One of the days that Robrandi and I were in San Francisco we rented a car and drove around to different parts of the city. We had a Hertz rental agency right at our hotel so renting the car was a breeze. They brought it to the hotel and we returned it to the hotel when we were done. Pretty sweet. It was a white Toyota Yaris Fog Mobile.
Our first stop in the morning was Twin Peaks. The Twin Peaks are two hills near the center of San Francisco with an elevation of a little over 900 ft. There is a north peak called Eureka Peak and a south peak called Noe Peak. Twin Peaks Boulevard runs between them. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 18th century they called them “Los Pechos de la Chola” otherwise known as “Breasts of the Indian Maiden”.
Famous Twin Peaks Fog
What I failed to account for was the morning fog. When we arrived at the top we couldn’t see a thing. Robrandi asked me why I brought her to the top of a mountain shrouded in a fog bank. I told her that I was looking for the mysterious “Children of the Fog”. We both had a good laugh about the situation and then continued on our journey.
At the end of the day, with about an hour until sunset, we decided to return to Twin Peaks to re-visit the view above San Francisco. Thankfully the fog had burned off but the wind was ferocious. One poor guy set up his DSLR on a flimsy tripod and stepped away from his camera and a gust of wind sent the whole rig tumbling onto the concrete walk. The camera came off of the tripod and the pop up flash broke right off the camera and the lens shattered into several pieces. Ai yai yai! Needless to say he was rather upset.
Twin Peaks Panorama
I managed to shoot a panorama and a few HDR sets but the wind was just to strong. There was to much vibration in the long exposures. I was really hoping to get some night shots but the wind was only getting stronger as the sun went down. After about 45 minutes we packed it in and headed for the hotel.
This panorama is stitched together in PhotoShop CS5 from 5 single images. I do own a panoramic head but due to weight considerations I left it at home. These single images were shot on a tripod with a standard ball head. Luckily there really aren’t any converging lines so parallax does not appear to present to much distortion. Other than stitching I didn’t do any image correction so the image is still a bit to hazy for my tastes. The file size is 2.5 GB and my laptop was having a hard time keeping up.
Left – The sunset was just gorgeous from Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks Boulevard is in the foreground and you can see Market Street receding into the city. Right – This is the effect the high wind was having on my long exposures. Uggghh!
Stay tuned I’m still working on some more San Francisco photos and blogs. If your so inclined, let me know what you think, if not, so noted. Just remember, if you’re goin to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair … (Many Thankx to Amy Lonergan for reminding me of that great song!)
The Flight to San Francisco | Campfest 2012 | America’s Cup Blog | San Francisco Portraits | Aerial Images
