On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I managed to convince my fellow photographer Hami to join me on another hike in Griffith Park, this time up to Beacon Hill. We’ve visited Beacon Hill on “On The Road” in the past (October 9, 2017) and it is one of my favorite views of downtown Los Angeles. The hill sits at the eastern edge of Griffith Park and used to have a beacon (hence the name) on the top to guide pilots flying into Glendale’s Grand Central Air Terminal. While lower in elevation than other peaks in the park, the hill’s location so far east affords a nice view of downtown with Silver Lake off to the side.
My intent on this hike up to Beacon Hill was twofold, one to get some night shots and to get some panoramas for a “Little Planet” type of photo. All of my shots from Beacon Hill in the past were daytime shots since it is not visited as often as other parts in the park and I was hesitant of hiking back down in the dark by myself.
Over the summer I’d purchased a device to automate shooting panorama shots, the Capsule 360. It takes care of rotating the camera via an app on my cellphone. I used this device to create the moving timelapse a few months ago of the sunset at Palos Verdes. I shot 3 panoramas, one in golden hour, one at blue hour and finally one after dark. Only the first of these 3 turned worked.
I tried to shot multiple narrow view shots with multiple panorama rows, this was a mistake with the changing light as the sun was setting resulting in color differences, I also failed to account for longer shutter speeds when it got dark in the app leading to a good photo and a one shot while the device was moving the camera. The one other problem I noticed when we got to the top of the hill is that the brush around the hill has grown a bit since I last visited which made getting a clean shot of a 360° panorama impossible. I ended up producing a full 360° “Little Planet” photo as well as one for the Glendale view and the downtown LA view.
Downtown LA at sunset.
Traffic trails on The 5 as it heads south to downtown LA.
Downtown LA at night with Silver Lake.
Downtown LA in a “Little Planet” projection.
Glendale in a “Little Planet” projection.
Full 360° “Little Planet” projection with Glendale at the top and downtown LA at the 5 O’clock position.
JPL
Interesting!
cope
As always, I am amazed at the amount of effort you put into taking your pictures. Thank you.
To me, 360 degree shots are a bit disorienting unless there is some anchoring object or region that is recognizable. Having the city and skyline as anchor points in these images makes it a lot easier for my ossified brain to suss so good on you for that.
Keep ’em coming.
West of the Cascades
Those are fascinating – thanks!!
Wag
I love the Little Planet projections! How big is the capsule 360? might be fun to take up to a high peak if it isn’t too heavy…
SkyBluePink
Gorgeous LA photos!
Little Planets are very strange and very cool.
donatellonerd
oh my. spent summers in a house overlooking silver lake from age 9-15. 1961-67, where my father lived. which is also why i’ve always been a sucker for your griffith park pictures — we used to go horseback riding there. and drive up to look at the downtown lights. a picture (2 pictures) of silver lake on my favorite blog. thank you so much.
BigJimSlade
Those little planet projects are fun – I like all the mountains around Glendale. And all the lights in Silver Lake!
way2blue
Okay! Your ‘Little Planet’ composites are crazy fun. I think I just saw something similar last week—depicting the ‘known universe’.
J R in WV
Very interesting use of the panorama tool to create the “Little Planet” images. I like the last two the most.
The night shot of downtown LA is also pretty cool.
Thanks again for the great work, I know it isn’t just shooting a picture out the car window, these are projects that take several days of planning and execution, and then post-processing once the actual photography expedition is over.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: Thanks.
@cope: I’ve been planning in doing some more, but I’ll have to find a place where there aren’t bushes blocking the view. I’m afraid little planets with a more narrow field of view will work for Beacon Hill.
@West of the Cascades: Thanks, I think they’re kind of fun.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Wag: They’re a really cool and compact way of viewing a panorama. The Capsule 360 is about 3″ in diameter and weighs about 1/2 a pound. If you get one, order from MIOPS directly, Amazon has them for about $10 cheaper but doesn’t include the camera cable.
@SkyBluePink: I got more strange and cool coming up.
@donatellonerd: There are plans to turn the shoreline of Silverlake into a park, they look pretty nice. The key to shooting the downtown lights is not to blow them out so they all look white, too many phtographers do that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BigJimSlade: The mountains still had quite a bit of snow on them too! Since I bracketed those shots of downtown, I made Silverlake a bit brighter to help it stand out.
@way2blue: The one I saw a few weeks ago on APOD was the Ring of the Milky Way shot both in China and New Zealand, very cool.
@J R in WV: I like the ones with the mountains as well. The 360° Little planets aren’t too hard to process, when you don’t have 360° to work with you have to match stuff up and do Photoshop magic on the edges of the original image.