During my road trip to Newfoundland, I visited Signal Hill in the capital city of St. John's. Signal Hill offers spectacular views of downtown St. John's as well as the harbor. I was glad that I hauled my Nikon 500mm lens with me. The super telephoto perspective helps to condense the scene. It was my objective to emphasize how busy and compact this area of downtown St. John's is.

First, the lighting presented problems. I arrived at Signal Hill one evening and before I could compose a picture it started raining. The rain didn't stop until well after sunset. I returned the next morning to better, but not spectacular, light. The issue that morning was wind.

High winds are common at Signal Hill. During my photo shoot, I experienced a sustained 40-45 mph wind with occasional gusts that made it difficult for me to stand. I really wanted this particular shot, so I did my best to minimize camera shake in these challenging conditions.

My first idea was to block the wind with my body and my open jacket. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible as the wind was blowing directly into the lens.

This is a photo that I captured of Cabot Tower at Signal Hill. You will notice the stone walls surrounding the building. The next thing I tried was to position my tripod so that only the lens was peeking over the wall. Using this approach, at least the tripod wasn't getting hit with any wind. Cabot TowerCabot Tower at Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador on July 25, 2018

This didn't work either. The wind was too strong and caused the camera and lens to shake enough to blur the images.

So, I then tried the following additional steps to improve the sharpness of the picture:

1. I removed the lens hood. The lens hood for the 500mm f/4 lens is massive. It was acting like a sail in the wind. This helped.
2. I increased the ISO so that I could use a higher shutter speed.
3. I set the camera for rapid burst mode. Shooting at 9 frames per second improved my odds of getting one sharp picture.
4. Of course, I waited for brief lulls in the wind.

After capturing a few bursts with the higher shutter speed, I noticed that approximately 1 in 20 pictures was sharp. I did this by carefully checking the photograph on the screen on the back of my camera--after zooming in to at least 100%.

Thankfully, my Nikon D850 isn't a film camera. This makes it well worthwhile to capture as many images as it takes to get the shot.

Colorful houses of St. John'sColorful houses of St. John's from Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador on July 25, 2018

In the end, I captured a sharp image of the picture that I wanted. I wish the light would have been better. That's one of the greatest challenges of travel photography. I had to leave after that morning's photo shoot--whereas a resident of St. John's can return once the shooting conditions become ideal.