Travel photography tips?

[FunkyNige]

As you may remember (but probably won't) I'm off on to San Francisco on holiday in a few days time. I've bought a decent (for me) camera in a Canon EOS500 with lots of filters and 2 lenses - a 28-120(ish) and a 75-300.

Does anyone have any general tips they could give me for taking good holiday snaps?

Should I take both lenses or will the smaller one do (in your experience/opinion)?

[Don]

FunkyNige said:

Should I take both lenses or will the smaller one do (in your experience/opinion)?

I really missed having a telephoto lens whilst on holiday last year...

[Chim_Girl]

Take both lenses, I've just returned from Thailand and I was grateful I took both of mine.

Have a great time.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Yup, I'd take both. Remember some cleaning stuff too (good brush etc). Walking around all day certainly hoovers up the dust.

[DustyC]

Take both.

Places for great pics:

1. Get across the other side of the Golden gate Bridge and get up the hill on the left. Great views of the city and Bridge from here. To get there either rent a car or better still rent a mountain bike from Fishermans Wharf. The route they suggest also goes through the big park behind the Presido called The Golden Gate Park which on a Sunday is basically people watching perfection! The road through the centre of the park closes to traffic and becomes a roller skating bike riding highway with all the (safe and friendly) freaks out to play!

2. Get the first ferry of the day to Alcatraz. So much to see there and more great views of the city. You may want to allocate a whole day to this.

3. Go to the building on top of the hill near Fishermans wharf that that looks a firemans hose nozzle. I think it scalled telegraph hill park.

4. At the North end of Market street The big road through the middle), where it meets the sea is the tallest building, The Embarcadero. Good vies of the City.

5. Twin peaks gives a good night view of the city

Shall I shut up or carry on?!

BTW, map here; www.sfvisitor.org/maps/

[Captain Beaky]

Yes, take both lenses. Get a good case too so you can easily carry them.

I agree with DustyC about the good spots, especially Alcatraz. It's also worth having a cocktail in the highest bar you can find for the night views (some have a dress code). The Castro area is colourful and entertaining.

[DustyC]

Ok one more...
If you are renting a car take highway 1 down the coast to half moon bay (only takes about an hour or two).
Really peaceful, great road, nice big waves and a pituresque coastline.

[V6GTO]

Dusty,
I can't believe you missed out Chinatown! I stayed in Chinatown while in SF and loved it.
I'm just sick as a parrot that there was no American Football game when I was there, I'd give my back teeth to see the 49ers.

Martin.

PS - see if you can find a day trip to Yosemite...it's the most breathtaking place I've been.

[CVP]

DustyC said:

Take both. 3. Go to the building on top of the hill near Fishermans wharf that that looks a firemans hose nozzle. I think it scalled telegraph hill park.

It's Coit Tower. You also get a good view from here back towards the really twisty street (can't remember it's name now ? Lombard Street?)

All the spots DuystC suggested are great. Other areas;
1. Fisherman's wharf - pictures of the cooked crabs piled up waiting to be eaten
2. Fisherman's wharf - the sea lions can be very photogenic if you get the right light
3. Definitely agree about the Golden Gate Bridge. A great view looking back into the city. With the telephoto lens you'll be able to look through the bridge and isolate things like the TransAmerica Pyramid. It's an odd view but as you are seeing the pyramid you see only one or two of the suspension strands of the bridge, but when seeing the image it's completely obvious where you are.
Try to do this one in the afternoon as this is when the light really brings out the colour in the bridge.
4. MoMo museum from the outside is quite a dramatic building to photograph.
5. Street cars - there's one line that runs towards Fisherman's wharf and as it nears the harbour the nill down to the harbour is quite steep. You can get a nice image here of the car heading up the hill with one of the picturesque Victorian houses in the background.
6. Nearly forgot - Golden gate Bridge again. Go the the bridge and then you have an additional two options;
A) Go down to the base of the bridge and walk back towards the city a bit and you can get a good view looking up. With this view notew you don't get that great golden light bringing out the colour of the bridge, or
B) go to the ocean side of the bridge into the park and south a bit from the bridge. Here you can frame a nice vertical image of the bridge stretching away to the north with the foreground being flowers that nestle on the slopes leading down to the ocean.

Definitely take both lenses with you, a telephoto is so useful for isolating objects from their surroundings.

Have a great time I loved SF and the limited bits of California I have managed to see.

Chris

[FunkyNige]

Looks like I'll be taking both lenses then!

Thanks for all the suggestions of places to go/stuff to photograph, I'm out there for 3 weeks so I 'll probably get to most of them.

Annoyingly, like the genius I am I bought a new smaller camera bag after I got my camera because the old bag (that could fit both lenses in) was a bit tatty and I had to take the lenses off to fit them both in. I figured it would be better to get a bag that I could fit the camera and lens attached in

Quick question - should I finish off the film in the camera before going through customs? All film will be in hand luggage.

[docevi1]

I read a great piece of advice on here a while back now - don't see your holiday through the lens of a camera.

I enjoy taking pictures, and I love looking through the results of the shots I took over in Egypt (indeed I personally think they were some of my best pictures) but there was so much I didn't capture as I didn't want to be taking pictures all the time - those are my memories which are spurred on by the pictures I did take.

[CVP]

docevi1 said:

I read a great piece of advice on here a while back now - don't see your holiday through the lens of a camera. I enjoy taking pictures, and I love looking through the results of the shots I took over in Egypt (indeed I personally think they were some of my best pictures) but there was so much I didn't capture as I didn't want to be taking pictures all the time - those are my memories which are spurred on by the pictures I did take.

Top tip. Enjoy yourself first and then take pictures. With three weeks you have plenty of time to spend just relaxing as well as take pictures.

Chris

[mekondelta]

FunkyNige said:

Does anyone have any general tips they could give me for taking good holiday snaps?

Always have camera on and ready to use. The extra time taken to take out of bag/switch on will miss you many photo opps. Don't woory about getting it dirty. They rarely go wrong these days and can clean when home.

Have spare film ready in pocket.

Look for creative angles, eg from floor/child's eye view.

Enjoy your hols....

[FunkyNige]

Had a great time, just a shame the weather wsan't brilliant for the first two weeks. The person I went with isn't really into taking photos (he didn't take a camera) so I was rushed when taking snaps so I don't have many arty snaps (eg. crabs on Fisherman's Wharf) but I still managed to take over 200 photos!

A small selection -
























A lot of quality has been lost through reducing the size, and for some unkown reason the colours on the CD that Kodak give you aren't the same as the photos (or it could just be my monitor).

[V6GTO]

Memories huh...if only I could remember...

What's my name again?

[CVP]

Nige

Nice shots. The jellyfish - was this at the Monterey Bay Aquarium?

Chris

[FunkyNige]

CVP said:

Nige Nice shots. The jellyfish - was this at the Monterey Bay Aquarium? Chris

Yeah, how on earth did you guess that? Anyway, I'm disappointed at the way it looks on screen - the actual photo has a really deep blue background with the 'mane' (it's a lion's mane jellyfish) practically glowing out of the pic.

[CVP]

FunkyNige said:

Yeah, how on earth did you guess that?

I think we were first in the queue and got kicked out at closing time

My original degree is marine biology and though I have fallen to the dark side of finance / operations I still have a deep love of the natural world. I was like a kiddie in a sweet shop when we got to the Aquarium. Of the exhibits there the Lion's mane jellyfish are very cool. Two other favourites are the sea otters. I preferred the view from the windows underwater as you can see just how graceful they are when swimming. Good views of wild ones in the main pool outside as well and then the cuttlefish are amazing creatures too.

I didn't realise you were going there or I would have recommended the "Elkhorn Slough Safari". It's a very low catamaran powered by only a couple of small outboards and it's the only power craft allowed into Elkhorn Slough near Monterey. Elkhorn Slough is an estuary and has lots of sea otters in the wild to which you can get very close. In the slough they are mainly feeding and relaxing so you see the wonderful behaviour of them rolling onto their backs and cracking the shells they have dug up open on stones they have brought up and placed on their bellies. One of those times when you don't have time to photograph but you do have time just to see and take in another of nature's amazing sights.

Oh, and to answer the question of the move from marine biology to finance, couldn't grow the beard. It comes out all patchy so I'd never be taken seriously as a biologist

Chris

[FunkyNige]

CVP said:

I think we were first in the queue and got kicked out at closing time

I know how you feel - we were on a day trip from San Fran on an organised trip of Monterey and Carmel so only had 1.5 hours in Monterey for lunch. We spent over an hour in the aquarium but I could have spent that sitting in front of the kelt forest, or the otters, or the big shark tank...

Never mind, next time I go...