Red-winged Black­birds — PHOTO BY GARRETT LAU

The San Fran­cis­co Bay Bird Obse­va­to­ry holds a pho­to con­test as part of their fund rais­ing activ­i­ties and the sub­mis­sions peri­od starts today with a dead­line of Octo­ber 9.

“The San Fran­cis­co Bay Bird Obser­va­to­ry is ded­i­cat­ed to the con­ser­va­tion of birds and their habi­tats through sci­ence and out­reach, and to con­tribut­ing to informed resource man­age­ment deci­sions in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area.”

Prizes include bird pho­tog­ra­phy work­shops with Oliv­er Klinkworth or Bruce Finac­chio and gift cer­tifi­cates from Bor­rowlens­es.

Read all the details on their web site: http://www.sfbbo.org/support/clickoff/clickoff.php

It was a busy 3 days and a good chance to prac­tice sport action shoot­ing. Huge swells hit the bay area and the surfers hit the water. I caught some shots at Steam­er Lane on Thurs­day, Half Moon Bay on Fri­day and then went to the Driscoll Ranch Rodeo on Sat­ur­day.

There are a wide vari­ety of pho­to­genic sites around the San Fran­cis­co bay area, each with their own micro cli­mate and access chal­lenges. The fog may be in or out, it may be cloudy in one area and sun­ny just a mile away, the surf may be up or flat, the traf­fic to that site may be insur­mount­able. Before I dri­ve or hike some­where to take pic­tures, I often check the con­di­tions via the many web cams locat­ed around the bay area. Here is a list of active web cams I find use­ful. Some cam­eras allow you to take con­trol to pan and zoom the scene.

SanFranciscoBay.com has the most com­plete col­lec­tion I have found to-date.

SFGate and CBS5.com have their own sim­i­lar col­lec­tions.

But there are more:

Con­tro­lable “Alca­traz” cam which is actu­al­ly from Sausal­i­to.

SurfLine.com links to all avail­able cam­eras point­ed at the ocean in addi­tion to list­ing surf con­di­tions. Explore this site to find reports and surf cams from around the world. this link takes you to Cen­tral Cal­i­for­nia.

Hi-Def San Fran­cis­co (pic­tured above) mon­i­tors the bay and sky­line from Sausal­i­to, track­ing ships and offer­ing time lapse movies of inter­est­ing days.

Sam­Cam at Sam’s Chow­der House in Prince­ton Har­bor will give you an idea of the weath­er con­di­tions in Half Moon Bay.

For traf­fic con­di­tions, I check SFGate’s traf­fic page and 511.org for a live map of dri­ve time and high­way speeds.

I also mon­i­tor the Bay Area Air Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment Dis­trict look­ing for clues to air clar­i­ty.

That’s a start. I’ll list more as I find them and l’ll link this post for easy access on the side of this blog.

Hap­py view­ing!

I par­tic­i­pat­ed in Scott Kel­by’s World­wide Pho­to Walk this past week­end. Over 30,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed around the world.

A pho­to walk is a group of pho­tog­ra­phers get­ting togeth­er in one place, ambling through a town, and pho­tograph­ing any­thing that moves or does­n’t, basi­cal­ly ter­ror­iz­ing the natives. You dis­cuss equip­ment, tech­niques, com­po­si­tion or any­thing you can get them to talk about. Just watch­ing what they pho­to­graph is a learn­ing expe­ri­ence. I whole­heart­ed­ly endorse this annu­al event.

View images from the walk that I post­ed on Flickr here.
View the San Fran­cis­co North Beach Walk group pho­tos here.
And view walk pho­tos from around the world here.

I’ve been search­ing for clues on get­ting those spec­tac­u­lar shots of build­ings, bridges and sun­sets peek­ing through the San Fran­cis­co bay area fog. Here is an arti­cle by Tom Ste­in­stra from Date­Book’s Fog Week on the SFGate web site that dis­cuss­es oppor­tu­ni­ties for catch­ing those views. In addi­tion to their moun­tain top sug­ges­tions, read the com­ments for a few more. (Warn­ing: some col­or­ful and angry com­men­tary.)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/16/SP6618ORUH.DTL&type=living

“For the total­ly lazy, or if you’re trav­el­ing, you can often get above the fog shots, up to the minute, from the cam­era at Lawrence hall of Sci­ence above Berke­ley. http://sv.berkeley.edu/view/”

And 2 oth­er use­ful web­cams I picked up from fel­low pho­togs at the World Wide Web Pho­to Walk:

Hi-Def San Fran­cis­co — is a cam locat­ed in Sausal­i­to point­ed at San Fran­cis­co dis­play­ing up to 1080 res­o­lu­tion and pro­vid­ed by Cloud­View Pho­tog­ra­phy. This is the best SF cam I have found to date.

CBS5.com pro­vides many traf­fic and bay area site cam links from Ocean Beach to Heav­en­ly Val­ley Ski Resort.

What can pos­si­b­lie go wrong?

There were a few mishaps but not too much went wrong on this pho­to shoot. Let’s include the things that could have gone wrong in this list.

- Be on time, actu­al­ly be ear­ly. I was on time but I should have got­ten to the site much ear­li­er (or gone days before) to scout loca­tions. Why not become famil­iar with appro­pri­ate pho­to­genic loca­tions in your area as well as sun direc­tion at var­i­ous times of the day. Spend­ing time scout­ing loca­tions saves time for your clients. In this field, I would rather wait for my clients then have them wait for me.

- Equip­ment can break unex­pect­ed­ly. I was pre­pared for shoot­ing out­side with a stand and umbrel­la reflec­tor by bring­ing weights to sta­bi­lize the stand. An umbrel­la can take off like a kite in a mod­er­ate wind, tak­ing your expen­sive light­ing with it. What I did­n’t expect is for some parts to fall out of the cen­ter part of the stand allow­ing it to spin freely like a weath­er vane. We used a busi­ness card stuck in the gap to fin­ish the shoot. Do not let unex­pect­ed prob­lems put you off your game. Fix it or have spares and move on.

- Get per­mis­sion. Hav­ing per­mis­sion from prop­er­ty own­ers is a plus. If not, expect secu­ri­ty to make no allowances for tres­pass­ing. If con­front­ed, be polite and move along. We were set­ting up for a great shot on these blue met­al stairs when the man hap­pened along. We did not get the shot.

— Pay atten­tion to what is in the frame. This takes prac­tice when time is lim­it­ed. You are try­ing to quick­ly get as many shots from as many angles as you can. Tak­ing time to ana­lyze the back­ground will save you time in post. We set­tled on a loca­tion with cool look­ing doors but there were also many win­dows around. Review­ing the pic­tures, I find the win­dows fair­ly busy with dis­trac­tions reflect­ed in the glass, such as cars, pic­nic tables, the back of the mod­el’s heads and worst of all, the flash set­up. I might be able to remove that rodent trap in Pho­to­shop but glass panes are not so easy to recon­struct. Pay atten­tion and avoid unwant­ed objects when you shoot. Shoot­ing tighter can help or move to sharp­er angles but if it is not work­ing, say so, take charge and move to anoth­er loca­tion. It is also impor­tant for you to pay atten­tion to the mod­els. They can­not see them­selves as well as you can. Is their cloth­ing or their hair out of place? Are the props block­ing any­thing impor­tant? Pay atten­tion to these things, move items and com­ment when need­ed. I per­son­al­ly do not touch the mod­els.

- Flash needs to recharge. Of course the flash needs to recharge. I knew that. And the high­er pow­er you shoot, the longer the recharge time. This is a tim­ing issue that takes prac­tice and expe­ri­ence. The flash did not fire for some of my best shots. Bright sun and brack­et­ed set­tings did save the day for some.

Con­clu­sion — Look at every­thing I learned. This was a suc­cess­ful shoot for me and most impor­tant­ly, I hope the quar­tet like the pic­tures. It is real­ly for and about the client. Just make sure what you can pro­vide is ful­ly under­stood by all con­cerned ahead of time. Then go a have fun!

The InStep Quar­tet is a pro­fes­sion­al, high qual­i­ty and mul­ti-genre San Fran­cis­co bay area based string quar­tet. Read more about them on their web site.

Part 1 — Part 2

The Flash Rig

I want to say that the InStep Quar­tet are love­ly peo­ple, patient, fun and appre­cia­tive. We had a great time shoot­ing these pic­tures to our mutu­al ben­e­fit.

We decid­ed to shoot the pic­tures at the now closed Alame­da Navy Base for some rus­tic (and rusty) atmos­phere. I expect­ed bright sun and fig­ured on shoot­ing in what­ev­er shade we could find at high noon. The flash would help even out the light­ing. I was also hop­ing for some clouds and want­ed to use the flash to con­trol the ambi­ent sky light in an art­sy and dra­mat­ic way. There was not a sin­gle cloud in the sky, just bright, hot sun. The rig did work but was a chal­lenge get every­thing right. More on that lat­er.

I am in the mar­ket for flash equip­ment for stu­dio and loca­tion work. Rent­ing is a great way to get expe­ri­ence and field test expen­sive equip­ment before you buy. For­tu­nate­ly, the San Fran­cis­co bay area hosts the pho­tog­ra­phy rental com­pa­ny “Bor­row Lens­es”. They are not far from my home and I was able to rent the light­ing equip­ment I need­ed for this shoot on Fri­day, prac­tice with it over the week­end, shoot the quar­tet on Mon­day morn­ing and return it before 6pm.

The com­pa­ny is easy to work with and I appre­ci­ate that they were able to adapt to my needs. Nikon equip­ment is cur­rent­ly very pop­u­lar so it is a good idea to reserve your equip­ment ahead of time, eas­i­ly done on their web site. You also have the option of buy­ing dam­age insur­ance.

I rent­ed a Nikon SB900 Speed­light flash (ask for the man­u­al and the col­or fil­ters), 2 Pock­et Wiz­ards, a 13′ light stand (the only size they rent at that time), a 48″ reflec­tive umbrel­la (again, the only size they rent) and a Gary Fong Light­sphere (which I nev­er used). Bat­ter­ies are your respon­si­bil­i­ty. There were none in the Pock­et Wiz­ards and the SB900 ran out after a few uses. There was no indi­ca­tion that an umbrel­la adapter was includ­ed or avail­able. I called to talk about this and they noticed it before I was able to ask. So they ran out and bought a few (com­plete with brass mon­key and cold shoe) and includ­ed one at no cost.

I had the week­end to exper­i­ment, scar­ing the bird and the wife with umbrel­las and flash­ing lights in the house, refer­ring back to Zack Ari­a’s One Light Work­shop video sev­er­al times (men­tioned in Part 1).

If the equip­ment is new to you, prac­tice open­ing and clos­ing every­thing. Take things apart and put them back togeth­er. Ask for the man­u­al for every­thing you rent and read through it. Prac­tice going through the menus on the flash. The idea is that you do not want to take time learn­ing how to set­up the stand or con­fig­ur­ing the flash dur­ing the shoot. I dis­cov­ered ahead of time that the flash does not lock into the cold shoe and the set screw can come loose with the flash falling out. I secured it with a vel­cro strap before the shoot and had no prob­lems.

I total­ly neglect­ed to take a pic­ture of the set­up for pos­ter­i­ty, so dumb.

I did take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to try uti­liz­ing the flash for my Back­yard Bird Pho­tog­ra­phy project. Results? Well, let’s just say you learn more from fail­ure. The goal was to stop the action of birds in flight. I need more research for the prop­er set­up to accom­plish this. I did observe that, for the record, birds are not con­cerned with the flash and this was set­up (with­out the umbrel­la) very close to the bird feed­er. But that project is a sub­ject for anoth­er post.

The InStep Quar­tet is a pro­fes­sion­al, high qual­i­ty and mul­ti-genre San Fran­cis­co bay area string quar­tet. Read more about them on their web site.

Next: Part 3 — What Could Pos­si­b­lie Go Wrong?
Part 1 — Part 3

Yes­ter­day, I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to shoot pub­lic­i­ty pho­tos for some friends and gained valu­able expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge. This is a new chap­ter in my pho­tog­ra­phy adven­ture which I jump into, whole heart­ed­ly with both feet. But it takes a bit of prac­tice…

Let me first say that I shoot live musi­cians when­ev­er and wher­ev­er I have the oppor­tu­ni­ty. And I play jazz myself, so I have some expe­ri­ence at the chal­lenge of get­ting good angles. But a sched­uled pho­to shoot requires a more delib­er­ate approach. This post will doc­u­ment my thought process and lessons learned.

To pre­pare, I spent the time required to thor­ough­ly watch the Zack Arias DVD, One Light Work­shop. Keep­ing the instruc­tion­al sim­ple by using only one flash unit for all exam­ples, Zack clear­ly demon­strates how to mas­ter the light in any set­ting using man­u­al con­trol over shut­ter speed, aper­ture, ISO and flash pow­er. If you are con­fused at all about flash pho­tog­ra­phy, I high­ly rec­om­mend this 4 hour DVD set. Check out a short trail­er from the video and a review by pho­to blog­ger David Cross on Zack­’s web site for much more detail: http://www.onelightworkshop.com/page5/page5.html

Next, under­stand­ing how the client will use the pic­tures and what type of set­ting they desire will help deter­mine the equip­ment you will need. The clients chose the defunct Alame­da Navy base as a back­drop with all it’s indus­tri­al and decay­ing atmos­phere. I thought it best to shoot in the shade wher­ev­er pos­si­ble to min­i­mize stark shad­ows and squint­ing and decid­ed on a sim­ple Nikon SB 900 speed flash, a reflec­tive umbrel­la, a light stand and a pair of pock­et wiz­ards for remote con­trol might help even out the light and be easy to deal with. A larg­er flash and a larg­er light box would have pro­vid­ed a bet­ter light source for a 4 per­son shoot but since I do not own this equip­ment and need to rent it, I con­sid­ered the fol­low­ing in my choice:

- we had a short 2.5 hours, begin­ning to end for the shoot, includ­ing loca­tion scout­ing, dis­cus­sion, and pic­ture review
— I do not have an assis­tant and so want­ed to keep the rig as portable as pos­si­ble
— I want­ed to keep the price down
— I am con­sid­er­ing buy­ing these items and want­ed to test their lim­its in the field

The InStep Quar­tet is a pro­fes­sion­al, high qual­i­ty and mul­ti-genre San Fran­cis­co bay area based string quar­tet. Read more about them on their web site.

Next — Part 2: Rent­ing and Test­ing the Flash Rig
Part 2 — Part 3

As a Nikon user, I find the Nikon Rumors web site of inter­est. They search the world adver­tise­ments for hints about new and dis­con­tin­ued prod­ucts. If you are in the mar­ket for new equip­ment, check out the Price Watch page for known best prices and sug­ges­tions for whether to buy or wait on evi­dence that new prod­ucts are about to be intro­duced.

Smug­Mug is a pho­to host­ing com­pa­ny based out of Moun­tain View, Cal­i­for­nia. I post my some of my pho­tos there. They recent­ly decid­ed to sponser Smug­Mug User Groups which have been form­ing all over the Unit­ed States and Cana­da.

The idea is to gath­er pho­tog­ra­phy mind­ed ama­teurs and pro­fes­sion­als togeth­er for a month­ly meet­ing where they can “learn, teach and meet oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers that share your pas­sion”. They use the meet­ings to gath­er feed­back for their com­pa­ny and even give­away swag.

3 groups have formed in the San Fran­cis­co bay area alone and I attend the group at Smug­Mug head­quar­ters in Moun­tain View. There is no fee or even a require­ment to sign up, and you can bring friends. I have signed up for all 3 but so far they meet on the same nights.

To date we have had pre­sen­ta­tions by wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers Gene Higa and Dane Sanders and Gary Lev­en­berg, Chief Busi­ness Guy of QiGo. BayPho­to of San­ta Cruz attends the meet­ings with many sam­ples of their print­ing process and experts to answer ques­tions.

So far, it has been a use­ful and reward­ing expe­ri­ence for me, keep­ing my mind on pho­tog­ra­phy, meet­ing oth­er pho­togs and help­ing me get the most out of what Smug­Mug and BayPho­to have to offer. Check it out.

Direct Link to find a User Group in your area: http://smugmug.com/smugs/find/