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Rust
5 July 2023
Market St. meets Portola Dr. on an elevated roadway built into the eastern side of Twin Peaks. We often drive up Market to Portola that way and always imagine a Formula One event climbing Market's curves up to Portola.
Rust. Nikon D200 with 18-200mm Nikkor at 52mm (78mm equivalent), f8, 1/400 second and ISO 200. Processed in DxO Pure Raw 3 and Adobe Camera Raw.
Then we wistfully plot out the rest of the race down to the beach and back north to Golden Gate Park (where there were auto races when autos were a new invention), zooming along the Panhandle to Civic Center before shooting north to find the Embarcadero and circle around by the bay back to Market.
San Francisco Grand Prix. Our imaginary race route.
But the elevated stretch is a nice destination for a walk from the bunker so we often take a camera over there to see what can be seen.
And on this occasion, we notice some beautiful amber colors at the foot of the utilitarian green railing.
Yes, it was rust staining the concrete footing into which the green railing was embedded. The concrete itself was breaking up from the expanding rust.
The longer we looked at it, the more nervous we became, suspended above some neglected green space by a few stories. And the wind was blowing, so we carefully kept our distance from the edge.
But we loved the color and took a series of photographs of the decay.
We processed this one in DxO's PureRaw 3 using DeepPRIME XD, which was probably overkill. But you can do overkill with an M2 processor. You won't get the coffee cup to your lips before it's done.
The original 8.6-MB DNG file (converted from the camera NEF) became a 46.7-MB DNG after PureRaw was done with it. That's a lot more detail, you might say.
Much of which was binned by our reduction to this thumbnail, which (of necessity) is smaller than a smartphone image.
But you have to love the color.