A warm evening in the Chinatown district of Bangkok, I was walking the streets with my camera set to high ISO as I was shooting handheld in the low light, and had been trying to overcome camera shake by using as high a shutter speed as I could reasonably get. Whilst using the pedestrian overpass necessary to get a high vantage point over the road, I realized there was the potential for a slow shutter speed, light trails shot.
At the time I wasn’t carrying a tripod and in any event, I could feel the overpass vibrating due to the traffic below so a tripod would have been of little value. In the end, I took the shot handheld using the self-timer to trip the shutter and holding the camera as still as possible in my hands. I took numerous frames with many, not surprisingly being unsatisfactory due to camera shake. Eventually, I got the shot below with a shutter speed of 10 seconds, yes, you read that right. The image isn’t critically sharp, it was never going to be. However, it’s far better than most people would believe possible and I think better than what would have occurred on a tripod shaking on the overpass! Eliminating vibration was impossible but my hands acted as shock absorbers damping what vibration was present.
For more photos check out the Thailand image gallery. ~KD.