Behind Iwan Baan’s New York City Shot

From time to time, a picture tells the whole story and so it is with Iwan Baan’s photo of a half blacked-out New York City from the air. There are two articles on how the picture was taken and all the planning that went behind taking it. It also turns out that it was the high ISO capability of the camera, in this case a Canon 1D X, that made the shot possible.

Baan made the image Wednesday night after the storm, using the new Canon 1D X with the new 24-70mm lens on full open aperture. The camera was set at 25,000 ISO, with a 1/40th of a second shutter speed.

“[It was] the kind of shot which was impossible to take before this camera was there,” Baan said.

Baan shot between 2,000 to 2,500 shots, found 80% were blurry, 10% useable, and only 1% really sharp. You can view a slide show of the different shots he took that night and the one finally selected for the cover.

Read the article at: Poynter.

Read how the editors of New York magazine chose the cover photo.