Shooting Dinosaurs Over the Bay

It’s a love­ly day here in San Fran­cis­co, so I took advan­tage of the sun­light to catch up on some pho­tog­ra­phy. I have Open Stu­dios in two months (com­ing up quick­er than I’d like to admit) and a few projects that have fall­en by the way­side since my acci­dent in Sep­tem­ber. I packed up my cam­era with one of the lens­es that’s still intact, grabbed some toy dinosaurs, and head­ed to Trea­sure Island.

The shoot­ing was nice, but frus­trat­ing. My cheap­est lens broke in the motor­cy­cle acci­dent, but it was also my fastest lens and the one that would focus clos­est. I’m left with a cou­ple of 200mm zooms, nei­ther of which will focus clos­er than about five feet.

Because of this I did not get the shots I want­ed, though I made do and shot some pic­tures that I think I can use. I sup­pose that’s part of the process, life being what we do when we’re busy mak­ing oth­er plans and all that jazz. I spent a few min­utes set­ting up and shoot­ing and then packed up and head­ed back to the City.

I’m pret­ty sure I’m going to sell both of my intact lens­es. I’m not sure what I’ll replace them with, but I’d like a much longer zoom (I’ve got my eye on a 80 – 400mm zoom with VR, but it’s not cheap) and I’m debat­ing get­ting an inex­pen­sive knockaround, maybe the 18 – 135mm non-VR, or a ver­sa­tile 18 – 200mm VR zoom which would keep my range until I get the longer zoom. On the one hand it seems sil­ly to buy an 18 – 135mm zoom when I could get an 18 – 200 with image sta­bi­liza­tion, but on the oth­er hand, the $400 dif­fer­ence between the lens­es would make a good start sav­ing up for the $1650 80 – 400 VR zoom, which would more than cov­er the extra range of the 18 – 200 anyhow.

Deci­sions, deci­sions. Anoth­er con­sid­er­a­tion is that mon­ey is start­ing to get pret­ty tight. I’m pret­ty for­tu­nate to get by on 12 bill­able hours per week but I’m not doing much more than get­ting by. The less expen­sive lens would get me back shoot­ing now, for only a lit­tle more than one of my cur­rent lens­es will sell for. I’m start­ing to think the 18 – 135mm zoom might be the tick­et for me.

I don’t think I’ve been out of the city lim­its on the motor­cy­cle since my acci­dent. Trea­sure Island is a part of San Fran­cis­co, so I still can’t say I’ve bro­ken that bar­ri­er, but it was great to go a lit­tle far­ther than just back and forth to the stu­dio, the clien­t’s office, and the gro­cery store. 

I’ve heard it said that man can­not fly, and there may be some valid­i­ty to that point of view. How­ev­er, rid­ing a Moto Guzzi West in the far-right lane of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge on a gor­geous day may be as close as any of us will ever need.