Powell Street is San Francisco

Gulls In Flight

Last week I posted this kinda freaky shot of a sea gull in flight. As you can see below, I shot a lot more. Why? Well... because I could. As I mentioned in this post, I recently bought this new Nikon 18-200 VR lens. VR stands for "vibration reduction". In addition to the VR technology in the lens, it also has internal focusing which makes it focus very, very quickly. My Nikon D200 camera has a setting that allows you to set the auto-focus to "continuous"... so if you keep the focus-spot trained on a moving object, it will try to keep that object in focus until you shoot. I had never owned a camera/lens combination before capable of such feats as this. The birds were flying all over the place and I could barely keep them in the frame but somehow, the camera was able to keep them in focus an awful lot of the time. What fun! I can't wait to try it out on sports and other fast moving targets.

From Appalachia to Downtown San Francisco

Well, I just can't get away from it. Everywhere I go, there it is, the John Amos Power Plant. Recapping the story thus far... I've posted several photos of the plant here on the blog... I saw this in New York City.... and then I saw this again near Poca, WV. The photo above was taken a couple of days ago in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

SFMOMA

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. You can't shoot pictures of the art, but they don't mind if you shoot the architecture. Nice building. Too bad the most interesting parts were closed off the day I was there.

Life amplified...

... at the Yerba Buena Center... or so they say.

Rainy Day in Chinatown

Urban Wildlife

It's like a zoo at Pier 39.

USAir Morning

I should have posted this one yesterday instead of the San Francisco shot... now I'm all out of order. This was shot on the tarmac in Charlotte.

San Francisco, Westfield Center

Just blew into town. Took a nap. Went to Nordstrom to buy a shirt. Still on Eastern Time.

Stay Tuned for San Fran

I'm not posting anything tonight because I'm wildly busy. But stay tuned because I'll be in San Francisco the next few days so I should have some interesting stuff!

Headlight Overlay

Here's another car show photo. I'm not much into Photoshop "tricks" but I've been experimenting with this "Blur Overlay" effect and it sure is effective at making a dull photo more interesting.

Car Show Blahs

I shot last year's car show in January and got so many shots I did 5 posts full of pictures. This car show was something of a letdown. There were hardly any concept cars... just mostly showroom cars and some unexciting classics.

BTW... that first shot of the Jaguar hood ornament was done not with my little Fuji F30, but with my Nikon D200 and my new 18-200mm VR lens. The VR (vibration reduction) lenses allow the camera to shoot at lower shutter speeds without camera-shake blur. The hood ornament photo was shot at 1/45th of a second at 135mm and I easily got a good sharp image without using a tripod. A rule of thumb has always been that you need a shutter speed "equal to" the focal length. For instance, if you are shooting a 200mm lens you'd need a shutter speed of 1/200th second... or if you were using a 28mm lens, you'd need a shutter speed of 1/30th second to get a sharp image. I've always found this rule of thumb to be pretty accurate. Using the VR lens, I can usually shoot with 2 or 3 stops lower shutter speed than before.

I've been testing this lens and I'm really happy with it. The huge focal length range of 18mm to 200mm means that I'll be changing lenses much less often. I'll miss fewer shots that require quick reactions because I won't have to change lenses in the middle of shooting. It also means less dust inside the camera and less dust falling on my sensor. Cleaning the sensor is a real pain.

Steamy Sunrise

I've posted photos of the John Amos Power Plant before. I just couldn't resist shooting this version Thursday morning on my way out of town at dawn. The rising sun colored the steam cloud in a remarkable way I think.

The Governor and the Talk Show Host

Montel and the governor share a laugh. Earlier they were comparing knee surgery scars.

Produce Blogging #69

Another leaf shadow.
Because Thursday night is grocery night!

Public Art

Towers

I had an interesting discussion today with some engineers who design cell tower sites.

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

I've got quite a few of these iguana photos.

Bankie

Sunrise over the Kanawha - Part 3

Produce Blogging #68

Because Thursday night is grocery night!