What would improve this shot?

[welmoed]

I took this picture on my last trip to NYC in December. I was on the ferry, heading back to NJ, and noticed the lighting over the skyline. I only had my dinky point-and-shoot Panasonic DMC-FX12, and squeezed off this quick shot.



EXIF: Speed 10/40 (which I assume means 1/4 second), F2.8, ISO 800.

Given that all I had was the pocket camera, how could I have done this shot better?

--Welmoed

[wulf]

Is this straight from the camera? It could probably do with some post processing to add some intensity and sharpness but, for seizing an opportunity, I think it is a good result - you've even got the horizon almost completely level (perhaps a fraction lower on the right but very close).

Wulf

[xxpinballxx]

Im not sure there was much more you could have done. Rally nice composition for being on a ferry and as for the blur I'd guess its near as perfect as you'll get for moving on a ferry at night with a P&S!
What settings do you have on my your P&S? can you adjust ISO or is there a night mode?
Any type of manual controls?

[TomTomTuning]

Not sure if it would help since u were on a boat. But, i would try going with a longer shutter speed and smaller aperture.

If you have manual options, switch it to Aperture priority, and set it to something like F/8. This is going to slow your shutter alot so you would need a Tripod to do this. Especially at night.

But if you are looking to simple improve the current shot. Just try some simple adjustments in Photoshop, or what ever photo editing program you might have.

[welmoed]

Thanks for the kind words. The only thing I did to it was to crop it; in the original shot the skyline is just about dead center horizontally, and the water in the foreground was quite blurred.
There is a "night scenery" mode on the camera but I didn't use it as I was focused on not losing the lighting. I had the camera set on "Intelligent ISO", but there is also manual control, which is annoyingly complex to get to when you're in a rush to capture a shot.

I'm heading back up to the city on Saturday and am looking forward to taking a lot of pictures now that I am learning more about composition. I'm also going to hit a few camera stores and indulge in a few goodies.

--Welmoed

Edited to remove second shot... didn't know I was only supposed to have one shot in a post. Sorry!