jeffwongdesign | Jeff Wong

October 19, 2016

iPhone 7 Plus Photo of Ellie and Carrie

Photo of Ellie and Carrie using the iPhone 7 Plus.

So for starters, Ellie is super cute. She’s such a sweet catâ€”she’ll come up to me an say hello every day.

Now lets talk about the photo. There’s nothing special about the picture itself except that it was shot with the iPhone 7 Plus with no color correction or retouching. This is just an average photo, shot with average lighting.

I’m kind of amazed by the level of quality by these new smart phones. I’ll do photo shootout later this week. I’m really curious to see how it performs compared to my full frame DSLR.

Ellie getting her massage from Annie.

By the way, the video shot from the iPhone 7 Plus is pretty amazing too. I’m hoping to experiment with this a little more too.

October 19, 2016

Sunset Near Pacifica

Photo of the Sunset near Pacifica, next to Lands End Apartments.

After our lunch at Tartine, we went back to my apartment for a quick nap. We then went down to a spot near Pacifica to watch the sunset. I found this place when I was apartment hunting earlier this year.

Light reflecting off the waves along the coastline.

There’s still a part of me that wants to move out to this part of town. The view is just incredibleâ€”could you imagine watching this every evening? Even better, doing astrophotography once the stars come out? 😗

Annie watching the sun as it touches down.

Then again, I think we just got lucky with the weather. I heard it gets kind of foggy out here.

October 18, 2016

iPhone 6 Plus vs 7 Plus Camera in Low Light

iPhone 6 plus versus iPhone 7 plus low light comparison.

So I just picked up the new iPhone 7 last week, and I can say that the new camera is a huge improvement in low light. Typically, DSLR lenses cost a ton more for each stop of light you gain from faster apertures.

The combination of image stabilization, noise reduction, and a faster lens has improved the low light performance (as you can clearly see in the photo above). The iPhone 6 Plus uses a f2.2 lens and the iPhone 7 Plus uses a f1.8 lens. Pretty amazing what these little gadgets can do now-a-days.

I won’t be shooting astrophotography with the iPhone 7 Plus, but at the rate things are improving, it could actually be a possibility in a future generation.

Ps. Thanks to Rudy for being a guinea pig for my photo experiments. 😎

October 12, 2016

Tartine Bakery & Cafe

Fresh pastries at Tartine.

After Coit Tower, we grabbed some lunch at Tartine Bakery & Cafe.

Pastry chef ELISABETH PRUEITT and her husband, renowned baker CHAD ROBERTSON, are the co-owners of Tartine Bakery and Bar Tartine in San Francisco. They both trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Elisabeth and Chad traveled, trained, and cooked in France and upon their return, opened Bay Village Bakery in Point Reyes Station, California. Using a wood fired brick oven, they baked bread and created rustic, elegant pastries using many of the techniques they had learned abroad. Chadâ€™s bread garnered the attention of Alain Ducasse, who wrote about the couple in his book, Harvesting Excellence.

I’d say that their pastries are pretty good. Their sandwiches are hella expensive. Be prepared to pay $17 for a sandwich. Annie said their breakfast bun was off the hook, so put your $$ towards their pastries.

More deliciousness.

Expensive cookies. $10.50 per bag.

I would say that the food was good, but probably overpriced for my liking. Other than that, their pastries are fantastic.

More pastries.

Julia walking into Tartine.

October 11, 2016

Monday Music: “Let It Go”, James Bay

“Let It Go”, James Bay

Okay, technically it’s not monday anymore, but I wanted to post a little music to get your week going.

“The Woods”, Hollow Coves.

Great song. Reminds me of The Present”, by Zealand, featured in the short animation “The Present”.

“Promise”, Ben Howard.

So I posted more than one song for this Monday. I figure I need to catch up on my blogging… so there you have it, a little extra for you this week. 😎

October 11, 2016

Coit Tower

Photo of Coit Tower from the parking lot.

After driving around Golden Gate Bridge, we headed to Coit Tower.

The tower, in the city’s Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit’s bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco; at her death in 1929 Coit left one-third of her estate to the city for civic beautification. –Wikipedia

After living a year and a half in San Francisco, this was the first time I saw this landmark. While the parking lot of Coit Tower isn’t that scenic, the history is pretty interesting. I’m sure if you can go to top of the tower, the view is probably spectacular… perhaps that’s something I’ll have to do another day.

Statue of Christopher Columbus, in front of Coit Tower.

Coit Tower was paid for with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy socialite who loved to chase fires in the early days of the city’s history. Before December 1866, there was no city fire department, and fires in the city, which broke out regularly in the wooden buildings, were extinguished by several volunteer fire companies.

I didn’t have a chance to go up the tower, but it was nice to quickly scope out the base and learn a little about the significance the tower.

View from the base of Coit Tower, facing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Lillie Coit was one of the more eccentric characters in the history of North Beach and Telegraph Hill, smoking cigars and wearing trousers long before it was socially acceptable for women to do so. She was an avid gambler and often dressed like a man in order to gamble in the males-only establishments that dotted North Beach.

The round about at Cost Tower, with little to no parking.

I’ll probably have to come back here at nightâ€”I’m sure the lighting is probably way more interesting.