Something I took last weekend and a bit of story...
Last weekend on a whim decided to go to the Golden Gate late at night and try to take an interesting shot of it. I consider that a challenge since this bridge has been photographed a billion times.
So by 12:30 AM or around, I was there. I took with me the 15mm F1.7 Panny Leica and the 45 mm F1.8 with me- thinking I would get close to the bridge and use the wide angle to pull out some interesting perspectives- but only to find that the bridge was closed to pedestrians.
Surprisingly enough bikers coming from the other side into the city of San Francisco could come in, having an automatic gate that would open with one of those garage strident alarms, and close right after they were through it.
I also saw
- 5 raccoons total looking for food in the trash
- 2-3 groups of young adults, one of which had a girl lose a phone, which when I was about to leave I helped a bit search and gave tips using find my phone etc. Phone was surprisingly found by one of the stairs- they thought they lost it, but I was betting since there were not that many people their phone was lying around.
I suggested that she should check her pocket pants, and effectively, she was wearing one of those jeans with wear and holes... lesson (hopefully) learned.
- 3 bikers come through the gate I mentioned
- 1 couple that when I was approaching one of the areas to view the gate from, the guy embraced the gall, and lifted her off the ground- a framing between concrete structures... that I missed to take a shot of because I hesitated - with regret later. I don' think they would have minded one bit being so happy.
After realizing that the wide angle lens would have been kind of useless at the distance I was, for the sort of shot I wanted, I used the 45mm. Ironically I think my favorite focal- the 25mm (50mm equiv) would have done a bit better.
I still like the shot. 6 second exposures, F3.5, ISO 200.
A mild drop to around 45 megapixels from 50 (or 70mp from 80 mp if you want to count the 80 MP raw file).
Black and white because though the orange of the gate and red lights underneath have some nice color, I found it separated too much from the right where the lights were blue/white and colder. Breaking the line of lights-flow. Also the red would be in that shadow under the bridge making it a bit distracting.
This is the kind of situation that I find myself in that I don't know what I would get exactly, and I may go back several times and try different things.
- Ricardo