BrokenSunset at Marshall Beach San Francisco, California Willie and I haven't had a good photo shoot in a while. All of our Death Valley shoots were a bust and we hoped that Sunday would change our luck. We watched as Saturday and Sunday morning brought amazing sunsets and sunrises yet we stayed in bed out of laziness. Not wanting to miss another good opportunity we hoped in the car and decided to try our luck at Marshall Beach in San Francisco. Neither of us had been here before and Willie was exhausted after a 10 mile hike the day before so I drove us through traffic as we found our way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Due to unexpected traffic we arrived at Marshall Beach much later than we intended. We raced down the mile long hike to the beach (it's pretty steep, but luckily the city of SF built a bunch of steps to make the trail down nice and easy). We got to the beach and quickly realized there were numerous compositions and we ran back and forth trying to find a good one before the sun got low and started lighting up the sky. Eventually we settled on a spot in the back that gave us a composition with rocks that would direct the incoming waves and provide some nice foreground motion. After finding a spot that I liked I got my Lee filter holder, remote shutter, and filters out and began to setup my tripod…. As I pulled open my tripod legs and went to attach my camera to the tripod my heart skipped a beat …. my bullhead looked strange. It was then that I noticed the knob that turns the quick release head to clamp my camera to the tripod was missing. Not a big deal I thought, I can at least use my fingers to turn the screw. Oh wait …. the clamp that moves in and holds the camera in was gone too!!! Completely missing. I have no idea how the entire thing fell off but it meant that my tripod was useless! I'm hoping that Acratech will replace the bullhead, or at least replace the part, for free. I was forced to hand-hold my shots for this shoot. Knowing that we needed long shutters to provide foreground motion Willie suggested that I use a rock to balance the camera. This was a great idea because it gave me a little extra stability without my tripod but it also meant that my compositions were limited to a couple spots. My thoughts of catching waves crashing over some other rocks were dashed. Despite the lack of tripod I still managed to get a number of shots that came out decent and since I was slightly higher up the beach I also managed to stay more dry than Willie, who took a splash over his new rain boots. Unfortunately for us, Mamma Nature is still mad at us and although there were *perfect* clouds above the Golden Gate Bridge, a bunch of low, thick clouds rolled in at the horizon behind us and blocked the light from reaching anywhere. Oh well, Black and White it is, which turned out kinda neat! Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 48mm, f/13, 0.4 sec, ISO 640, "Rock" Tripod (see above) Lee Filter Holder + 0.9 HiTech Soft ND Grad
IggyGecko, California Academy of Science San Francisco, California I loved the amazing green colors of this guy. So much amazing texture here!
Christmas SunriseSunrise at the SF Bay Bridge San Francisco, California For the past couple of years my buddy Zack and I have woken up early and driven to San Francisco for sunrise on Christmas morning. Being Jewish and not celebrating Christmas we're both usually away from our family, our friends are with their family, and the city is completely dead, which is perfect for photos. Unfortunately for us we left my apartment a little bit later than planned and got to Pier 14 just as the light was started to get good. I raced to try to setup my camera, figure out the framing, and start snapping away … then realized I wanted some filters and had to race to put on the Lee Filter holder and filters. All in all - I didn't really get a chance to figure out my composition, how many pylons I wanted, which pylons were the best to include, etc. It happened to be low tide (mostly low) so we got a good amount of the pylons showing, and there was enough cloud coverage to provide some color, but it was totally hazy/foggy and made the scene a bit eery. In fact, the light reflections from Oakland didn't come through at all, and I think I didn't get setup in time to capture the light reflections from the bridge. There were a bunch of seagulls flying around the scene too, and you can just make out a seagull on the left-most pylon who happened to sit there for a good majority of the ~6 minute exposure! I'm not in love with this photo but I wanted to make sure to capture something from pier 14 before the America's Cup comes to SF and the renovations remove these classic pylons. This is one of the most photographed spot in SF and it will become a thing of the past soon :( Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 32mm, f/9, 376 sec, ISO 640 Lee Big Stopper + HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
