Alice the cat. Shot with the Sony RX-1. © Mike Wong
I got your bokeh right here. After reading several reviews of the Sony RX-1 (here and here) I decided that I needed to rent one to see what the fuss was all about.
I’ll do a more formal write up after my weekend with te Sony RX-1, but my initial impression is that I’m getting an idea of why everybody is excited about this camera. Much more later.
Black and white conversion using Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2 © Mike Wong
I’ve always loved black and white images. I’ve always been a big fan of the black and white portrait photography of Greg Gorman and I’ve been successful here and there trying to reproduce his style and technique. However, this year, I’m going to work on developing my own black and white style and technique. I’m going to share some of the images I make along the way. That means, some of the conversions will be better than others, but that’s part of the journey.
My first one of the year is one I just completed of a photo I shot last month while spending a day at Disneyland. I did the main color correction and initial edits Aperture and then took it into Photoshop for a little retouching and then finished the black and white conversion using Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2.
On Sunday of this weekend, we decided to check out the famous Santa Barbara Mission. It’s pretty easy to find. Off the 101, just take the Mission Street exit and turn towards the mountains. Follow Mission all the way up and you’ll see it on the left. Can’t miss it.
The kids at the Santa Barbara Mission. © Mike Wong
There’s a lot of history behind this Mission. I won’t go into it here because, well, this isn’t a blog about the Mission. You can read about it here. All I can really say about it is that I think it’s worth checking out. Especially if you’re not from the area or if you’re just passing through. It’ll set you back $5 per adult to the non-guided tour. Throw in another $3 if you want a docent to give you some insider information.
Cemetery at the Old Mission of Santa Barbara. © Mike Wong
While on the self-guided tour, we walked through the cemetery where there is an incredibly large fig tree. Near the fig tree, there was a sign saying there were 4,000 people buried in this cemetery. I can’t even imagine where they buried them all. Regardless, I thought I tried to take an HDR photo handheld. I haven’t really tried to do much of this type of photography either handheld or with a tripod. If I’m objective about it, the above photo really isn’t all that great. I’ll file it under “you’ve got to start somewhere”, but I processed it with Nik Software’s HDR efex Pro 2 and while this isn’t a software review, it’s one of the more intuitive HDR applications I’ve tried–and I’ve tried them all.
After the Old Mission, we hit La Super Rica Tacqueria on Milpas Street. Great food, but I prefer Los Agaves just down the street. While we were waiting, I grabbed a couple of pictures of Nathan and Devyn. I’ve been shooting primarily with my 50mm lens to push myself to get more creative in how I frame pictures without the ease of just turning the zoom ring. Shooting with just a prime has been a lot of fun and something I used to think wouldn’t be of interest to me, but now that the kids really aren’t playing a lot of sports, a zoom may not be in my future.
© Mike Wong
© Mike Wong
After lunch, it was time to hit the beach. We drove down to the harbor, got lucky with some parking near a bunch of wine tasting shops (note to self: find a baby sitter!) and then walked along the beach for a while and let the kids play.
Soakin’ up the sun. © Mike Wong
Beautiful day in sunny Santa Barbara. © Mike Wong
Adult and baby seals basking in the sun. © Mike Wong
We decided to be tourists this weekend and head down to Carpinteria to see the Carpinteria Seal Rookery. If you decide to go there yourself, here’s how you get there. Take the Bailard Avenue exit and turn towards the ocean. You’ll run into a small parking lot so just park there and then start along the trail heading north. You’ll walk the length of the trail until it appears to end at which point, you’ll turn towards the ocean.
As turn towards the ocean and cross the railroad tracks, be sure to look both ways to avoid the Amtrak Surfliner. It’s a great way to ruin your day so absolutely look before you leap. After you cross the tracks, continue North along the path. You’ll run into the lookout point if you do this. Can’t miss it. We went on a weekend and there was a docent there who was very friendly and happy to give out some information on the seals. They also had some binoculars on hand to loan out so if you forget yours, you’ll be set. You’ll need the binoculars too because you cannot get anywhere near the seals from this lookout point. The photo above was taken with a 200mm zoom lens and even then, you can’t see too much without cropping into the photo.
If you’ve got kids, it’s a fun little trip. I can’t imagine staying there much longer than the 15 minutes we did though. On the walk back to the railroad tracks, you’ll see a path that leads down to a beach (where presumably, there are no seals). I think the next time I go here, I’ll cruise down the path and check out the beach.
From the bluff though, you get a beautiful view of the Carpinteria coast line.
Carpinteria Coast © Mike Wong
Of course, I have to post a couple of pictures of the kids.
Devyn © Mike Wong
Nathan checking out the seals. © Mike Wong
Radiator Springs ride in the new Cars Land. © Mike Wong
As I mentioned in my last post, it was time for us to get out of Dodge and have some fun. So off to Disneyland! One of the things we wanted to see was the new Cars Land attraction and we were not disappointed. The kids absolutely loved the Radiator Springs ride and they said it was their favorite ride at either California Adventure or Disneyland!
The kids on the Tow Mater ride. © Mike Wong
The Tow Mater ride looked harmless, but it was actually a bit rough. The cart that you ride in the back whips you around pretty hard. Chris and I were smashing into each other the entire time while we laughed and then tried to catch our breath. I was holding my new GoPro HD Hero 3 camera filming the event and just as I turned it off, we got whipped around and the camera flew from my hands. Luckily though, the case was on it and it came out unharmed.
Like everything at Disneyland, it’s amazing at the level of detail that the artists at Disney put into every aspect of the park. Here are some of the details that I really enjoyed while waiting for the Tow Mater ride.
A great El Materdor poster. © Mike Wong
Amazing detail in this license plate that I bet most people never notice. © Mike Wong
Another license plate. Love the detail. © Mike Wong
In between all of the running around, I was able to grab a couple of nice portraits of the kids.
Portrait of Nathan. © Mike Wong
Portrait of Devyn. © Mike Wong
We walked back and forth between California Adventure and Disneyland about 5 times. According to my Nike+ Fuel Band, we walked over 20,000 steps. I don’t know exactly how many because somewhere just past 20,000, the battery died! But needless to say, we were exhausted. On our last trip back over to California Adventure for dinner and a ride on the big ferris wheel, we stopped at the Grizzly River Run to take a look at one of our favorite rides that was under renovation. Nathan loved seeing the infrastructure of the ride as the water was drained. The light was beautiful as the sun went down and I grabbed this shot of one of the main buildings that make up the Grizzly River Run.
Golden hour hits the Grizzly River Run ride. © Mike Wong
After I took this, I had Chris and the kids get lined up for a quick family photo (minus me of course) when a nice passerby offered to take our picture. I said “sure, that would be great!” As I handed her the camera, I showed her that if she pressed halfway on the shutter release it would focus and then after the beep, to press the button. I had already dialed in the shutter and aperture settings manually. All she had to do was prefocus and then shoot. I almost didn’t tell her because you never know how much experience someone has shooting, but I did.
Even though I gave her that info and she said “okay”, she still didn’t do it. And because it was getting dark and my screen is only so big, I couldn’t really tell that she did not in fact follow the simple instructions and she just pressed the shutter release without any focusing at all. I suppose I could partially, or fully, blame my camera which is going on 6 years old now and it’s ancient auto-focus system, but I’m going to put some of the responsibility on the unnamed photographer. 🙂
So we have another nice family portrait that is out of focus. Oh well. A quick run through Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 and we turn that out-of-focus color image into a lovely black and white image.
The Wong family. Friendly photographer unknown. Edits by Mike Wong
I thought this was funny.
Reminds me of the Ted and Fred Road Trip book by Dr. Seuss. © Mike Wong
Finally as the night was winding down, Nathan stopped to grab a photo of the signature ferris wheel at California Adventure. I love getting candid photos of the kids when they’re not looking. This will go down as one of my favorites.
Nathan grabbing a photo. © Mike Wong
Nathan and Devyn at the Griffith Observatory. © Mike Wong 2013
We’ve been in California now for a little while and haven’t been out of our immediate area much. Weekends have been spent doing the necessary business of unpacking and getting things sorted out in our new (rental) home. Needless to say, this hasn’t been much fun for the kids. They’ve made the best of it though by running around in the backyard and by playing games or watching movies. But not the kinds of things we would necessarily choose to do all things being equal.
But not this weekend. We decided it was time to get out and have some fun. The kids got out of school early on Thursday (actually, every Thursday is early release) so Chris and kids picked me up from work around 2:30 and we hit the 101-South heading straight for Disneyland! We thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of one of the benefits of living in Southern California. But before getting to the Magic Kingdom, we all got to experience first-hand the traffic that is LA.
Wow. Being from Oregon, we’ve never really experienced anything like this. Five lanes in each direction. Completely packed. It took us an hour to go about 6 miles. But in the end, there were no accidents and we arrived in Anaheim early enough so we could grab a bite to eat and still hit a few rides at Disneyland that evening. I’ve got more pictures coming of Disneyland soon, so stay tuned!
One of the things that Devyn has been asking about lately is to see the Hollywood sign. So I quickly Googled where to take a picture of the Hollywood sign and we came up with the Griffith Observatory. Little did we know just how popular this place gets, but let me tell you…it gets crowded up there fast. We had to walk 3/4 of a mile to get back up there as parking is extremely limited. But it was totally worth it.
I think the kids were excited to actually see the Hollywood sign, but at the same time, they were a little disappointed. “It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be” was heard several times–and not just from our kids. 🙂
Nathan at Griffith Observatory. © Mike Wong
Devyn at Griffith Observatory. © Mike Wong
But the kids each took pictures of it with their iOS devices and I snapped a few myself. Overall, the 2 hour visit to the Griffith Observatory was totally worth it and I highly recommend it. If nothing else, you can see a fully functional Tesla Coil in action once per hour! Highly recommended.
Nathan and Devyn posing in front of the Griffith Observatory sign. © Mike Wong
In the past 6 weeks that we’ve been in California, we’ve spent all of our time in the Santa Barbara area. In our first trip to the Los Angeles area, it really struck me at just how big LA is. Coming from Portland where the most traffic we see is a three lane highway that moderately filled, seeing five lanes in both directions COMPLETELY PACKED is a bit of a shock. The traffic is absolutely insane. I couldn’t imagine driving in that traffic every day.
From the Griffith Observatory, you have an incredible view of Los Angeles. This is only one section of the city, but if you’re not from LA, it gives you an idea of just how big this place is. No, make that how huge this place is.
Los Angeles city skyline in blue. © Mike Wong