Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Gateway to San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

I had been thinking about going to the Marin Headlands and taking some pics of the Golden Gate Bridge for some time. Saturday evening, Feb. 07, I decided to do it. Left home, thinking that I had plenty of time to get there before sunset.

I've been living in the Bay Area for many years now, but still manage to get surprised by unexpected traffic jams. Stuck on Howard Street, I watched the sunset, and then darkness enveloping the streets. It was dark when I finally got there.

  • Shot a few pics of the Golden Gate and then my car
  • Lent my tripod to a fellow photographer who was without one
  • took a picture of a couple with my camera as their camera couldn't handle fill-flash, and was making the Golden Gate a black blob.
Took the top down on the drive back. Met a friend back in the city, dinner, hot chocolate, and then back home.




Lessons learnt: I've made it a habit to check all my gear before leaving a place, and it paid off on Saturday. At some point, I dropped my Remote Switch cable on the ground - $60ish value at Amazon.com - as I was packing up. It took me about 20 minutes to find it with the place being so dark. Later on, I realized that I could have just fired my flash to kind of check the place out.

Here are a couple of other pictures I took:
  • the couple I mentioned (hand-held at 800 ISO with on-camera fill-flash - shooting mode Av)
  • my car (camera on tripod, F2.8/ 4 sec exposure and flash handheld fired twice, one from the right of the car and the other from the left - notice the shadows of the car)


photo info:

  • shot in RAW, Color Space Adobe RGB
  • 30 sec, f/8, February 7, 2009 at 6:35pm
  • Location: click on the picture and click "map" link (bottom right of page)
  • Shot with camera on tripod, with remote release
  • picture style: Neutral
  • sharpness 0
  • color saturation 0
  • contrast 0
post processing:
In Canon DPP

  • white balance set to 2800K
  • adjusted exposure +1.5 stops
In Adobe Photoshop Elements
  • straighten & crop (to keep it rectangle)
  • sharpen with unsharp mask
  • add a hue/saturation layer to bring out the colors in the middle (added with an elliptical layer mask)
  • add text to fill the boring underexposed mountain.


"Out of Camera" Picture

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