San Francisco Bay Bridge

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If you dont have time for the story behind this, at least VIEW this LARGE for all the juicy detail.

 

I'm off to Cabo for 7 days of shooting...I'll catch everyone on the flip side!

 

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Here's something new, and old. I took this back in December and finally got around to processing it today. This is a stitch of 5 images, 21 mega-pixels each, of the San Francisco Bay Bridge from the Embarcadero.

 

Aperture Academy Night Owls Workshop last night and we took the group to this location and that reminded me that sitting somewhere on my hard drive was my shoot from December!

 

I first photographed this location a few years ago and at that time I shot it with a Canon 17-40mm...a lens that allowed me to capture the entire span of the bridge in the view finder.

 

While the composition turned out as I had envisioned there was always something about that shot that bothered me...the dark foreground due to the railing and the barrel distortion from the lens effecting the vertical-ness of the Bay Bridge towers.

 

So, last December, Scott Davis and I (aka Buttermilk) headed to the city for some night shooting. High on my list was a re-shoot of the Bay Bridge and I had decided that I wanted to shoot it as a panoramic so that I could increase the amount of data in the image for printing. I've got a 36x48 print of the original version in the gallery but I want to go BIGGER.

 

We arrived and I setup my pano gear (aka Nodal bar, etc) got all leveled out but due to the railing along the Embarcado there was just no way to get the rotation needed to get a full 5 frames.

 

Scott looks over the rail and says "how about down there..."

 

I look over...down about 7-8 feet is a small ledge, a few feet above the waterline.

 

"You think?" I said.

 

So the next thing you know I'm climbing over the railing...now standing on a 1 foot ledge down about 8 feet...

 

"Looks good actually!" I yelled up.

 

So Scott hands me down my tripod and camera...two legs folded up...one leg folded back through the railing...Scott standing on the leg to keep things from falling over into the water.

 

I proceeded to level off, set the nodal point and pan through the scene...

 

"YES!" I proclaimed "this is perfect, I can get the entire scene and the foreground darkness is out of the way!"

 

I'm giddy. I start shooting.

 

Scott runs the timer, I mark the panning degree's and two minutes, by two minute exposures I shoot the scene.

 

I get about half way through and "airplane", sure enough...damn it! So I start over.

 

I get to the 3rd frame and a lady approaches down the pathway...she thinks I'm trying to commit suicide or something and Scott is talking me out of it...Scott assures her I'm just a crazy photographer and then she wants to take my picture.

 

FLASH!

 

"Lady!" I explain frustated..."please no flash, I'm exposing!!"

 

So we start again.

 

Third times' the charm, I get through the entire pan, all 5 frames at 2 minutes each.

 

DONE.

 

I climb back up and thank Scott for his assistance with the captures and on into the rest of our night shooting we go.

 

I wish I could post the full res version without fear of it being stolen as the full image is SUPER detailed. Gotta love Canon! (sorry Nikon users, I mean no offense)

Done