San Diego - blue hour experiments

In addition to strolling through San Diego and visiting the zoo there was one more thing that we had planned to do in San Diego: experimenting with the blue hour and taking some night shots.

The first question was "Will we be allowed to carry the tripod in our hand luggage?" Or would we have to check it in which we really did not want to do. There are mixed answers in online discussions. Some people always check in their tripods because otherwise their carry-on would get too heavy with all the camera gear they bring. Others check in the legs of the tripod and carry the head in their hand luggage. Then, we read on the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) webpage that tripods - as part of photographic equipment - may be transported as carry-on as long as they fit in the overhead bin or underneath the airplane seat in front of us. Alright, there we go. And at least for these Virgin America flights from SFO to SAN and back we did not encounter any trouble.

The following four pictures are taken by Guido, obviously. He had to keep himself busy while I had engrossed the tripod.

Setting up the equipment

This part of the marina looked like a good location for some pretty sunset shots. So I thought. Well, I was wrong. At least on my pictures it looks like the sun simply disappeared behind the boats. That was it. I did not keep any of the sunset pics I had taken from this point. Lesson learned: it's important to have an unblocked view to the horizon where the sun sets in order to capture some nice reflections of the sunlight on the water.

Still hoping for a decent sunset shot 

But was all the waiting and "freezing my butt off" for nothing? Guido, who had taken some amazing blue hour shots of the San Francisco City Hall a few weeks ago, urged me to be patient. And indeed, about 45 min after the sun had disappeared we experienced some very beautiful colors by the remaining light.

f/8.0, ISO 200, 14sec exposure

A bit later the indirect lightning of the promenade gave it a totally different tone.

f/8.0, ISO 200, 80sec exposure

Following Frankie's recommendation on "15 best spots to photograph San Diego",  we explored the Crosby Street Park to get some night shots of the Coronado bridge. Well, the scenery must have changed somewhat since he had been there. The military ship on his shots was still there, but now hidden behind some ugly tug boats. Alright, after playing with the tripod placement here and there on the pier we managed to find a set up that we found decent. And again, I was glad to be fully equipped with gloves, scarf, hood, three layers of clothing and warm boots.

f/20, ISO 200, 60sec exposure