Originally posted by takis63 A great shot!!!
I've got to get myself this lens...
thanks. i don't get to use it much anymore (since switching to 645D), but when i teach classes, i bring a lightweight rig along and the 10-20 is hard to beat.
Originally posted by towa Mike i'm impressed with your shoots!
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thank you!
Originally posted by nanhi This shot of the SF Cable Car is a technical & compositional marvel Mike. Very pleasing. In spite of spending some two weeks in San Francisco split into five occasions, I have never got a successful shot of the Cable Cars.
Request please share how you captured this extremely sharp shot in low light as the car was being turned around. Gear used and exif data will also help.
Like I can see no people or tourists are around, so perhaps you used a tripod as the buildings are very sharp too. The moving trail - horizontal swirl lines - with the posters and the vertical posts to the bottom LHS are a mystery too, as I don't recall seeing one on the turn table.
I am very familiar with the location - end of Powell Street abutting Market Street, where we queue up for the Cable Cars.
Regards.
Nanhi, thanks and I am happy to share the technique. I used the K5 in Bulb mode with a cable release and M.UP setting to fire the shutter at will. 13mm. Originally i was much too close and the cable car filled the frame too much to show context. I zoomed out and backed up and noted that too far back removed the prominence of the car and slight bit of distortion which I liked for this. I shot about 4 different cars to tweak my technique and found that opening the shutter as soon as the car came to a stop in the turnaround but before the men began to spin it was best for "burning in" the car without too much motion blur. Then, the car spun clockwise and I closed the shutter before the two men appeared in the frame. I used f/16 and ISO100 for 8.5 sec.
The place was crowded but most of the people are hidden on the right behind the car. Those posts on the LHS are part of the turntable and rotate in sync with the entire turntable.
I did find each pair of cable car operators used a slightly different timing for pushing the car, so it was a challenge to predict how long the car might stay in one place before starting to move again. I got lucky here! If you go, be aware that at busy times, the queue wraps right through where I was standing, so people will get angry if you are blocking the line with a tripod. This was around 8pm i believe.
Because the spot contains mixed lighting (sodium vapor, fluorescent, and tungsten), I knew from the start i wanted to go mono to eliminate any distracting colors. Nik silver efex to the rescue!