Category: San Francisco/California

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HDR Photography Lightroom Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 San Francisco/California

Lucky 13 – San Francisco Cable Car

Lucky 13 - San Francisco Cable Car by Scott Loftesness

I headed up to San Francisco this morning to attend a Scott Kelby photography session at the Adobe Photoshop & You building on Sutter Street. Scott’s session was great – all about shooting with continuous light as opposed to strobes – I really learned a lot.

Along the way, I happened across this cable car heading up Powell St. Lucky 13 I called it. The shot was taken with my tiny Canon PowerShot S95 – in RAW – and then post-processed into a single shot HDR using Photomatix Pro. I then imported it to Lightroom, made a few more minor tweaks (mostly desaturating it a bit) and the posting it to Flickr.

In terms of composition – and this was totally random – I love that the guy in front is a photographer – and he’s hungry for the upcoming shot up the Powell Street hill!

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HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II San Francisco/California

The Palace of Fine Arts – in HDR

The Palace of Fine Arts - San Francisco - 2011

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Wow, here’s one more shot from this weekend’s photowalk yesterday at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco! When I arrived, the sky was grey and overcast – foggy – typical for July at this venue in San Francisco.

So, I decided not to try to shoot any traditional exposure bracketed shots – the normal drill for HDR photography – because the contrast just wasn’t there without the sun and the shadows. Instead, I just shot single shot RAW photos – which you can see here in this Flickr set.

After playing around a bit with textures this morning, I decided to see what some single-shot HDR (High Dynamic Range) images might look like after processing with Photomatix Pro. The image above is one of those I processed.

What was interesting to me was how the HDR process brought out the full dome – whereas the dome was almost invisible in the normal shots. The sky is classic HDR – almost always gets darker and moody.

What’s special about this shot for me? The swan. She’s a small detail overall in this image – but I really enjoyed watching her move across the water as I was setting up for this shot.

Hope you also enjoy this image! Share your thoughts in a comment below…

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Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 San Francisco/California Textures

Another View of the Palace of Fine Arts – San Francisco

Palace of Fine Arts - San Francisco

Here’s a more processed view of one of the images from our photowalk yesterday at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. I thought this image might benefit from some addition of textures – because of that boring grey sky! While I ended up with a bit of texture in the sky areas, the real power was in the columns!

This final image has had three different textures added – using different blend modes and opacities – all applied using PhotoShop CS5. Click here to enjoy a large version.

I have played around sporadically with adding textures – here’s an example from early 2010 with two versions. I actually had the gold version printed on a small canvas wrap – it’s beautiful up close!

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Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 San Francisco/California

Somewhere Up There…

Somewhere Up There - Palace of Fine Arts - San Francisco

This morning, I joined up with my good friend Doug Kaye and several of his Marin photo club buddies for a photowalk at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

The Palace of Fine Arts has long been one of my favorite venues – it’s a challenging subject that’s constantly changing as the light moves around – but this morning it was especially challenging for us because of the low overcast and flat contrast that resulted. But, we had good fun shooting none the less!

The photo above was taken with my little Canon PowerShot S95 – which I always try to remember to bring along whenever I’m taking the big camera out for a photo shoot. In this case, the big camera was mounted on a tripod and capturing this kind of near vertical shot would have been very difficult – so out came the S95 to capture it!

More of my photos from today’s photowalk can be viewed here.

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Events Maker Faire Photography San Francisco/California

All Aboard for Maker Faire Bay Area 2011!

We're Watching!

Doug Kaye and I are heading for Maker Faire Bay Area – the 2011 edition – this morning in San Mateo.

This is our second visit, both of us having been introduced to the Faire last year after Doug invited me to go along! It’s an amazing collection of things, exhibits, participatory exercises – you name it – providing great fun for photographers!

Here are some of Doug’s photos and my photos from last year’s event.

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HDR Photography Photography San Francisco/California

About the San Francisco Bay HDR Group

Golden Gate Bridge (Canon PowerShot S90 HDR)

Last August, we started the San Francisco Bay HDR group on Flickr – dedicated to HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography of the San Francisco Bay Area. The group has kind of been off in a corner, but it’s already got some great examples of HDR images of San Francisco and points nearby.

Be sure to check it out – and, if you’d like, join and contribute your San Francisco Bay HDR shots to the group as well!

The photo above, as it turns out, has been my most viewed HDR photo on Flickr. It was taken on the top of Fort Point using my little Canon PowerShot S90. The light that afternoon was incredible with some interesting shadows and beautiful clouds along the horizon. Click here to see a lightbox version. I particularly enjoyed the sign “Danger – stay off walls” as that couple was sitting right up there! Hope you enjoy it too!

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HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S90 San Francisco/California

The Golden Gate Bridge in HDR

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Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point – in HDR – San Francisco, California

Far and away my most popular image on Flickr is this one – titled “Golden Gate Bridge – 2010 – (Canon PowerShot S90 HDR)“. It has over twice the Flickr views of my next nearest image – lots of folks have favorite’d it, commented on it, etc.

This image shows you what you can do these days with a tiny little camera in your pocket – if you know how to shoot. Taken just about a year ago, this image was shot from up on the top of Fort Point just below the Golden Gate Bridge – out in the late afternoon sun – with my tiny Canon PowerShot S90. The January sun angles are always just the best – and this was a perfect day in that regard with low sun and some interesting clouds in the sky.

What’s HDR? Stands for High Dynamic Range. Shooting HDR involves capturing at least 3 shots of the same image exposed differently. You then post process the 3 images into a single composite image. The result can be quite spectacular!

The Canon PowerShot S90 has built-in exposure auto-bracketing – so taking this kind of shot basically involves going to Aperture Priority, enabling Auto-Bracketing, and then shooting the 3 images. Ideally, you use a tripod to steady the image and minimize alignment issues (as with this photo) – but you can also just shoot handheld if you’re steady enough.

My favorite aspect of this particular photo is the sign in the lower right telling folks not to sit on the wall – which, of course, the couple just under the bridge is ignoring completely!

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Compact HDR HDR Photography Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S90 Photomatix Pro San Francisco/California

The Palace of Fine Arts – San Francisco

The Palace of Fine Arts - San Francisco - 2010

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This photo was taken last June at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. The Palace was originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition – and these few buildings are all that remain. It was a typical San Francisco blue sky morning – with lovely lighting adding a hint of shadows. The Palace is another one of my favorite San Francisco venues – a place I love to visit and photograph in all seasons.

The Canon PowerShot S90 (and its successor, the Canon PowerShot S95) are delightful little cameras that can take some amazing photographs. Because of the quality of the 10 megapixel image sensor and the auto-bracketing feature that’s built-in, you can easily shoot HDR (high dynamic range) photos with either of these cameras. Ideally, you’ll use a tripod – but I’ve had great success doing handheld HDR images – just be sure to find something to steady yourself against if you can while firing off the three shots! (Here’s a picture of me walking with Trey Ratcliff and others at Stanford last spring – that’s me on the right with the tiny camera (S90!) on top of the tripod!)

For more background on how I shoot HDR using these compact Canon point-and-shoot cameras, see this post (some tweaks) and this post (original).

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Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon PowerShot S90 San Francisco/California

San Francisco in the Mist from Sausalito

San Francisco Study - from Sausalito - Scott Loftesness

Last summer, I was over in Sausalito heading north for a day of photography when I stopped just off 2nd Street to snap a few shots of San Francisco in the mist across the Bay.

I particularly like this black and white treatment – it’s loosely reminiscent of a Chris Honeysett image that hangs in my office at work. You can see a few of my other color originals from this day’s shoot in this set on Flickr.

These images were shot handheld using my Canon PowerShot S90.

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Living Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 San Francisco/California

2011 – 01 – 01 – Shoot Me!

Shoot Me! - Scott Loftesness - New Year's Day 2011 - San Francisco

Welcome to the new decade! Seems like Y2K was just yesterday, doesn’t it?!

Like last year, I ventured up to San Francisco on New Year’s Day to try to capture some shots with clouds in the sky. But, it wasn’t the best of days – a sloppy winter storm hung over San Francisco – with windy and sloppy rain making it a tough photography day. It was as cold and windy as I’ve ever felt it along the bay by the bridge. I guess it is January, after all!

That said, I had some good fun – capturing one of those serendipity shots. I loved the shot above – taken near the Warming Hut on Crissy Field. I titled it “Shoot Me!“. A couple of friends just having fun out in the wind and rain on the pier.

The rest of today’s set is here on Flickr – a couple of color vs. black and white comparisons of the Golden Gate Bridge and another black and white of the Palace of the Legion of Honor. All shot with my trusty Canon PowerShot S95. I also had my Canon 5D Mark II with me in the car – but it just wasn’t a 5D day!