iPhone Photography, Travel Photography and Camera Reviews
Ahh….California Street in the mystical City By The Bay. Oh how I love San Francisco. The architecture, the sea, the people….I love everything about this great city. You can easily walk around and see iconic landmark after iconic landmark. I actually conducted an experiment when I was there last. I walked around town for a week shooting with exclusively with my Nikon D700 and 28-300 VR. Well, that and some iPhone. You can read about the experiment over on my review of the Nikon 28-300 VR.
This is LA as photographed from the Manhattan Beach pier. You can find it just north of Hermosa Beach. If you are interested, you can find out more information in my ‘Photographer’s Guide To Hermosa Beach‘. It’s a great place to visit for a long weekend.
Photographer’s Note – This is a single image processed in Lightroom 4. To achieve this effect I split-toned the image, desaturated it a bit, changed the white balance and boosted the noise reduction to soften it a touch.
Photography should be fun…right? Taking photos, exploring new places, meeting new people and even post processing should be fun. Like today’s image, I had a blast turning the secret beach house near Scripps Pier into something from another world. I did it all using the Complete Nik Collection by Google. First I used HDR Efex Pro 2 to tonemap a single image and give it an otherworldly look. Then I applied some additional creative styling from the Color Efex Pro Suite. I share this information with you because the price of the Complete Collection was once $500, and is now only $126.65 if you use this link…
Yep, the good folks over at Google gave me a special link that will allow you to save some money when you check out. Normally it would be $149.00, but with the discount they are giving all of my readers, it’s only $126.65 when you use the link.
It is an awesome tool set and I know you will love it! If you were wondering where this image started…here you go!
This was one of the most creatively heartbreaking images I had ever shot. The night before, the staff of the Fairmont (find out more about it in our travel guide) arranged for me to photograph the sunrise from the hotel’s roof. Pretty cool right?!?! After hanging out and chatting with a very friendly security guard, the sun slowly made its way up. Not being familiar with a San Francisco sunrise and not wanting to overstep my welcome, I gave up, shot this photo and returned to my room. I peeked out the window only to see a hint of what I was sure was the most incredible sunrise I have ever seen. Imagine all those clouds lit up as if they were on fire…well, I never made it to the roof in time to photograph it. That sunrise will forever be my white whale…it was the one that got away. Ah well…it made for a good story and this photo turned out alright.
Photographer’s Note – This is a single image shot with a Nikon D700 and 17-35mm 2.8 (I longed for that lens for over a decade). I brought it to life with Lightroom 4 and a few Nik Software filters. Did you see that you can get the entire Nik Collection for only $149.00 now…WOW!!!
Click Here To Get It – If you use the coupon code LIGHTASMAGIC you save even more money and get it for $126.00…yesterday it was $500!
I would like to thank the Facebook community for voting this image back on the island. I posted it last week asking for some feedback. Overall the response was very positive, so here it is. Thanks again team!
You might remember seeing a similar image on the site in the past. Yep, this is the Castello de Amersoa. A winery in Napa that was constructed as an exact replica of a Tuscan castle. Here’s a photo of the Throne Room, the Tasting Room and the Stairs.
Tip - As a friend over on FB mentioned, they liked the fact that all of the image was in focus. If you are new to photography, the amount of focus (or as we call it, depth of field DOF) is controlled by your aperture. If you want everything in focus, set your aperture to numbers like f/11 or f/22.
