We went to New York City with friends recently and I brought my camera along for some photos. We had a busy agenda, but I was able to get some shots that I really like and spend some more time with my new Z8. 

First, let’s talk about our accommodations – they were very NYC. We rented an Airbnb in the Lower East Side. It was nice on the inside, but definitely had the proportions of an apartment in a big city – a small but serviceable kitchen, two bedrooms with enough room to move around, a living room with a sleeper couch, and two, phone booth-sized bathrooms. Everything was serviceable but the bathrooms required some acrobatics to get ready and get dressed. Our accommodations (Airbnb photos, not mine) are below.

This is my photo of our front door, which was very… uh… colorful. We were next to a taco place, across from a park, adjacent to some apartments where a man sang and / or yelled all evening long on our first night, and down the street from a subway station we used throughout the trip.

The Statue of Liberty

Our first sight was the most recognizable symbol of NYC and it did not disappoint. The weather was nice; it was sunny but not too hot. There was a crowd but I’d say it was only half-full; there was plenty of room to move around and the lines were short. We had tickets to go to the pedestal, which is 220 steps up. 

I brought my 28 – 300mm lens along and it worked out really well. I took photos as we walked toward the statue and took another walk around the pedestal after we came down. As I was photographing architecture in daylight, I shot mostly at f/8 which created some nicely detailed 45 MP images.

The angles of the statue were great. I really liked the image framed by the trees as well as the close up of her tablet. I had to combine two images together to get that one, since I cut the bottom off of the tablet in one and her crown off in the other. I wanted some variety in my images so I made several black and white and played with contrast and toning.

Once we were done with the statue, we boarded the ferry to head to Ellis Island. We didn’t get off because we needed to get lunch before our next event of the day. As we waited for the passengers to disembark, I did some research and discovered that the other side of the island was used as a hospital, is currently unrestored, and offers limited appointment-only hard hat tours. That will definitely go on the list for next time 🙂

Empire State & One World Trade Center

We visited the Empire State Building in the afternoon and One World Trade Center in the evening. We had the same idea for both buildings – look at the city from on high – but I had opposite experiences in each. The Empire State Building had smaller crowds and better views, but the photos weren’t great because it was midday. One World Trade Center was nothing but a crowded money-grab with interrupted views, but I ended up snagging a couple night shots that looked ok.

I did get some great photos on the way to One World Trade Center. The sun was setting  and we stopped at the Twin Tower memorial. It was really powerful, but we didn’t have long to stay and didn’t make it back. I’d definitely spend more time there the next time we visit. On the way out of One World Trade Center we passed through the really cool train station beneath it to catch the subway back. It’s beautiful, open, and clean. It was a great way to exit. I happened to grab a shot from the outside that looks just fantastic in black and white.

Broadway

After a heavy day of walking and visiting popular places, we took the next day a bit slower. We started with the Titanic Exhibition in the morning. We didn’t think it would be there during our trip, but it extended its stay the week we left. I had gone to it many years ago and took a virtual tour during COVID, but it was cool to see it in person again.

As was the theme of our NYC trip so far, the entire front of the exhibit building had been graffitied over. It was wild to look at their website with pristine images of Titanic wrapped over the windows and compare it to the graffitied mess in front of us. Outside of that, the actual tour was great. There was a really good audio tour and lots of artifacts and room recreations. Because I’m such a nerd, I couldn’t help pointing out some minor inaccuracies in the tour, but overall it was very good.

We meandered back to our Airbnb and spent a couple hours there before heading out to see Aladdin on Broadway in the afternoon. The show was fantastic, and we had great seats. It was a blast! We somehow found a way to squeeze through the intense crowd in Times Square afterward and get in for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe too.

I didn’t bring my camera because of the show and I would’t have wanted it anyway – it was way too crowded. It’s cool with all of the flashy signs and would make a nice long exposure with all of the people running around, but there’s no way I could drag a tripod into all of that without getting my camera broken or stolen.

Before we left the area, we stopped at RiseNY, which is a simulated fly-through of the city, kind of like Disney’s Avatar ride, but themed for NYC. It walks you through seven museum areas that chronicle different parts of NYC culture before taking you on a five minute “ride”. It was pretty cool, especially the hip hop section with a DJ booth. 

The images below are from my phone to capture our excursions on the second day.

The Bronx Zoo

We dedicated our last full day entirely to the Bronx Zoo. This was definitely a camera opportunity so I packed my bag prepared to get some great animal shots. The zoo turned out far larger than we expected and it was the hottest day of our trip, so it was a bit more tiring than I anticipated. Even so, I came away with some great images, especially of the peacocks that free-roam the zoo. It was wild! 

The animals and cages provided additional opportunities to test and learn with my Z8’s autofocus. I found that large and small subject detection areas couldn’t cope well with fences and bars – single point AF or the smallest custom AF subject detection area were better options. I only brought my 28 – 300mm so that I’d have the greatest range. It isn’t as sharp as my 70 – 200mm f/4 F mount lens or my 24 – 120mm Z mount lens, but it’s sharp enough. 

There were plenty of animals to photograph including a variety of monkeys, deer, giraffes, reptiles, peacocks, an eagle, and even an evil lantern fly. My camera worked great throughout the trip; having a live preview of exposure made it easier to capture the mood I wanted in my images. I shot some images at ISO 6400 and above, which are a bit more noisy than my other cameras but come out beautifully when run through DXO Pure RAW. 

Until Next Time

It was a great trip. I expected to come home with more images of the city itself, but our schedule was pretty packed and I didn’t want to drag my camera to every location. I did snap some photos on my phone when my camera wasn’t around, but those are snapshots, not photographs 😉. I also planned to go out late and get night photos and possibly get up early like one of our friends did, but I was just too tired at the end of the day. Next time 🙂

I did grab a couple of shots of the neighborhood as we left on our final morning. We stayed in an older part of the city and the buildings were pretty cool. I didn’t even realize we had a view of the Manhattan Bridge right down the street!