this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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At the top you can see the disused Alameda Naval Air Base runway, which is where the MythBusters filmed a lot of their antics.
Also, the Matrix Reloaded freeway loop.
Now it's the largest parking lot in the Bay.
Looks like SimCity 2000
Except that one bridge to connect industrial and residential seems a major bottleneck.
First thing i thought!
Dense industrial, light residential… a lot is there!
What ever happened to predictability?
The photo must be around 8 years old.
Fun fact: on the top left corner is a partial segment of the old Bay Bridge that was damaged during the Loma Prieta 1989 earthquake. They built a whole new span (the white section next to it). To get rid of the old concrete underwater pylons, they blew them all up underwater. Here's a video of the implosion of the last two:
https://blog.bayareametro.gov/posts/final-implosion-old-bay-bridge
This perspective is extra trippy because the port of Oakland and Naval Air Station Alameda are both so incomprehensibly huge on a human scale. You have an awareness and feeling for how big a city and skyscrapers are, so to see them in this perspective get made to look so small and so close to these expanses of concrete is mind bending.
Is this tilt shifted? Looks unreal?
It's Maxar satellite imagery with a high off-nadir angle. European Space Imaging use it as an example in this article about ONA.
Thanks for the page. Was very interesting to read!
Very cool. Learned something new today. Thank you.
Really useful article. Rare to read something that actually does a decent job explaining the background from someplace wanting to sell you something.
I looked it up on google earth and the perspective is very distorted. The shot is probably 8 times as long as it is wide
Odd perspective. What kind of lens was this taken with.
Not sure about lens but this looks like a tilt shift photo
I don't think it's tilt shifted because it doesn't have the edge blur, I think it's just a really big altitude photo taken with a zoom lens and colour saturated to death
Kinda looks like that, but it’s missing the DoF.
Where's the fog?
Fog machine operators were on strike.
You mean Karl?
Had the exact same thought. My visit to san fran was hilarious, because looking across the bay, you could see the sunshine on the north side, while the south was blanketed in light mist and fog. Our brief visit to the north side to see the muir woods was the exact opposite: sitting in sunshine while looking at a dreary, shrouded place across the water.
San fran is great, some of the prettiest coastline and amazing food
I can't remember the last time I was there when it was sunny though
Does anyone know what the small half complete bridge on the left is?
I think it's the original eastern span, midway through being demolished after the present one was finished in 2013
Indeed, this photos pretty old. Haven't seen the bay that blue in a looooooong time. It's more of a dirty brown all the time now
That would be Yerba Buena/Treasure Island. It has a crazy history.
This prob looked really pretty before all the concrete.
Meh, it was mostly just sand dunes, at least for San Francisco. Also San Francisco probably has the most natural area surrounding it then any other major city in the US, since most of the area around it is either mountains or water which you can't build on, that's also why it's so dense.
Oh thank god they build some skyscrapers then.
Unironnically yes, conservation wise skyscrapers are the best way for people to live. Squeezing people onto the smallest footprint possible per person is the best way to keep spaces natural, besides killing large chunks of the human population...
Plus doing away with cattle. (Yeah, c'mon.)
I think that little island there is Alcatraz.
Pff.. I can swim that!
You are correct.
I first thought this pic was showing flooding or higher water levels. Nice overview shot.
With a telephoto lens no less. Must have been really far away with a long lens to get it to look so flat.
Pretty city for tourists visiting the tourist areas.
A different story if trying to live in it. I used to like the idea of living and working there, until I saw the costs of living.
Is this from Google maps or smth?
It's satellite imagery, yes, but from an oblique (high off-nadir) angle. The imagery is from DigitalGlobe, who are now Maxar.