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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on Lombard Street in San Francisco.Time
I was in San Francisco taking night shots and Lombard St. is a classic place to take photos.Lighting
Since it's a night shot, a long exposure was needed. I knew I would need to more than one set of car lights to make the photo work, but couldn't leave the shutter open for too long waiting for cars to drive by. So I opened the shutter when the first car arrived then held the lens cap over the lens until another car or two went by. I counted in my head how long I had exposed and closed the shutter when I had gathered enough light and enough cars. In total, the shutter was open for 3 1/2 minutes, but actual exposure time was much less.Equipment
I've been shooting with a Canon 5D MkII for a number of years and I had just recently upgraded to the 5D MkIII. Most of my photography is landscape, so I used one my landscape lenses, the EF16-35, which I set to 35mm. For a shot this long, a tripod is required for sure! I have several Manfrottos and brought my lighter carbon fiber one along for this shot since I was using a smaller lens.Inspiration
I love experimenting and playing with time. I spent a year or so doing time lapse photography for fun and recently I've been experimenting and learning long exposure photography.Editing
I do everything in Lightroom right now and I'm just beginning to learn Photoshop. This photo required no post-processing other than white balance. The street lamps were casting a yellowish glow on everything. If I spend the time to dial in the white balance in camera, then I could have just used the photo right out of the camera.In my camera bag
I love photographing outdoors. My favorite lens is my 24mm-105mm and I find myself using my 100mm-400mm quite a lot as well. The 16mm-35mm isn't used as much, but it's invaluable when I need a wide shot. I currently have a 12mm pre-ordered and I can't wait to try it out. I'm always using polarizing filters to get more blue in the sky and I'm starting use ND filters a lot. I just bought my first ND grad and that's really given me more flexibility at the camera instead of having to fix in post.Feedback
Since it's a long exposure, go with a low ISO to get a good clean shot. The long exposure also gave me more flexibility with the aperture so I went small (f/16) to get more of the scene in focus. Make sure to try different vantage points as well. The view from the top of Lombard looking all the way down is spectacular and the Bay Bridge can be seen in the background. It's also a more classic shot as well. But that view can also make the scene too busy. My favorite photos were the ones looking uphill which exposes the car's headlights instead of their taillights. I thought the blue tones from the headlights complemented the yellow lights at night and the simplicity of the one building in the background.