SOMA 12-20-11

[David]

I hasn't used me Canon AE-1 in a long time, mostly because I sold two of my four lenses, leaving me with the stock 50 and a Toyo Optics 28mm. Something about the Toyo, as I found out when I started shooting, is off. The lens seems to either be out of columnation or not designed for the CF mount -- it can't focus to infinity and what was in focus on the fresnel is not was was in focus on the negatives in some cases. But that's okay because I'm going to sell the Toyo.

Anyway, I equipped the Toyo with an O56 filter and decided to make what I could of that day's roll, 24 shots of Foma ISO 100. The album was not my greatest, partly because the lens did not function exactly correctly. To compensate, I shot almost exculsively with the lens stopped down to f11 or lower (minimum aperture for the toyo is f22). This enabled me to salvage many of the shots because this lens has an amazing hyperfocal distance at f22 of 2 feet to infinity. At f16, it hyperfocals 3 feet to infinity; 4 feet to infinity at f11. So the only shots where I botched the focus were close-ups.

As always, here's a link to the whole album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102333270936007447976/SF122011


The 3rd Street bridge in China Basin. One of my challenges in photographing this area is I have about 30 to 45 minutes, per day, for my daily photo stroll. That limits my radius substantially. So I need to find a way to keep my photography fresh for me. If I go the next year and just photograph the same bridges from different angles every day, I'm going to be bored by March. You'll likely be bored by January 3.


With Ilford ISO 50, I shot this bridge from the other side with an 18-28mm Samyang set at about 20mm. This shot, much less dramatic, is at least properly exposed. So yay for that.


Here's the same bridge from the other side about five hours earlier in the day, the sun rising off to the left over the bay. to my eyes, the contrasts on these bridges are minimal and the black seems uniform. through filter effects, however, the flaws and various within the bridge's coatings emerge as patterns and textures.


This is the top of the 4th Street bridge, from below. It's a short bridge, maybe six or eight feet higher than the Muni trains that cross.

Not, perhaps, the most interesting series I've ever shot. As always, comments and criticisms are welcome.

[mmelvis]

The bridge looks like a very hard subject to capture with some many things in the background. The bridge is a wonderful subject though, to bad you do not have more time on your photo walks.