Transamerica Building and the San Francisco Harbor

Chiaroscuro just sent me some photos from the trip and in each of them my face is pressed up to the camera. She apologized, but what could she do. I really did see practically the entire trip through the viewfinder. It was such a blast to be traveling around with two other photography obsessed people and I really just let myself go and shoot everything I could.

Using the Digital Rebel was a real joy. It's so fast compared to my camera. And although you can't see it in any of the pictures here, playing with shallow depth of field was a lot of fun for me. (Actually, you can kind of see it in the Muir Woods picture in the previous post, but it's subtle especially in a thumbnail.)

The thing that kept messing me up the most, though, was getting the exposure right. Since I'm used to getting a live preview with my camera, I kept assuming that whatever I saw through the viewfinder was exactly how my picture was going to look. So I ended up with a lot of really over- and underexposed pictures as I tried to guess what the right exposure was supposed to be, and then I often forgot to check afterwards to see if I got it right. But I had prepared myself for bad pictures and decided to just have fun with the camera and not be too disappointed if I came home with badly exposed blurry photos.

And I did manage to get a few decent pictures, so here are a few more.

On Monday, I explored the city of San Francisco with Chiaroscuro. In the morning, we nearly got on a ferry boat to cruise around the harbor but a big grey cloud moved in overhead so we ended up going for lunch in Chinatown instead. After lunch we walked back towards the Financial District down Columbus, where we got a nice view of the Transamerica Building. I took this photo from a median in the center of the street, if that's not obvious from the photo and from the extreme closeness of the bus passing by me in the second shot. (Don't worry, it looks closer than it really was.)

Transamerica Building
1/125 sec, F/11, 18mm, ISO-100, EV -0.6
Canon EOS 300D with Sigma 18-50mm f/3.5-5.6

San Francisco tour bus
1/8 sec, F/22, 50mm, ISO-100, EV 0
Canon EOS 300D with Canon EF 50mm f/1.4

By then the sky had cleared up enough so we took off for Fisherman's Wharf to take the bay cruise. From the harbor we got a fantastic view of the city skyline. I'm not sure why, but a bunch of seagulls followed us around the whole time (no one was giving them food), so I took some shots of them too. Then we circled around the back of Alcatraz before heading back in. This was probably the best weather we had the whole time, so we really timed that bay cruise well.

San Francisco skyline
1/320 sec, F/8, 86mm, ISO-100, EV 0
Canon EOS 300D with Sigma 55-200mm f/4-5.6

seagull
1/640 sec, F/8, 112mm, ISO-100, EV 0
Canon EOS 300D with Sigma 55-200mm f/4-5.6

Alcatraz Island
1/400 sec, F/11, 200mm, ISO-100, EV 0
Canon EOS 300D with Sigma 55-200mm f/4-5.6

Then, before heading out for dinner, we caught this view of the clock tower at the Embarcadero Ferry Terminal and the Bay Bridge from a window in Chiaroscuro's hotel

San Francisco at night
1/25 sec, F/1.4, 50mm, ISO-400, EV 0
Canon EOS 300D with Canon EF 50mm f/1.4

Comments

[ianqui]

Ooooh. That camera looks like it has an amazing zoom. Crazy bird lady that I'm becoming, I love the seagull.

[seadragon]

Ianqui, the 200mm zoom on the Digital Rebel (used for the Alcatraz photo) is equivalent to a 320mm lens on a 35mm camera. I am not sure, but I think that would be like having an 11x zoom on a compact camera. (My Pro1 has a 7x zoom.)

And that seagull photo made me think of your eagle photo!

[jayinbmore]

Just gotta say that your entire series of SF Bay Area pics is making me a little homesick.

[seadragon]

jayinbmore - Well if you really want a good dose of SF photos, check out my photoblogs. I'll be posting pics there for a while to come!

I have to say, I was pretty amazed by the Bay Area and by San Francisco itself. I was blown away by how clean and fresh and beautiful (and hilly) everything is. I wish I'd have an opportunity to live there, or at least to visit there more often!

[jayinbmore]

It's a beautiful town. Shame about the people in it.