Crossing The Bay Bridge
I had the opportunity to go to the California Academy of Sciences this past week (more photos to come), and I didn't have to drive. Yay! Armed with my Lumix GX-1 and a 32GB memory card and three fully charged batteries, I could shoot away on the drive there and still have storage and juice left for the main destination.
The first gem among the Bay Bridge photos is of Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill. The foreground is populated by the Piers along the Embarcadero. One can even see the San Francisco Belle, a large paddlewheel ship that functions as a restaurant. In the background is the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands, with Sausalito on the right.
Shooting from a moving car is a new experience. I'm usually the driver, so I don't have much opportunity to sightsee, much less operate a camera. I knew I needed a high shutter speed, so I maxed out the GX-1s shutter at 1/4000 of a second. I raised the ISO to 500 and shot with the kit lens at f/5.6. At that distance, practically everything is at infinity, which is what the autofocus locked onto.
The above photo is of the Ferry Building and the SF skyline. I decided to leave some of the bridge in this crop for two reasons: To show where it was taken and to give space around the bottom of the Ferry Building. It would do no good to have it sitting at the very bottom of the frame.
Just leaving Treasure Island, the city skyline is distant. One can make out Sutro Tower on the left and the Golden Gate on the right. In the middle is the Transamerica pyramid. I like the main cable of the suspension bridge dominating the upper left and I like the door mirror included. It adds context. I could have gotten better compositions of the skyline by walking across the bridge, but getting out wasn't an option at the time.
