NEX-5 (16mm, f/6.3, 1/400 sec, ISO200)

What a first day in San Francisco. I can not believe what we have seen. We visited China town, took the cable car to the pier and had lunch at Alioto’s. After lunch we walked on the pier, took the streetcar and walked to Lombard street. After that we took the bus to downtown and walked around again for a long time. At the end we had coffee in a big bookstore in the Nordstrom shopping center. I have no idea how many miles we have covered walking but I think it was a lot.

At the end of the day the sun was low and gave a fantastic light. I liked when the sun appeared behind the buildings as we walked so I started shooting straight into the sun. These into the sun shots are always great. Maybe the Fuji X100 does handle this kind of photo even better than the NEX because there is massive lens flare but the 16mm Sony lens is not bad either. So what others consider a fault I really love. Today massive lens flare is a rare thing because lenses are getting better and when you use a lens hood you will hardly see hardly any lens flare thanks to the nano coating of modern lenses. If you manage to get lens flare in a shot it makes the images look retro which is a good thing sometimes.

All the images you have seen I took on the first day. The images I took on our second day are gone! After coming home I copied all images to my computer. Somehow I forgot to copy the last SD card that was still in the camera to the hard drive. After the copying I formatted the card. When I realized it it was too late because I already took new images with the camera. That was a shock to me. I have never ever lost images of a trip. It was close once after coming home from Scotland my travel bag with 30 something rolls of film got lost in Heathrow. Thank God they found it three days later. Since than I left all films and now hard drives in my hand luggage.  NEX-5 (16mm, f/6.3, 1/200 sec, ISO200)
NEX-5 (16mm, f/6.3, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
NEX-5 (16mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec, ISO200)

I have told you that we never encountered a threateningly situation while in USA. Well that was a lie. On our last evening we missed the shuttle bus to our RV park because it left 5 minutes earlier. Very nice – thank you! I’m sure everybody on bus enjoyed being on the campsite 5 minutes earlier. Strange thing is that we ran to the bus stop because we waited too long for our Wolfgang Puck deluxe burger which ironically was the worst burger I got during the whole trip.

Now we were stranded. First we tried to get a taxi but they were all busy taking people out of town. It got dark and cold and the street didn’t look very inviting anymore. So we entered a small restaurant in Chinatown. I said that we missed our bus and if it is possible just to have a drink to wait for the bus. The waitress was very friendly and the wine was good. The restaurant was almost empty and obviously not a place for tourists but we were happy to be there in a safe and warm place.

We sat on our table for about 10 minutes when a black, strange looking guy entered. He immediately started shouting at the guy behind the counter. It took me a second to realize that he was complaining about the food. He said that there was not enough food in his take away and that he wants his money back. So here we are in the middle of a potential crime scene! Luckily the brave men behind the counter acted sensible and gave him back his money. The guy disappeared as fast as he entered still shouting and slammed the door.

The waitress seemed a little bit embarrassed and said to us that she is sorry that it happened. I said that we enjoined the wine and hospitality and gave her a very good tip. The other guest did not seem too much bothered at all. Maybe such things happen here on a regular base. Maybe that’s why the guy behind the counter simply did the right thing because he has been in such a situation before.