Posts by tag
Beach Photos
Nikon Z6 + Kipon 35mm f2.4 | Best System For Manual Lenses?
RNI Film Presets At The Beach
I recently picked up the RNI All Films V3.0 Lightroom presets by Really Nice Images and wanted to try them out on some beach photos I took last weekend down in Huntington.
I'll be posting more photos with these throughout the next few weeks but my first impressions are pretty good. Usually I think most presets are garbage or too Instagramy, but these are actually a pretty high quality product. They allow you to quickly cycle through different film stocks by different brands with different types of film which you can see on my images shot here with the Fuji X100T.
First Photo Processed With Iridient 3 And It Is Sharp!
This is my first photo to be processed with Iridient Developer 3. I finally bit the bullet and bought it after playing with the beta for the last few months.
There are a lot of different things this software does that I'm still getting use to and I really want to have it figured out before going into detail with a full review and guide. So far with my first impressions I'm seeing some great potential that we just cannot get from Lightroom.
The question I will be looking to answer is if the pros outweigh the cons. I think they might because the sharpness and detail I get out of these Fuji X RAW files are unlike anything I've seen before. It honestly feel as though these 16MP files are giving me the detail of a 22megapixel camera when using Iridient. Maybe more. And that's a pretty significant improvement to image quality especially when printing large.
See shot details. . .
Fire In The Sky
On my first day with the new Tamron 15-30mm lens, I immediately headed down to the beach with hopes of shooting a sunset photo. Unfortunately, doing such a thing this time of year in Los Angeles happens to line up perfectly with rush hour traffic. Which sucks.
Luckily I managed to leave early enough to just almost make it. Actually I think I arrived just after. It was hard to tell, the sun was not in sight and everything was overcast and depressing, almost a complete bust. But then literally, only five minutes after getting situated to shoot, the sky lit up like fourteen-year-old girls bedroom. PINK!!!
But don't worry, I colored it slightly more orange because I'm a man and pink is for girls.
San Clemente Life
A rare and beautiful sunset at the San Clemente Pier last Sunday. This photo almost didn't happen. I didn't have my tripod base plate for my camera and I was running a bit late to the beach. Luckily a parking spot pop up immediately when I got there and I ended up using my Gorilla Pod mini tripod to stabilize the camera.
I mounted my camera to the Gorilla Pod and then wrapped that around the top of my tripod. It was ghetto and very difficult to stabilize since those things aren't all that sturdy with a 5Dmkii and a 24-70mm f2.8L lens. I ended up actually switching to my 16-35mm because it's way lighter. But in the end it all worked out. I was able to get a few different exposures that I later stitched together in Photoshop.
Beacon at Davenport
While in Santa Cruz, my mission was to take some photos of the Davenport abandoned pier. But the weather was so bad and it was high tide making it impossible to get to the pier. So mission failed. But I did find this cool rock, shining through the fog like a beacon. You could barely see it from a few hundred yards away but as I got closer it made for a cool image with the solid fog background. With a little bit of contrast and sharpening I was able to create this minimalist landscape.
Bridge Rock Of Santa Cruz
While I was in Santa Cruz last weekend the weather was a bit on and off. There was this thick cloud of fog that came in afternoon so you really only had a few hours in the morning to get any decent photos that weren't foggy.
The main shot I wanted in Santa Cruz was of the Davon Port pier, but I didn't time the tide right so it didn't happen the day I was there. I did stop at a few other little spots to see if there was any potential in a good photo.
This was one of the spots. Bridge Rock. At first I wasn't going to shoot here since the weather was bad and there were a lot of people, but I decided to just shoot a few minutes to see what happened. I used my ND500 filter to create that smooth look and It actually turned out pretty cool. The sun was blocked by the clouds so there was this nice even light on everything making for some really nice vibrant colors.
McWay Falls of Big Sur California
This last weekend my wife and I decided to do a small drive up to Santa Cruz then down South through Monterey into Big Sur. I've done this drive a few times in my life now, and out of all the places I've been I still think it's one of the most beautiful drives in the world.
If you make that drive through Big Sur you should stop at this spot. The McWay falls. The colors of the ocean and the rocks against the sand create such a vivid surreal look. I wanted to used my ND500 filter to really smooth out the water to create a smooth calm look. It worked very well for this scene.
Shores of Laguna
A rare and beautiful sunset at the unique shores of Laguna Beach. I remember coming to these beaches when I was a kid to skim board along the beach breaks. I feel like no other place in Southern California has waves and beaches quite like these. It's such an awesome place with a unique Southern California Vibe.