Friday, December 26, 2008

The Ghosts of Grand Central

This is a photo of Grand Central Station in New York City. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that there are people who have been "ghosted." This was done by leaving the shutter open for a long period of time -- 30 seconds in this case. People who stood still the entire 30 seconds came out in the picture. Those that moved around appear as "ghosts," with the degree of "ghostness" varying depending on how long they stood still.



Canon XSi, 18-55mm lens at 18mm
f/22, 30 seconds


Another thing to take note of is the fact that I used a *very* narrow aperture (f/22 -- remember: the higher the f/ number, the smaller the aperture and the larger the depth of field), and therefore just about all of the picture is in focus. If I used a larger aperture (such as f/4, for example), the entire background would have been a blur.

I'll go into more of a discussion on shutter speed at another time. In the meantime, enjoy the photo.

As always, comments, critiques and criticisms are welcome and appreciated.

The Wolf

Previous Photos:
Third Night
Shooting From A Different Angle
Duck!
Gargantua
Sunflower Arrangement (discussion of lens apertures and depth of field)
Empire (basic discussion of lenses)
Hovering Bee
Sunflower Macro
Statue of Liberty
Trinity Church, September 11, 2008
Manhattan Tulips
Dragonfly

5 comments:

Nice Jewish Guy said...

Very interesting. The cop in the foreground apparently wasn't moving much. I'm curious though, why those that were moving didn't appear as blurry moving images? Also, there appear to be people way in the background who look as if they are walking, but do not appear that blurry.

Originally From Brooklyn said...

Very cool picture. I also noticed the stationary cop. lol. I'm just wondering, can a person be in 2 places at once with this? ie, moved from one place and then stood still, so he would be a shadow in one location but real in the other?

Anonymous said...

Tripod?

BrooklynWolf said...

I didn't have a tripod with me, so no. What I did, however, was put my camera down on a rail which was conveniently placed and took the picture -- so I didn't have to deal with camera shake.

The Wolf

BrooklynWolf said...

I don't know if someone could end up in two places in the picture. I may have to experiment with this to find out. :)

The Wolf