I Left My Heart at Sausalito

Finally my company sent me to a business trip that is 1) not in a midwest small town with only one motel, one bar, one post office and one Buba eatery 2) not in a rural fishing village south of South Korea on a very ulu shipyard.

So I was in San Francisco for a few days meeting, and took this opportunity to shoot some pictures around the beautiful Bay Area. All pictures were shot with my new toy - Canon 350D with the following manual lenses: Carl Zeiss 35-70mm f3.5 (my main lens), Carl Zeiss 80-200mm f4.0, and Sigma 16mm f2.8 for fish eye (almost, thanks to the stupid 1.6x crop factor...sigh, 5D 5D where art thou...). This is my first trip where I used digital body with my manual CZ lenses, and from the picture quality of this trip, I regretted not bringing my CZ 28mm f2.8 and CZ 135mm f2.8 and leaving the 80-200mm at home...

Anyway, as you probably can tell by now, this post will be all about camera whoring of SF, and none of my little angel's pictures...his highness's pictures will follow in the next blog, I promise!

As I was staying at a hotel in the Berkley area, one of my fist stop was to visit the famous UC Berkley. It was indeed a nice and quaint campus, albeit surrounded by rowdy neigborhood. Not surprisingly, I found a lot of Asian students on the campus. In fact, I saw more Asian faces in the Bay Area (SF, Oakland etc.) than any other cities in the US. This was probably my coldest summer, with temperature ranging from the 50's in the night to 60's (almost 70°F) in the day!

This was my first trip to SF, and I think I would definitely like to come for a second visit!

Some pictures taken at the UC Berkley:
The Clock Tower. Wonder if anything happened here similar to the clock tower in UT Austin...
The library:Cafeteria and student union:Some unknown, majestic buildings:Heck, they even have a building name after Mr. Tan, I think he was a philanthropist from Singapore. Majulah Singapura!I did not have time to walk around and explore SF downtown, just managed to go to some really touristy spots such as Fisherman's Wharf and the surrounding areas:
Tourists were lining up to buy fresh fish from the fishermen:Shopping area close to FW:
SF is well known for its hilly terrain, as evident in the two pictures here:Imagine what if you broke your gear when driving uphill...or your brake not working while traveling downhill...The next few pictures were taken at the Marina pier very close to my hotel.
You can even see the famous Golden Gate Bridge from here:

One of the area I always wanted to visit was Sausalito...mainly because of the Leon Lai's stupid romantic movie with the same title. I was just a teenager with overaging hormone when the movie was first shown, so my impression of Sausalito was overly romanticized. Well , I was finally here, and much to my delight, I found Sausolito the most interesting visit of my trip. Though at my age now (and with the dwindling hormones...) I did not find Sausalito too romantic (Pearl was not with me lah...), however I really like the aura and the serenity of this rustic little town. According to the Wiki, Sausalito means "Little Willow Grove" in Spanish. Sausalito is definitely populated by very rich people, with all their expensive yatches lining up along the pier. There was some sort of art festival going on when I was there...here's an abstract artist at work...Found a Jap restaurant called "Sushi Ran" (something like that, as if all the sushi ran away when the restaurant was opened) in Sausalito...very small portion and expensive...but absolutely heavenly.
Here's a night shot from a pier close to my hotel, with the CZ 80-200:These following few shots were done right outside my room, facing the water at the back where all the yatches were parked. Most were shot with the CZ 35-70, at ISO 200, around f 5.6 to 16, exposed for anywhere from 8 sec to 30 sec. All my night scenes were shot using self-timer to avoid hand vibration. How I wish the 350D had a 2 sec timer instead.
This was shot using Sigma 16mm, the sharpness cannot be compared with the CZ, as expected.
My colleague told me about this Muir Wood National Monument, where you could find a lot of ancient and enormous Redwood trees. The trees were very impressive indeed, and I managed to exercise away some of the business meals. One of Pearl's favorite shots:
They say if you can find a four leaves clover, it will be a very good luck sign. Too bad I could not find any. Took this shot to prove it. Sort of.
The Notorious Alcatraz. It was so popular that I could not get a ticket to visit the island even with one day in advance. Next time I will be very "kiasu" and book it a month before, heh heh. Took with CZ 80-200. Somehow I think all my shots taken with CZ 80-200 were not as crisp compared to the CZ 35-70.Downtown San Francisco:Ahhh...the Golden Gate Bridge, at last. The toll fee in SF is almost like extortion. To cross most bridges (one way), the fee is at least $4, and for the famous GGB, they charge $5.
There was an area for tourist to park their cars and walk on the bridge!The night scenes were shot later on the same day. Even with my sturdy Gitzo tripod, the vibration due to the traffic on the bridge was very strong. As a result some of my long exposure shots (> 20 sec) turned out not crisp sharp.
Have not tried the zoom-burst technique for quite some time...a bit rusty at the technique, but not too bad after so many years! Should have pulled and stayed at the tele end for a longer duration though. About 20 sec exposure and 5 to 10 sec pull. Shot was taken away from the bridge and the vibration.Another SF night scene.This was done with 80% focused exposure time and 20% out of focus. It was fun to be able to play with different photography technique...finally after a long drought. I first tried this with the Singapore skyline many years ago, really liked the effect. By the way, baby and photography don't go very well together. Except when you are taking pictures of the baby...which is all autofocus and not so much technique involved.
Going to California without visiting the winery is like going to China and missing the Great Wall. However my Cali colleagues advised me against Napa because it is too commercialized and packed full of tourist. So I heeded his advice and went to Sonoma instead. The valley was beautiful, the weather was pleasant at about 70°F, and last but not least, the wine was fabulous!The grapes were still green, and they would turn red in the fall, around September."Caves" where they stored oak barrels of wine at "room temperature" of around 65°F. Due to the dryness of the air, about 400 carts of wine evaporated every year, something the winery called "the angel's share", a.k.a. "donated" to the heaven lah.
On my last day of my stay, en route to the airport, I chanced upon the famous fog over San Francisco. The scene of the Golden Gate Bridge surrounded by the fog was to die for. It made the bridge looked as if it was leading to the Gate of Pearl...I had to stop and take some shots.It was quite an experience driving through a heavily fogged GGB...Especially with the yellow 1970's truck wobbling in front of me, I was reminded of the time when I was a kid and traveling to the Genting Highland with my parents.