I can't believe I almost didn't go and take this shot tonight.
I've been trying to find a night to take photos of the Vancouver skyline for a while. The problem that I have is it's difficult to find a night that has clear sky during this season. Tonight happened to be one of those nights. However, there is another concern. In order to get a good view of Vancouver Downtown, I'll have to be in the infamous Stanley Park at night. Stanley Park is the largest inside city park in North America (yep, bigger than Central Park, New York), and there are barely any street lights in the park.
I got ready, put on some lube and went out shortly after dark with my borrowed tripod from work. I used to drive inside the park at night all the time when I was the event security supervisor at the Vancouver Aquarium, so it was great to experience that again. The moment I turned and I saw the building lights shining across the Coal Harbour, I knew I came at the right time of the night: it was breathe taking.
I parked the car as close as I can to the shoreline, set the tripod and start taking shots. It was surprisingly cold and I truly understand why people said there's a different between good tripods and bad tripods. The one that I was using was very heavy duty and if it's not because of the weight of the tripod, my shivering would've been enough to cause all my photos to be blurry. Every 30 seconds I looked back and make sure no one was going to attack me or trying to steal my gears or was unzipping his zipper. I tried a few different angles and at different shutter speed. At the end, I took about 15 shots, and the above was my favourite. Taken at 4 seconds shutter speed.
While leaving Stanley Park, I found a few other locations I would really like to do some night shots as well. Seeing the weather report said Monday is going to be a clear night, I think I'll drag Scotty with me to the park.
This camera honestly is probably my favourite present I have ever received.
PS: Thank god I downloaded this shot to my computer. I was going to bring my memory card to work and download the rest of the photos as my work computer is faster. I lost my memory card during a few chores I did this morning... *sigh*
