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More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Peter Figen
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Last week was a great week at Kenny Hahn. Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, right smack in the middle of L.A. City Limits. I went four days last week in the late afternoon and Wednesday and Friday it was clear enough for the snow in the San Gabriel Mountains with Mt. Baldy featured behind downtown.

These were taken either with the Canon 100-400mm v2 with the rear baffle removed or with the Zeis Contax 645 350mm f/4 with and without the Mutar on the GFX100s. The color is not supposed to be "real", whatever that means but to invoke an emotional response.

GFX100S Contax 645 350/4 + Mutar 1.4X lens 489mm f/11.0 1/320s 200 ISO 0.0 EV

GFX100S Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS II USM lens 148mm f/11.0 1/400s 100 ISO 0.0 EV

GFX100S Contax 645 350/4 + Mutar 1.4X lens 489mm f/16.0 1/400s 200 ISO 0.0 EV

Jan 24, 2023 at 07:05 PM

aae991
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Very nice.

Jan 24, 2023 at 08:16 PM

Jeffrey
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Nice imaging, Peter. You're almost a landscape photographer now!

Jan 24, 2023 at 09:45 PM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Thanks Jeffrey. I'm just a photographer, nothing more, nothing less. Shoot whatever interests me.

Jan 24, 2023 at 09:52 PM

Ray Swindle
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

That first one is spectacular. Very unusual LA photo. Lived in San Bernardino in the early '70s when the pollution choked the cities from LA to SB. You would hope for rain to clear the air. Nice timing.

Jan 24, 2023 at 10:05 PM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Ray Swindle wrote:
That first one is spectacular. Very unusual LA photo. Lived in San Bernardino in the early '70s when the pollution choked the cities from LA to SB. You would hope for rain to clear the air. Nice timing.

Thanks Ray. I love the color treatment on that and the mood it created. A big part of that was done in L*a*b color curves in Ps and then further refined after copying the L*a*b file back over to the RGB version.

Jan 24, 2023 at 10:12 PM

Rajan Parrikar
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

I'll go with #3 for its 'soft' quality.

Jan 25, 2023 at 03:22 AM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Rajan Parrikar wrote:
I'll go with #3 for its 'soft' quality.

Thanks Rajan. I like 'em all for different reasons and moods. The most fun part of that third one was drawing a path all the way around the skyline and then forgetting to save and having Ps freeze in the curves adj layer dialog box which it has never ever done even once in the 28 years I've been using it. There's also a weird bug in Ps when you are drawing large complicated paths where sometimes when you hit the spacebar to scroll, everything locks up, but at least with that you can save before quitting and restarting.

Jan 25, 2023 at 03:39 AM

ElliotV
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Growing up in L.A. in the 1950's and 1960's, clear days were such a delight and exciting after a winter storm with the snow on the mountains. Thanks for the interesting photos!

Wasn't what is now the Kenneth Hahn Recreation Area the land formally occupied by the Baldwin Dam before it burst?

I also really appreciated your early photo from Topanga State Park and near the old Nike Missile Base. I knew about this site, but did not know that at one point there were as many as 16 Nike sites around the Los Angeles area.

Jan 25, 2023 at 05:00 AM

keepclicking
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Peter, it’s a really a treat to be able to get to the park from where you are located to capture a very rare scene of LA skyline with snow capped mountains. I like all 3 images for different reasons. Every time I decide to to KH park the traffic is so bad😩

Jan 25, 2023 at 10:02 AM

mike reid
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Love them all. A real treat to see the mountains.

Jan 25, 2023 at 10:34 AM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

ElliotV wrote:
Growing up in L.A. in the 1950's and 1960's, clear days were such a delight and exciting after a winter storm with the snow on the mountains. Thanks for the interesting photos!

Wasn't what is now the Kenneth Hahn Recreation Area the land formally occupied by the Baldwin Dam before it burst?

I also really appreciated your early photo from Topanga State Park and near the old Nike Missile Base. I knew about this site, but did not know that at one point there were as many as 16 Nike sites around the Los Angeles area.

I think you're right about that, and it makes sense when you see the "bowl" area at the top of the hill right next to the MLK memorial where these shots were taken from. And that it took only 77 seconds to empty all that water is just amazing. Seems that it was located right on top of the Inglewood fault and that led to the failure. And speaking of which, we had a good little thumper at two o'clock in the morning last night.

Jan 25, 2023 at 11:15 AM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

mike reid wrote:
Love them all. A real treat to see the mountains.

Thanks Mike. People forget that we've got 'em here too. Great places to go hiking and back country skiing too. I used to get up early and drive to Mt. Waterman to back country ski for the morning and be back to shoot in the afternoon,. I must have been younger then.

Jan 25, 2023 at 11:17 AM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

keepclicking wrote:
Peter, it’s a really a treat to be able to get to the park from where you are located to capture a very rare scene of LA skyline with snow capped mountains. I like all 3 images for different reasons. Every time I decide to to KH park the traffic is so bad😩

Parul - During the week is the best time to go, plus you only have to pay to get in on the weekends. But you're right, it's close, and you've been to my studio. This is ten minutes away.

Jan 25, 2023 at 11:19 AM

AmbientMike
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Great to see some shots of L.A., Peter. Probably #1 is my favorite but #3 too. Enjoying the "I love L.A." video on YouTube lol

Jan 25, 2023 at 12:28 PM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

AmbientMike wrote:
Great to see some shots of L.A., Peter. Probably #1 is my favorite but #3 too. Enjoying the "I love L.A." video on YouTube lol

Thanks Mike. I'd like to say that with such a beautiful subject that it'd be hard to miss but these are really much more difficult than they look. Always nice to outside though.

Jan 25, 2023 at 01:26 PM

akashyap
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Lovely pictures, thanks for sharing! I did a similar edit as #1 to one of my SF Skyline pictures, and I really like it too. Did it rain the night before theses shots?

I have nice pictures of the SF, Chicago, and NY skylines already, so LA and Seattle are the only ones remaining! Thanks for sharing the location and focal lengths, should go well with my new (to me) Canon 70-300L on my A7R2 when I get down there.

Jan 25, 2023 at 04:04 PM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

akashyap wrote:
Lovely pictures, thanks for sharing! I did a similar edit as #1 to one of my SF Skyline pictures, and I really like it too. Did it rain the night before theses shots?

I have nice pictures of the SF, Chicago, and NY skylines already, so LA and Seattle are the only ones remaining! Thanks for sharing the location and focal lengths, should go well with my new (to me) Canon 70-300L on my A7R2 when I get down there.

It rained the weekend before, but it was still rather cloudy on the Tuesday with Mt. Baldy still being obscured but that was better by Wednesday. Rained again on Thursday and the last image here was from last Friday. It's supposed to rain again next Monday. We'll see what Tuesday has in store.

In terms of lenses, that zoom might be a bit short depending on the type of shots you want. When I shot this four years ago on a 5DSR, I used the 100-400 at 400mm. If you have a converter, I'd want that as well.

Jan 25, 2023 at 04:34 PM

AmbientMike
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

Peter Figen wrote:
Thanks Mike. I'd like to say that with such a beautiful subject that it'd be hard to miss but these are really much more difficult than they look. Always nice to outside though.

I believe I was thinking 489mm on GFX100S looked difficult, believe it or not.

how bad are the heat waves?

Jan 25, 2023 at 07:23 PM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · More Downtown Los Angeles on super clear days

AmbientMike wrote:
I believe I was thinking 489mm on GFX100S looked difficult, believe it or not.

how bad are the heat waves?

The thermal disturbance wasn't too bad. Just a little but I think that's always going to be there just from the heat of the city, so all in all, I have no issue with a small amount, plus you don't really see it in prints until you go really really big, and then it's just an effect. Ha. The hardest thing to avoid is camera movement, and even though I'm shooting on the largest Gitzo Gigantic 5 series tripod with an Arca-Swiss Cube head, I really should have had a second tripod on the front of the lens. I shoot maybe half a dozen frames at each exposure to get at least one that's sharp, or at least sharpest. More than anything you just need patience and not rush.

Jan 25, 2023 at 07:51 PM

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