learn!

I'll try future nightscapes with these settings and see what I get

-O