A one-liter pyrex cylinder, originally uploaded by KAP Cris.

A $12 find on EBay

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new territory

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Tim, Alex, Patricia and I made it out to the salt ponds on Sunday. We did the quick tour of Alvarado and then headed out to the Dumbarton Bridge site. On the way back we took a look at the pumphouses near the Don Edward’s Headquarters Building and the gravel quarry just across Highway 84. Then it was off to Cargill’s Newark crystallization ponds and a KAP demo.

Eyeing the KAP rig immediately after launch. Alex is serving as the anchor ‘rock’.

Although the winds were too light for serious work we did float a camera above an interesting exhibit at the Cargill Salt Plant on Morton Avenue. There they have reconstructed two of the low-tech, low-head pumps used to move water from one diked pond to the next. One of these is my favorite — a simple, direct drive wooden propellor turns an Archimedes screw contained within a tilted wooden pipe. It is an elegant, place-specific solution to the challenge of moving water without electricity.

Alex and Patricia lend scale to an overhead view of the reproduction windmill pump at Cargill’s Newark Salt Plant.

By the way, Laura Watt sent me a link to a beautiful set of ground-based photographs she took during a tour of the Cargill Newark Plant last October. Take a look as they are fabulous.

We are back from our Friday outing. The trip included a brief visit to Alvarado including a tour of the backside of walled developments. From there it was just south to the north side of the Coyote Slough Storm Control Channel and then the Coyote Hills themselves.

My companions — Katie, Susan, and Julia — examining a just-launched KAP rig.

At the Coyote Hills we staged a four hour walk out to the original course of the Coyote Hills Slough with stops at various points of interest. The culmination was a look at the former salt works site on the south side of the slough near the Bay. The pond, recently filled, had large areas of bright green algae.

Parallel zones define the transition from slough to salt pond.

I have started working on posting an image set — look for links soon.

Hi folks,
I am planning to go on the field trip Friday. Any of the sites sound great to me. If we all fit, I’d like to go in Cris’ car, but if necessary I can drive my minivan, which can carry 7 people including the driver. Susan

As we pass the middle of hump day it is time to get specific about who is going on which trip, when from where we leave, and where we will go.

The Dumbarton Cutoff Bridge (taken Monday).

I am sending out this note via e-mail and posting it on the class blog at:

. http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap2/php/VS186a/

I propose that you respond by adding comments to this post on the blog. Comments, you say? Yes indeed, every post can have a collection of comments there for all to read. Note that at the top of each post there is a header like so:

. 21.09.05 | 2 e
. Field trip specifics

The top row contains three items: a) the date (in a cosmopolitan European format), b) the number of comments for that post, and c) the letter “e”.

Item b is both a counter for the number of comments and a link to take you to the comments. Click your mouse on this number and you will be taken to a page where you can read the comments and leave your own. This probably requires that you login [Firstname / Firstname1 (case sensitive)] Do so.

Item c, the letter “e”, is a shortcut that allows you to edit the post itself – if you have permission to do so. Typically, this applies to posts that you have contributed.

Now, back to the trip.

I proposed that we depart on both days from the fountain at Bancroft and College (opposite Café Strada) at 9:30 am. I have a VW convertible that seats two (front seats) in style and two more a bit tighter. I will drive both trips.

We will be gone until at least 3 pm and possible longer (if everyone is having a jolly, productive time). Thus, it makes sense to bring water and food. Ditto the provision of comfortable shoes, layers of clothing, and sunscreen. I have been down several times in the last two weeks and the weather has been fabulous as has the late day light.

A salt pond restored to tidal flow near Turk Island — taken from the north side of Coyote Hills Slough.

Some candidate destinations (among many possibilities):

. The Dumbarton Bridges (short hike)
. Coyote Hills Slough either side, possibly longer hike)
. The Coyote Hills themselves (DUST, bay side trail)
. The Don Edwards HQ (Jarvis Landing, LaRiviere Marsh, Salt Pond N1)
. The Cargill Newark Crystallization Ponds (access to north and south edge)
. Bay Shore Park in Menlo Park
. The Port of Redwood

While we can sort out a final itinerary on the way down, it is nice for folks to have a general idea so they know what to expect. So please leave a comment to this post on the blog telling us:

. What day you are going,
. Where you would enjoy going, and
. Whether you can or would like to take a car
. (I would be disappointed if we all went in single occupancy vehicles).

As we depart I will be asking you to fill out the University’s standard field trip liability waiver as I am told I must.

All for now,

Cris

Cris,

Thank you for your information about the cameras. I am also looking into upgrading mine. What do you think about Sony cameras? (with the similar characteristics you described).

For our site visit, I would prefer a digital camera if that’s possible. Although I plan to buy a new one soon, I don’t think I will have one for this weekend.

Any feed back on our one page write ups about our first site visit?

Thanks,

Patricia

I made a run down to the salt ponds this afternoon. I left Berkeley around 2:30 in my trusty VW Cabriolet and arrived at the Dumbarton Bridge site around 3:15. After hiking south for 10 minutes or so I was at the end of the (legal) trail and set about photographing the Hetch Hetchy viaduct and Southern Pacific’s Dumbarton Cutoff train bridge. The cutoff was the first bridge across the Bay. It carried freight trains from 1910 to 1982. A swing span allowed boat traffic to pass through the shipping channel — a feature mirrored in its smaller sibling bridge spanning the Newark Slough just to the east. Both bridges are now welded into an open position.

A view of the Dumbarton Cutoff train bridge from the east side.

By the time I finshed taking photographs at the Dumbarton site it was 5:30 or so. I had to swap kites at one point (a Sutton 30 for the 7.5 foot Rokkaku) when the wind freshened. The light was becoming soft and warm so I decided to hike back quickly to the car and check out the northern edge of Cargill Corporation’s crystallization ponds. This is the time of year for harvesting salt and indeed when I arrived you could see crews hard at work out on the drained crystallizers. The light was nice so I sent the Sutton 30 up again for the last 30 minutes of the day. Turns out it was really overpowered –easy up, hard down.

The fall harvest is on at the Cargill salt ponds in South San Francisco Bay. This is the end of our dry season and soon rains will dilute the ponds. The lower pond is still crystallizing salt while the upper one has been drained and harvested. They scrape the salt up with a machine resembling those that chew up asphalt roads in preparation for resurfacing. A large electricity transmission tower lends scale to the image.

Alexandre recently wrote:

I was thinking upgrading my camera. Ideally, I’d like to get one before we go out in the south bay with the rest of the class. I would be willing to spend around $500 (potentially more if I can’t resist the temptation).

Could you give me a few references, and the criteria I should consider before getting a new camera?

—————————–

The great news is that $500 gets you quite a bit of camera these days. The first question is digital or film? If you are looking for film $500 will get you a very serviceable Single Lens Reflex like a Nikon N80 or Canon T2 Rebel with a f1.8 standard prime lens.

On the digital side the Single Lens Reflex cameras are more expensive. For photography in general, and the purposes of this class specifically, I would suggest a digital camera with:

Shutter and aperture priority exposure modes
A wide range of manually-selected shutter speeds
RAW file output
ability to add wide angle adapters

An example I like is the 7 Mpixel Canon G6. It has a host of useful features (articulated rear display, intervalometer), shoots RAW, and has a sharp lens. This model is now a year old which means Canon will soon issue a replacement — and that the price is relatively low.

BTW, I highly recommend Phil Askey’s DPReview.com WWW site. It provides up-to-date news on digital cameras, useful forums, and detailed reviews. If a camera receives his (their?) Highly Recommended conclusion (as does the G6) then it is top notch.

Does anyone else have suggestions?