wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

I believe you need to pick a night that is less windy at the tops of the buildings. The buildings show movement to the right side of the picture but none to the left. This says to me that they stayed in place (the more solid left side of the image) most of the time and move some to the right during the taking of the image. If you look at the bottom of the image at some of the point lights there, there is no movement. Looking at the tree leaves, there is some minor movement on some of the leaves during the exposure. Most people do not realize that buildings are designed to flex in the wind. I think your photograph is actually evidence of that fact.

manofhg Loc: Knoxville, TN

I don't think the wind was affecting the cars at the bottom, but points of light on them shows the same movement.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

One cannot use the cars as a source since most of them have even moved totally out of the picture in the 30 seconds.

Based on the movement at the top of the photo and lack of movement in the point lights just beyond the cars, the axis of rotation would have to be parellel to the axis of the lense and rotating at the edge of the frame of the handgrip side of the camera. Since it would be rotating about that point at the top of the tripod along the lense axis, that means either the camera is not locked in placed along the axis of the lense - which I seriously doubt - or the legs of the tripod are moving three to six inches from where they were placed and showing no up and down movement from such action. Also the lack of change or variations of movement from the tops of the trees to the bottoms of the trees along with the unlikely tripod scenarios, the only logical explanation is not that the camera was rotating around the axis of the lense but that the building was actually moving during the 30 second shot. No amount of IS will correct this although we were shown by one UHH member that software can do a good job of compensating for it.

manofhg Loc: Knoxville, TN

I'm only talking about the still parked cars.

volkerschmidt Loc: Hooper Utah

Haydon,
Excellent observation.
When the camera is sitting still on a tripod, the stabilizer will often look for movement that isn’t there, resulting in a blurry photo.

volkerschmidt Loc: Hooper Utah

Haydon,
Great analysts.
When the camera is sitting still on a tripod, the stabilizer will often look for movement that isn’t there, resulting in a blurry photo.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

"My Pentax (in body IS), doesn't seem to be affected as much in the regards of "hunting". - GENorkus"

But it still is a bit. I find I still need to turn off IS on my K-5, K-20D, and K-100D when on a tripod for the best images, especially if shooting macro!

I too have had "shaky" night shots including ones where I was not sure why. Yes, perhaps I left the IS on. One time that really PO'd because I have not been able to re-shoot was trying to photograph downtown Los Angeles from Dodgers Stadium at night. It was too dark to see much of what I was doing even with a pen light. Next time, I'll set up that camera completely before arriving. Not an issue with my tripods because I've shot 45 minutes sequences of Star Trails that were very sharp. Next cameras for me, K-3II, K-1 !

Shootist Loc: Wyoming

Just an observation but just about every stable and bright light source in the photo showed movement of some sort and all of it was just about right to describe that it was the camera that moved. Even the reflections from the trim on the parked autos showed signs of movement. If I had shot this photo I would suspect a foot contacted a tripod leg. Perhaps the fact that I have done it so often bends my mind in that direction. I do not believe that VR being on would describe the amount of movement evident in some areas of the photo AND the lack of movement in others.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Good point(s). The simplest explanations are often...

Tom B Loc: Rhode Island

Gene51, what software gives you the information posted in the picture you attached?

canon Lee

There are lots of great suggestions and Id like to add vibrations of traffic. large trucks going by. constant traffic..

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

This not being mentioned. The lights in the buildings are overexpossed. But the rest of the image needs the extra exposure. The is a dynamic range issue and would be best solved by taken two images and combining. Not sure if HDR would work well, but certainly Photoshop layers and remove those way overexposed lights with properly exposed lights.

This is certainly a stretch for shooting SOOC.