I like the way this three second time exposure makes the car lights look abstracted but still recognizable. I took this photo early in the evening from the location across the mouth of the Waldo Tunnel described in Alignment.

I used a long lens, my 70-200 VR zoom combined with a 2X telextender at the maximum focal length. The 400mm effective focal length translates to 600mm in 35mm terms, considering the Nikon 1.5:1 sensor equivalence. In Photoshop, I cropped further in on the portion of the photo that interested me, namely the bridge roadway, walkways, and car lights.

It probably goes without saying, but let me say it: cropping in on an image in post-processing is the logical equivalent of using a so-called “digital” zoom in-camera.

[600mm in 35mm terms, 3 seconds at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

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