Golden Gate

Golden Gate Bridge, from Fort Baker  [Canon 5D]
July 2, 2008

On my way back into the city after a day of one-on-one training I stopped by Fort Baker to take some shots of the Golden Gate Bridge as the fog rolled in. This is a 5-second exposure that was made using a Singh-Ray 5-stop solid Neutral Density (ND) filter. I like to use this filter when I want to force the camera to use a much slower shutter speed than would normally be possible in daylight conditions. The other factors that allowed me to use such a slow shutter speed during the day were an ISO setting of 100 (the lowest for my camera) and an aperture of f/22. The slow shutter speed is great for times when you want the motion in a scene to be rendered as a blur. In this shot the water becomes smooth and silky and looks much more interesting than if it had been shot with a more typical shutter speed for daylight conditions.

Since the reflective brightness values were so different between the darker foreground areas and the sky, I also took two shots with different exposure settings and then combined them into a single view in Photoshop CS3. Here's a look at my final Layers palette for my master image:

Speaking of Singh-Ray Filters, they have a pretty cool blog that has some great examples of work done using their filters. I was particularly impressed with some black and white work by Cole Thompson using solid ND filters to photograph the Ghosts of Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps.

Next Workshop

Come join me on the beautiful coast of Maine for a week of creative digital photography and  digital darkroom explorations:

Real World Digital Photography
Maine Photographic Workshops - August 17 - 21

Comments

[Darrell]

Hi Sean--Just wanted to tell you that your image of the Golden Gate is stunning! I just love it. Ranks right up there with the lighthouse shot you took up in Maine as one of my all time favorites. Saw Thompson's haunting images in the camps and was very impressed--especially when you consider how little time he had to make the imageas. I'm guessing he used the tour group as his "ghosts". Just stunning.
All the best,
Darrell

[Sean]

Thanks very much, Darrell!
RE: Cole Thompson's images...yes, those are groups of tourists moving through the shot during 30 second exposures.

[Gianni]

Wow...really impressive quality picture!
http://www.helpmetogeta5d.tk/