Stairs on Telegraph Hill

I found these peaceful stairs in the heart of the Telegraph Hill district, not far from the Coit Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid. I particularly liked the trees projecting their shadows on the stairs.

Though there was a high contrast between the ground and the sky, shadows/highlights correction in PhotoShop allowed to render more detail. Originally, I had planned to make a HDR panorama, but it turned out I couldn't use Stitcher as I expected - it didn't cope well with the complex shadows. Instead, I used AutoStitch, and I didn't want to have to use the whole shebang (Pano Tools, AutoPano, Enblend) in order to generate 3 different exposures. I like the result, though the sky got a bit washed out.

A man came while I was setting up the tripod and mentioned there was someone raising parrots in the area - they even made a movie. I didn't see the parrots, but I shot two other panoramas earlier that day, one at Yerba Buena and one at an intersection a few blocks below the stairs.

---

USA-Canada / USA-California

Lat: 37° 48' 1.26" N
Long: 123° 25' 15.48" W

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Bogen tripod, Olympus E-1, Kaidan QuickPan Spherical bracket, 14-54 mm lens on 14mm (28mm for 35mm equivalent)

nadir, zenith, 3 rows of 10 pictures + ground = 33 pictures total

AutoStitch, Adobe Photoshop CS, PanoTools 2.1 for tripod removal