Author: Alik Griffin

Exploring Japan’s Countryside

You don’t get to see much of the countryside in Japan, but it is my favorite place to visit. It’s a lot slower paced, restaurants are even more ma and pa, and everyone is usually so friendly. Photography with the Fuji X100T and XT1 These photos were shot in the mountains of Kumamoto, Japan. I…
Ishibashi Bridge And HDR With The X-T1

I’ve been excited to return to Southern Japan to shoot with that Funinon 10-24mm f4 lens. The time of day and weather haven’t been great, but HDR photography fixes everything. It blows my mind sometimes the software and technology available to us today. Some of the scenes I’ve been shooting have been so bright with…
Exploring Dazaifu Japan

Street photography is that mysterious style of photography that can mean so much while showing so little. I can only look at the masters, wondering what magic they possess. I have to be honest. It’s hard. Before really getting into it a year ago, I thought it was just going around, taking pictures of people…
A Day Of Travel

Airports and flying are my least favorite parts of going to Japan. It’s not that I don’t like airports or flying. It’s when your flight gets delayed, causing you to miss your next flight, which forces you to have to take a shuttle to a completely different airport an hour away, only to ride on…
Every Leica M Lens in 2026: Native & Third-Party

A huge list of all the available Leica M lenses that are made today including official Leica lenses and third-party.
Lost In The Woods – A7r

As I’ve been getting ready to leave for Japan next week, I was sifting through some of my old photos from last year that I’ve never published and found this shot. My wife and I found this cool little bamboo forest growing naturally near Magaribuchi Dam Park in nowhere. It was very peaceful and undisturbed,…
How HDR Works In The New Lightroom

With the release of the new Lightroom CC 2015 or Lightroom 6, we can merge our HDRs by photo without leaving the software. The technique used is slightly different than any other program I’ve used. Here’s how it works First, you select all the photos you’d like to merge. Right-click, select Photo Merge, then HDR. Then,…
A Few Days With The Olympus E-M5 ii

The Olympus E-M5 II has been one of those cameras I struggle not to buy. I’ve had it in my Amazon checkout cart, and I’m ready to go at least thrice. So, instead of adding to my pile of test cameras, I exercised some self-control. I rented it for a few days to do all…
Best Memory Card Olympus E-M5 II

I’ve run many of the most popular SD memory cards through my speed test for the Olympus E-M5 II. Surprisingly, the results are pretty even, with no particular card shining above the rest. The E-M5 II uses the Micro Four Thirds mount — for lenses, see our Micro Four Thirds lens list. This is common…
Elephant Seals – X100T

While driving home from San Francisco a few weeks ago, my wife and I stopped by that spot where the elephant seals hang out just outside of Big Sur. These things were everywhere, spread out miles in each direction. That’s good since they were very endangered at one point, which I understand. These are probably…