Tag: Santa Monica | Alik Griffin

Blog

Are Helios 50m f2 Lenses Good?

The Helios lenses have really grown in popularity over the last few years for their classic rendering and crazy swirling bokeh. But are they really any good? With all the awesome new third-party lenses out of China or Japan, the Helios lenses no longer get as much attention as they used to, but they're still fun lenses to shoot with if you can get a good copy.

Blog

Exploring Santa Monica Pier | X100F

This weekend my little two-year old daughter and I walked down to the train station for an evening down at the Santa Monica Pier. I've lived in Los Angeles for over 10 years now and this was my first time using public transportation. A very proud moment for me.

Santa Monica Pier HDR

Blog

HDR with the Fujifilm X-Pro 2

I come to the Santa Monica Pier a few times a year to test cameras and lenses or to just update my portfolio. Even though I only live a few miles away, it's a huge pain in the ass dealing with the crowds and parking. At least this time it ended up being a rewarding experience.

Tongva Park Santa Monica California

Blog

Tongva Park – Sony A7r II

I've passed through the Tongva park a few times while on my way to shoot the Santa Monica Pier, but never actually shot here. I would always see these lookout structures and thought they might be cool to shoot through. So a few nights ago, I finally made an attempt to come here but unfortunately, I couldn't find parking because of some event which caused me to miss the sunset. So it is in Los Angeles. You just have to add on an hour anything you want to do around here.

Uncategorized

How HDR Works In The New Lightroom

With the release of the new Lightroom CC 2015 or Lightroom 6, we can now photo merge our HDRs without leaving the software.

The technique it uses is actually a little different than any other program I've used before.

Here's how it works.

Santa Monica Pier Nights

Behind The Shot: Santa Monica Nights

When you truly have an amazing sunset or scene, you don't really need a lot of post-processing. I've had shots that have taken me days, and I've had shots that have only taken me a few minutes. This shot I was able to process this very quickly and I want to show you the tools I used to achieve these results. I use several different techniques to process my image. Deciding which one usually is determined by how good the shot is, to begin with, or what kind of mood I'm in.

Sunset at Pacific Park

Blog

Sunset At Pacific Park

It's not every day we get one of these sunsets in Santa Monica. I've shot the Santa Monica Pier many a time but have never seen anything like this before. I've actually never seen anything like this before in the many years I've been shooting beach photos in Southern California. Only when I lived in Del Mar surfing as a youth I would occasionally catch something like this. But that was before I was really into photography.

Orange Skies of Santa Monica

Blog

Orange Skies – Santa Monica Pier

This photo is of the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier Amusement Park. I love sunsets when there are no clouds in the sky. You get nice even colors that are easy to tweak. Shot with the Canon 5Dmkii and the 24-70mm f2.8L USM lens. I tweaked the exposure in Lightroom. Created a silhouette and shifted the sky to be more orange than it already was. A very simple composition and color edit leaning into what was already there.

Santa Monica Pier HDR

Blog

Santa Monica Pier – HDR

This was my first time shooting the Santa Monica Pier on my Canon 5Dmkii. It's a very popular spot for photographers but it's rare to get the timing of the lights right. If you plan on going here to shoot the amusement park on the pier, the best time I've found is to shoot after the sun goes down. Unless of course there is an amazing sunset happening which only occurs a few times a year in Los Angeles. Most of the time it looks like this.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.