Tag Archives: 10

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Golden Gate Bridge and Lunar Eclipse

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Golden Gate Bridge and Lunar Eclipse
Golden Gate Bridge and Lunar Eclipse

Golden Gate Bridge and Lunar Eclipse. San Francisco, California. December 10, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The moon, in full lunar eclipse, passes behind the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is the second of two photographs of this week’s full lunar eclipse that I will share. The earlier one was a horizontal format version of roughly the same subject. Here the fully eclipsed setting moon passed behind the upper portion of the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, as seen from the San Francisco Bay shoreline in the Crissy Field area. There was just a bit of pre-dawn light in the sky at this point, and within a few minutes of making this photograph the combination of increasing ambient light, the generally hazy atmosphere, and the moon dropping into high, off-shore clouds brought the show to a fairly quick conclusion.

I was stunned by the number of other photographers out at this very early hour, even considering that it was within the city of San Francisco. I had originally tried Treasure Island, in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. There were quite a few photographers lined up there at 5:00 a.m., but I did not like the potential positioning of the moon relative to likely foreground features near the horizon, so I didn’t stick around. Instead, I made a guess based on my knowledge of the area that there was a good chance that the moon might line up with the Golden Gate Bridge from vantage points in the Fort Mason, Crissy Field, and Fort Point areas. I drove over there quickly and was surprised to find the parking lots were nearly full and tripod-laden photographers walking about or already set up. I grabbed the first decent parking space, loaded up my gear, and started walking west, figuring that I could get to the likely spot on foot quite quickly.

A second surprise was that the ideal location, which wasn’t hard to find at all, was far less crowded than the areas closer to the parking lot. I was even able to find a spot or two where I could set up apart from other photographers and wait – for only a few moments by this time – for the moon to intersect with the bridge.

Another view of this subject in landscape orientation is posted here.

An interesting side note: Photographer Florian Kainz later shared his eclipse shot with me and asked if I might be the photographer standing in front of the bridge. Yes. That’s me! With Florian’s permission I have included a small version of his photo here – follow the links back to see his full-sized post at Flickr. He has given me permission to share his photograph here. Thanks, Florian!

Lunar Eclipse - just before Sunrise
Photograph © Copyright 2011 Florian Kainz. Used by permission of the photographer.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Night Photography, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Lunar Eclipse, Golden Gate Bridge

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Lunar Eclipse, Golden Gate Bridge
Lunar Eclipse, Golden Gate Bridge

Lunar Eclipse, Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco, California. December 10, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Moon, in full lunar eclipse, drops behind the Golden Bridge South Tower, San Francisco, California.

Very (very!) early this morning I joined the surprisingly large throng of photographers out to shoot the lunar eclipse in the San Francisco area. I was up and out the door shortly after 4:00 a.m. and heading toward San Francisco. My first thought was to see if I could get an interesting composition with the moon over the San Francisco skyline by shooting from Treasure Island, in the bay between the City and Oakland. I arrived there while it was still very dark and found that lots of other photographers (and a motorcycle club!) were already on the scene. The photographers included to semi-astronomy types with the really, really big lenses and plenty of others.

The problem was immediately apparent. Even though the moon was still fairly high in the sky, it was apparent that it was going to set far to the right of San Francisco. I might have been able to find a workable spot on the island, but I still wasn’t sure the moon would be in a good spot once it got close to setting. At this point I decided to try a “plan B,” and I felt that there was a pretty good idea that I could make something work in the Crissy Field area. So I hopped back in the car, passed through downtown San Francisco, and arrived at the Crissy Field area…

… only to find out that I was most certainly not the only photographer thinking of using this location! There were hundreds of tripod-lugging photographers lined up a long the shoreline! My main idea at this point was to find a location from which the setting moon would pass above and then behind the bridge. So I headed off quickly towards the area where I thought this juxtaposition might be available. Soon I found it, and just as the sky was beginning to lighten up a bit and shedding a bit of natural light on the bridge. It was still quite challenging to get even a workable shot. The wind was blowing stiffly, making the necessary long exposures a bit tricky. In the end I think I got one or two that are interesting.

A vertical format version of this scene is posted here – I still haven’t decided which I prefer!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Community, Events, News, Photographers

Free Talk: ‘Lyrical Landscapes’ by Charles Cramer – This Week

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Noted landscape photograph photographer Charles Cramer is presenting a free talk on “Lyrical Landscapes” at De Anza College in Cupertino tomorrow –  Friday, June 10 at 6:00 p.m. The event is in the “Choral Hall,” room A11 near the Flint Center auditorium on campus. I have posted a campus map on Facebook with the location of the talk and nearby parking areas highlighted. Directions to the campus are also available online.

Charlie is one of the most highly regarded landscape photographers working today, and his knowledge and understanding of how to achieve a beautiful print is unparalleled. I believe that he will address these things along with some ideas about the parallels between his photography and music. Charlie is also a very talented musician – like a good number of other photographers. (Believe it or not, Charlie played organ at our wedding, oh so many years ago! :-)

I urge San Francisco Bay Area photographers to join me at De Anza on June 10 for this event!

(I’m a faculty member at De Anza and my office is in building where the event will take place. I’ll be there early, so drop by my office to say “hi” on the way in – my door will be open!)

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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Equipment, Technique

Yet Another Reason to Like Live View – Shooting in the Wind

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I have posted in the past about some of the advantages of having a live view feature on your camera, especially for the types of photography that I do using my Canon 5DII. This past week I discovered another use, and an unexpected one at that – shooting in conditions of gusty winds.

I most often work from the tripod, and I usually use a pretty large and stable tripod in the context of shooting a full frame DSLR camera. But in some very windy conditions putting the camera on a tripod is not sufficient to stop camera motion and the consequent blur. This is especially a problem when you are shooting in low light or otherwise need to use very long exposure times, and it becomes worse when using long lenses which will catch more wind and magnify vibrations. There are a bunch of tricks that you can try in order to keep the camera steady, but in really strong winds the camera is just going to move, especially if you have a very large lens attached.

One way I try to deal with this is to time my exposures for moments when the wind may momentarily decrease. This can require a lot of patience – sometimes I’ve had to wait several minutes for a very brief halt to the gale, during which I try to make my exposure. But even in this case, you have to make sure that the camera vibration stops completely if you are using a long lens. Ultimately, you have to simply trust that the camera really has stabilized since there is no way to tell directly. Last week, as I was using live view to focus a 400mm lens on a distant subject and again noting that 400mm plus 10x software zoom in live view makes the camera very sensitive to vibration. In the past I have noted this mainly in the context of how darn hard it is to manually focus a big lens this way! But this time it occurred to me that I could use this in my favor.

With the 10x live view magnification enabled, the display is very sensitive to camera motion from the wind. I realized that by leaving the camera in the 10x magnification setup after composing the shot that I could simply watch this display, with its magnification of motion, and wait until the image stabilized during lulls in the wind to take my shots. If the display isn’t bouncing at 10x, motion blur is not going to be an issue. Problem solved. More or less.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.