Sutro from the Bottom of the Bay
The rather brisk winds we’ve had the past two days not only blew out the fog, but the smog and haze as well. This led to crystal clear skies and rather phenomenal visibility.
I was shocked — no, SHOCKED — that I could easily see Sutro with the naked eye from San Jose / Alviso.
Hi Sutro!
As the bird flies, Sutro is 36 miles away in the picture.
Here’s what downtown SF looks like:
The Transamerica Building and One Rincon are pretty easy to make out in the right third of the photo. If you go to the left you can see the Bank of America building. I’ll be damned if I can figure out the other buildings.
Here’s a panorama of Sutro to downtown SF (click to zoom, 4 MB, 10,000 pixels)
The perspective is (to me) somewhat surprising — I’ve never quite wrapped my head around the fact that San Francisco is northwest of San Jose, not north. (280 North, my ass.) It’s really quite an angle as you can see from these sight lines I drew in Google Earth (The blue line is to Transamerica, green is Bank of America, red is, of course, Sutro.
Rotating the map, you get a better idea of the perspective in the panorama:
Of course, the first question one asks is “where am I?” (Insert Descartian existence joke here.)
Utilizing the power of BURRITOVISION combined with the gridding mechanism popularly known as BRADVERTIZIFICATION, we chop up the map in units equal to the distance between B of A and Transamerica.
Full version here:
Through a bunch of clicking that I won’t bore you with, we turn SF into a bunch of wedges (fortunately less than 26 as I was almost out of letters):
Unfortunately my camera isn’t that great and while visibility was good, contrast of SF hills against the Marin headlands was sub-optimal unlike the view from the Farallons. Bernal should be in wedges E and F, and while there’s a hill there I really can’t pick anything out distinctive (unlike the view from Mt. Diablo.)
Go to town in the comments if you figure anything out.
Lonely Corvette, Studly Pontiac
Little sad Corvette
Baby you’re not so fast
Little sad corvette
You need a tire that’s gonna last
Perhaps you should take a hint from Bitchin’ Camero, or better yet Studly Pontiac:
Fog
It was a strange fog.
A History of the Sky
The sky above the Exploratotrium form July 2009 – July 2010. Well worth watching in 1080p full-screen.
More on the project over at Murphlabs.
Unsurprisingly, Ken is the same guy who made the Church & 30th Muni track reconstruction timelapse last year:
and as well as panoramic timelapses:
All hail, ObeyKen / Murphlabs and his panoramic timelapse mastery!
Out of a sunlit fog, Bernal emerges
SF Sunset Timelapse
Fun with timelapses during last night’s sunset:
5 minutes, one shot per second, replayed at 30 frames per second. (Note: I do not recommend holding up your iPhone for 300 seconds.) Shot with iMotion HD and stabilized with Movie Stiller.
Part of the reason I held my hands in the air like I cared not was I hoped to catch a plane flying by. Being the eternal optimist, I tried again and presto! A plane flew over (though not with the sunset-lit contrail I was hoping for).
For some reason Vimeo’s choking on this particular video but you can look at it over at my Tumblr. You can see the plane’s lights at the very end. I thought my upward pan (handheld!) was rather clever if I may say so myself.
Fly with me over San Francisco in 1938
LOOK AT THIS NOW — La Lengua in 1938.
You might as well open a bottle of wine because you’re going to spend the rest of the night looking at these images of 1938 SAN FRANCISCO AS SEEN FROM THE SKY.
Yes, you can see the old Southern Pacific Railway trestle bridge across Dolores and 27th.
And Sears. And the old St. Lukes building.
And hey, you can see my yard — isn’t it lovely? (Sci fi time travel story: would be pretty fucking weird if you could see me sitting there.)
All hail David Rumsey, scanner of fine maps. Our friends at the SFPL had a set of aerial photos of 1938 San Francisco stashed away, and Mr. Rumsey aimed his finely tuned scanning equipment at them to drag them forward 73 years. I was lucky enough to be shown these photos in person, and they are simply remarkable.
As usual with Señor Rumsey’s work, the resolution is phenomenal — it is as good as Google Maps today. And whoever hung outside an airplane with a giant camera, crisscrossing the sky of San Francisco in August of 1938, I am drinking a beer(s) in your honor right now.
I mean, look at this: here’s the old streetcar barn that used to sit at Tiffany / Valencia / Duncan.
(I love the “San Francisco –>” sign on the roof. And yes, I need to finish the article I’ve been writing on it for the past 5 years.)
Oh, it’s Dolores Park.
(Actually not very different except for bigger palm trees.)
And hey, Seals Stadium — with a game going on!
(Sadly couldn’t have been the Mission Reds as they had moved to Hollywood the year before.)
Anyway, I’ll be diving into these of the next few rest of my lives. Let me know if you find anything interesting. There’s also an index for your viewing pleasure – once you figure out your map number it’s easiest to search for “aerial 1938 [your map number]” in the Rumsey search box.
And yes, a Google Maps layer is in the works.
Snowbirds 1, Blue Angels 0
Snowbirds over Sutro:
Nice colors.
Snow over chert.
Fog, schmog.
The SF Fog — it even stops the Blue Angels!
Canadian winters are a big reason why the Snowbirds can fly in fog. Evidence:
Anyway, I liked how this last shot came out.
Your Own. Personal. Sutro.
Pick up the receiver, I’ll make you a believer.
The moon is up, it’s getting late
Moderately successful Bernal moonrise timelapse:
Not so successful (look at the top right corner):
Burrito Justice 
