500px Art Prints

I was recently featured in a 500px blog post, Celebrating 3 Months of 500px Art! The new site launched back in December and I've actually bought several of my prints just to see what the quality was like.

Below are some photos from two separate orders I made. The packaging is really well done, and they consolidated two prints into one big box.



Overall they're pretty good. 500px offers canvas, paper, aluminum, acrylic, and birchwood as print material. I'm not a fan of the canvas print, as the picture I chose didn't come out as sharp as I wanted, but I absolutely love the aluminum print. I consider the aluminum prints to be the best value as they look absolutely amazing-- the darks are dark, and the light is pretty shiny. I have an aluminum print of Golden Gate Bridge's Clear Night hanging over my desk. It has a different look and feel during the day and night.

Hanging the prints on my wall was also very easy. Just follow the instructions and use the bubble level to make sure it's straight. On the back of each print is a thank-you note from 500px. It's removable of course, but to be honest I've left them on all of my hanging prints.



Again, here is my photo they selected. Apparently it's one of the top 16 selling photos on 500px Art right now!

Chicago from the Adler Planetarium
Buy print: http://www.500pxart.com/photo/57661802


More prints available at my 500px Art page. It looks like there's a 25% off sale until Friday (2/28).

Photos from 6th St Bridge

The 6th St. bridge has a magnificent view of the Los Angeles skyline. There's only a two problems about getting the photo at this location.

First, the area in the Arts district isn't so good. There's little foot traffic and I don't feel comfortable bringing expensive equipment to set up there. Second, there are telephone wires running across in the view. I had to use Photoshop to clean that all up.

I guess a third issue, which isn't so much the location, but Los Angeles itself. LA has a haze across the sky most of the time. So unless it rains or drizzles to push the smog down and clear the sky, the haze will be there.



Below are three pictures taken from relatively the same spot on the bridge. I processed them a little differently using Lightroom, Photoshop, Photomatix Pro, as well as Perfect Effects 8.

Dark DTLA
Buy print: http://500pxart.com/photo/61340603


DTLA Skyline
Buy print: http://500pxart.com/photo/61433677


Starbust DTLA

To view my collection of pictures taken in Los Angeles, click here.

Photos from Project Hearts

One evening I took my DSLR and a bokeh kit with a heart-shaped cut out and took a walk down Miracle Mile. I started at LACMA and just walked east on Wilshire and snapped away at all the lights and traffic. I didn't care so much about ISO as I needed to take fast shots of varying lighting situations that came up on the street-- so I just stayed in auto-ISO.

The kit itself is just okay. I've had it for a few years now, but never shot with it that much. I find the plastic doesn't keep it's shape or hold that well on my Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. It really only fits on a 58mm lens ring. I had to push the cut out against the lens filter for just about every shot to minimize any extra light coming in. I generally shot between f/1.4 and f/2 (aperture-priority mode of course) with as much out of focus as possible. I used manual focus to adjust for shape.

Project Hearts (my favorite)
Buy print: http://500pxart.com/photo/60973944


Hearts at El Rey Theatre


Bokeh of Hearts


Four Hearts, One Family

Photos from Griffith Observatory

I use 500px to do research on where I want to go take pictures and what kind of shots to do. One in particular compelled me to go to Griffith Park to get a shot of the Griffith Observatory as well as LA's skyline.

Griffith Observatory Before Sunrise
Buy print: http://500pxart.com/photo/59933986


Griffith Observatory (After Sunrise)
Buy print: http://500pxart.com/photo/59957370


I went on a different day and night to get a night shot of the Observatory as well as LA's skyline (see below). This is my favorite shot, as I consider LA to be more of a city lights kind of city. Any daylight photos would be better served on the beaches of LA.

Griffith Observatory at Night
Buy print:http://500pxart.com/photo/60086824

On Getting Lost

I got lost twice trying to get to this location.

The first time my GPS took me near a pinned location of where I thought the shot I wanted was taken, but I just didn't see the view at all. So I went to the Observatory for some simple sunrise shots.

The second time, after more research, I took a bike trail, which is an actual road closed off to cars. I went at 6am and thought it would be easy to find. It wasn't. I ended up overshooting and hiked nearly four times the distance. Anyway, it turned out that it's not really the spot I wanted. You can see how far in green below.

The third time was the charm. I went even earlier, at 5:40am. Took the Mt. Hollywood Trail path and found the spot very easily. Unfortunately they were filming Glee at the Griffith Observatory that day and there was a lot of trailers and lights setup in the parking lot. So there was definitely more lights and cars there than I wanted. Only about fifteen parking spots were available to the general public, while the rest of the lot was reserved.

Below is the map of the area and the paths I took:

Pink, is the original, planned path I wanted to go on.
Green, is the actual path I went on today. Looks more like I went almost 4 times the distance!
Blue, is the last path I went on that actually took me to the spot I wanted.



Here is another shot of Griffith Observatory with all the trailers and sets from the Glee crew:


Some observations I've made about going to Griffith Park:

1. It can be a bit scary hiking in the morning when there's no sunlight. I did end up purchasing a Energizer Pro 7 LED Headlamp.
2. No matter how early you get to Griffith Park, someone will be there hiking even earlier.
3. Many Koreans and elderly folks are there walking in groups or even as couples.
4. There are tons of hiking/biking trails in Griffith Park. I definitely want to go back there with friends.
5. At night, there aren't as many hikers as in the morning.

To see other pictures I've take in 2014 in the Los Angeles area, click here.

Removing a HDD from a Western Digital Elements USB Drive

I have an old Western Digital Elements External USB HDD (3TB) that that mostly sits on my shelf since I've moved my data onto a formal network area storage (NAS). After doing some research, it turns out that these external USB hard drives actually have full 3.5" SATA hard drive inside! All you need to do is pry open the back with a knife or flathead screwdriver and remove the hard drive, and remove the USB adapter. Simple!

My hard drive in it's original case.


After removing the back, you can see there's a 3.5" drive inside.


Unfortunately it's a green drive, which isn't ideal for NAS. As to why, check out this video by GeekBeat TV: The Best Drives for Your NAS.


I put it inside my Drobo 5D, at the very bottom, and Drobo takes care of the rest!


Here is the video I viewed on how to remove the drive:



Hope this helps you repurpose/remove hard drives from your external USB drives. Sometimes these external hard drives are even cheaper than buying the drive of the same size itself!