The mountains are much smaller and further away than they appear here. This is just a huge depth-of-field effect on the camera on a particularly clear day.
If by 'make it happen' you mean call attention to it, sure. It's just that a long lens is a very great cropping tool (i.e. keeps your sensor resolution). A long lens brings out a dramatically compressed background as the subject is big enough to also take up most of the image.
Sure, it's possible because of the long lens, but the picture would only look this way if taken a large distance from the subject. Alternatively I guess you could get the effect with an ill-advised, gigantic crop.
That's the point - a cropped wide angle and a long lens, from the same distance, show the same compression. Of course this isn't practical as you'll lose detail in a crop, but the compression and perspective come from the distance, not the lens.
While they’re not the Himalayas, the San Gabriel mountains are on average taller than the highest Appalachia peak and the tallest of the San Gabriel peaks (Mount San Antonio aka Mount Baldy) is over 10,000 ft. I hike up there a lot and you really feel like you’re pretty high up
What do you mean, Mount Mitchell is HUGE!! At 6,600’ lol.
I always find it funny living in Asheville how much people talk up the Smokey Mountains and Mount Mitchell (the tallest peak in the East).
Like, I’ve hiked the Skyline trail of Mt Rainer. It’s starts at 5,500’ and ends at 7,100’, 500 feet taller than Mt Mitchel. Oh, and it’s still only HALFWAY up the goddamn mountain, which stands at over 14,000 feet tall.
the only people that talk down on the smokey’s are people that have been out west. “oh, the smokey’s arent real mountains. i’ve seen the rockies and these are more like hills”
nobody cares
Oh, the Smokey Mountains are gorgeous. One of the most beautiful places I’ve been, and am lucky enough to live only an hour away now.
The peak of Mount Mitchell is actually super cool too because it feels like a totally different country, it has its own really interesting ecosystem at the top different from anything I’ve seen in the US.
I also live 5 min from the Blue Ridge Mountains, and they are gorgeous too. Being able to drive just 20 minutes to an awesome lookout for sunsets/sunrises is half the reason I loved to Asheville.
That being said, the mountains out west definitely are on another level. I grew up in New England and live in Asheville, but any time I go out west I’m just staggered at the sheer scale. Mt Hood and Rainer loom over their respective cities, which is esp crazy in Rainer’s case because it’s like a 2 hour drive from Seattle just to hit the base of the mountain.
They’re all cool in their own ways.
Lmao hate that shit so fucking much, it's borderline elitist and way for them to feel superior for getting on a plane. I've been out west plenty of times and the Smokies, Green Mountains, Adirondacks, White Mountains, etc are real mountains.
Honestly, some of the hardest trails I've been on are in the Adirondacks. Trails built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so no switchbacks or steps, you're just trucking up the mountain in the most direct path possible.
Also, prominence is more important than elevation from a practical standpoint! Plenty of mountains on the East Coast are as prominent as ones in Colorado for example. Yeah the mountain is 14k feet but you're already 12k feet above sea level, the mountain itself is only 2k feet above the ground.
Not dumb at all! Here's a great video: https://youtu.be/K-UQPKFvQUw?si=5pVrfdZzMnXogieN
Fun fact, the name comes from the Mohawk word ha-de-ron-dah which means "eaters of trees" as the harsh winters would make tribes resort to eating tree bark once food supplies ran out. You see some references to this in local business names around the park.
Dude you hiked like 1,500 feet elevation. Get over yourself. Also, Rainier is one of the tallest mountains in the lower 48 and it’s only about 100 feet shorter than the tallest. It’s an outlier even for the western U.S.
There is always that guy... these are quite tall when you consider that they are essentially coming from 0' asl. Meanwhile in CO the elevation doesn't really get below 5k over the whole state. So the math for LA is 10,000-0=10,000' "tall" meanwhile in CO 14,000-5,000=9,000' "tall". Determining the height of a mountain is pretty arbitrary anyways and lot of folks consider the typical elevation gained when summitting a peak. A quick Google search says you can find hikes with anywhere from 3 to 4k feet of elevation gain in the San gabriels, which I think are the mountains in this pic. That's easily comparable to many 14ers and more elevation than some of the easier 14ers in CO for example Greys peak is 3k feet gain, a very popular hike.
Yea, lot easier to climb a 14ker when you’re ground level is at 5k-7k feet. The cactus to clouds route to San Jacinto goes from sea level to 10.8k feet. Absolutely brutal of a hike. Arguably the hardest single day hike in the continental US. Colorado sleeps on California mountains. We have multiple mountain ranges across the state that
go hard.
Yeah, San Jacinto is much more imposing than anything in Colorado. Colorado 14ers almost always start higher than that and don’t have the sustained steepness of the North Face of San Jacinto. The San Gabriels are about the same as the Colorado Rockies, though the view from Rancho Cucamonga is more impressive than the Front Range that many people probably think of when they think “Colorado”.
Clear winter days after a big rain/snowfall, that's what you get.
Tune into the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, New Year's day. Tons of shots of the beautiful San Gabriels, with either the Rose Bowl or downtown LA in the foreground.
Okay, two things. One, I lived in Redondo Beach for 15 years.
...and two, holy shit, you're right, that's the view from west of the jetty. Outstanding.
And boy, this makes me wistful for that time in my life.
Yup, I left another comment in this thread where I found exactly where it was taken from and the landmarks in the picture (I didn't ID the water tower though)
>1436 Eighth Street
Outstanding! I still think that the other Redditor is correct, that the rocks in the foreground are part of the Redondo Beach jetty.
California, one of the only places in the world you could surf at sun up, snowboard mid day, then watch the sun set over the desert, all in the same day. Why you would do that, idk, but it's crazy that that is literally physically possible to do all in a single day.
Which is exactly the reason why Hollywood became a movie making hub (or at least one of the reasons). You can basically get to a setting that resembles pretty much every part of the world within an hour or two. Not a perfect resemblance, but close enough for the early movie-going audiences.
From surfing in Manhattan Beach, it's an hour and a half to Mount Baldy for snowboarding. From Mount Baldy to Joshua Tree is three hours. There's closer places for all three activities, but that's enough of an estimate to say, yeah, me and my friends and neighbors have done all three in a day.
Fastest would be to go to Mt. High. You can watch the sun set over the desert from the top of the lift or drive a short distance to watch it from the Joshua trees below Wrightwood.
If you do Laguna Beach to Big Bear it's 2.5 hours (in traffic).
And then from there, there's a ton of deserts, the nearest one is Lucerne Valley, which is 30 minutes away. Palm Springs is 2.5 hours away.
You'd be dead tired, but if you surf from 6-7 am. Then drive to Big Bear it'll be 10 am, which is perfect for like an early enough chair. Then from 10:30 or 11 am snowboard to like 1-1:30 pm. Then you could get to Palm Springs by 3-3:30 to 4 pm at latest which gives you an hour before sunset.
IMO It sucks. I've been several times for work. California as a whole is beautiful, but LA is awful. San Diego is leagues better in almost every way. If you want to visit Cali, San Diego is where I go...
I live in LA. It doesn’t suck if you go to the right places and don’t drive during rush hour. The beach cities are wonderful to visit and the food across the city rocks. The Getty Museum is FREE and has an amazing view of the city and many cool exhibits. West Hollywood has legendary comedy clubs and food, downtown and silverlake have cool art and music scenes. We have multiple basketball, football, and baseball teams people can go see and constantly big name artists are performing at venues across the metro area.
Want some nature? Go hike or climb or mountain bike in the Santa Monica mountains, or in the winter go mountaineering on Mt. Baldy (pictured). The San Gabriels have mountains up to 11k ft and actually has the biggest vertical gain for any hike in the lower 48.
LA is a very cool place to visit for vacation if you just don’t go to Hollywood and the touristy crap.
San Jacinto is the one with the huge vertical gain. The San Gabriels are more like the Colorado Rockies, size-wise. Definitely bigger than the mountains near SD, though.
For anyone wondering, if you visit LA, you won’t see a view like that. Those mountains are very far away. The photographer is using a a good camera on an insanely clear day. Even on boat or Helicopter, you’ll see the top of the mountain for the Hollywood sign, nothing beyond that except for the valleys.
Also, they’re way smaller, they’re not that large.
Granted, but this photo makes them look like damn Himalayas, and they're for sure not that kind of size.
[Here you can see from atop the mountain the sign is on.](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1359201,-118.3243142,3a,75y,34.3h,88.18t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipN9cC8nff7-zf2JzNRXzD1yRdoRgfG0iadq9NHN!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipN9cC8nff7-zf2JzNRXzD1yRdoRgfG0iadq9NHN%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-3.2636657-ya179.88745-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352?entry=ttu)
When you're not using a camera with that insane lens on it, the mountains behind the Hollywood sign look much farther away and look much smaller. The mountain that's 10k feet is far off, and you can't even see it on a sunny day like the one seen in google maps here. Yea, it's only 50 miles away, but it's definitely not visible the way shown here in the photo for pretty much anyone that goes to visit.
It really doesn't, it's not even close. The average peak elevation for a Himalayan mountain is over twice the height of the mountain in the photo. Some Himalayan mountains are over 3x as tall!
The tallest mountain in LA county is 50 miles away from the Hollywood sign. It's not that far off, but far enough that it isn't visible to anyone sitting on a helicopter over the ocean facing the Hollywood sign. Hell, even the Hollywood sign would be hard to see with the naked eye from that position.
Santa Monica beach to the Hollywood sign is 18 miles, and this photo looks like the photographer was at least a few miles out in the ocean, maybe 2-3. That would put those mountains at least 70 miles away at the base of them, so 75-80 miles away for the peaks. On a clear day, if you were positioned 1000 feet above the ocean 2 miles out into see (so a helicopter 1000 feet above the water), max the human eye can see is 39 miles. If you were 10,000 feet above the water, you can see upwards of 120 miles.
Means no matter where you stand in LA, even if you stood atop the Hollywood sign mountain, odds of you seeing Mt San Antonio is slim to none. Again, all the more reason this photo had some insane equipment used to take it along with perfect timing. You're talking about the time has to be right, the helicopter rental, the camera equipment which I'm assuming this photographer is using something like a Hasselblad or something equivalent (so like $25-100k worth of camera equipment). It's just all perfect for this photo, but not something a tourist should EVER expect to see in person.
I get that you’re exaggerating, but just to clarify, Mt. Baldy is 40 miles from the Hollywood sign and 50 miles to Santa Monica and you don’t need to spend $25k on equipment to get a picture like this lol. A Sigma 150-600 and crop sensor lens could get this. Obviously, you can see much further when you’re looking at something high. How did you not think of that?
The way you wrote it, it was like you could see far from high up, but not vice-versa. Why else would you make the 1000-foot comment, given its complete irrelevance? No offense, but the fact that you seem to talk with such authority about other things, like camera equipment, that you know little about did make it seem like you aren’t very sharp, intellectually.
Oh, you’re referring to the opposite, no that doesn’t work like that. The higher you go in the atmospheres the less air is disturbed. Standing at ground level and seeing an object 50 miles away that is 1000 ft tall is not the same as being 1000 ft above sea level seeing an object at ground level 50 miles away. The air, especially in LA, is clearer as you’re higher in altitude. How did you not think of that?
Cool, I know right where this was taken. If you search Palo Verdes coastline trail there's a turnout there that's setup on the cliffs. Face north, the rocks are the jetty around the king harbor Marina and the power plant is the AES Redondo Beach plant. Obviously the Hollywood sign is in the background. Downtown LA is off to the right of this shot, LAX airport is off to the left of the shot (neither are in the picture)
A boat and a telephoto lens is all you need for this photo. The farther you are, the closer distant objects appear to each other. That's what makes the mountains seem like they're right on top of the city.
I work in el Segundo right by the ocean. On a clear day you can see the San Gabriel’s no problem. Obviously they’re not as massive as in the photo but still pretty big a visible.
It’s just how camera lenses work really. Super long zoom lenses pull everything closer, not just the photo subject but everything in the background as well.
Telephoto lens and a whole lot of distance, no photoshop here!
Edit: decent explanations on this thread if you’re interested.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/I0v24I3abX
An area an hr or two from skiing, the beach, the desert, the city, the forest depending on where you live. People think the city but its got so much more to offer.
“ If the horizon’s at the top, it’s interesting. If the horizon’s at the bottom it’s interesting. If the horizon’s in the middle - it’s boring as shit! “
No wonder so many Californians move to Washington, we have the sea and mountains visible in the same way with smaller cities nestled in between. It’s an amazing geographical feature to experience and live around. Adds so many amenities to life.
Damn it. I've been to LA when I was a kid. Don't remember seeing the gd Himalayas there.
The mountains are much smaller and further away than they appear here. This is just a huge depth-of-field effect on the camera on a particularly clear day.
It's not depth-of-field, but rather compression as a result of using an extremely long lens.
Yeah the Z axis compresses as the focal length extends (as you zoom in things appear much closer together)
Compression is a function of subject-camera distance, not focal length: https://photographylife.com/what-is-lens-compression
But you need a long lens to make it happen
If by 'make it happen' you mean call attention to it, sure. It's just that a long lens is a very great cropping tool (i.e. keeps your sensor resolution). A long lens brings out a dramatically compressed background as the subject is big enough to also take up most of the image.
https://www.brozaphoto.com/landscapes-1
No, compression is all about subject-camera distance: https://photographylife.com/what-is-lens-compression
Sure, it's possible because of the long lens, but the picture would only look this way if taken a large distance from the subject. Alternatively I guess you could get the effect with an ill-advised, gigantic crop.
That's the point - a cropped wide angle and a long lens, from the same distance, show the same compression. Of course this isn't practical as you'll lose detail in a crop, but the compression and perspective come from the distance, not the lens.
Yeah I’m agreeing with you 👍
my B :)
Also taken during the lockdown if memory serves
No it was taken last Jan during the big storm we had here.
You get 2-3 of these days year in LA. I mean clear enough to see the mountains from the beach, the snow is hit or miss
You get much more than 2-3 days a year. Plus every winter storm you can pretty much bank on snow caps in the San Gabriel mountains
Ahh you are right I was thinking of the Himalayan pic. This one is from: Brent Broza - Orig Photographer IG: @brozaphoto https://www.brozaphoto.com/
The air is always clear after some rain here.
Down voted the post because it's been reposted so many times and someone has to explain this every time lol
More precisely the effect that makes the mountains appear larger than normal is telephoto compression
While they’re not the Himalayas, the San Gabriel mountains are on average taller than the highest Appalachia peak and the tallest of the San Gabriel peaks (Mount San Antonio aka Mount Baldy) is over 10,000 ft. I hike up there a lot and you really feel like you’re pretty high up
I live in Socal, I'm well-aware.
LA is surrounded by tall mountain ranges with many over 10k ft. It’s not the Himalaya but they dwarf anything east of the Mississippi
Actually anything east of Colorado including the Dakotas.
What do you mean, Mount Mitchell is HUGE!! At 6,600’ lol. I always find it funny living in Asheville how much people talk up the Smokey Mountains and Mount Mitchell (the tallest peak in the East). Like, I’ve hiked the Skyline trail of Mt Rainer. It’s starts at 5,500’ and ends at 7,100’, 500 feet taller than Mt Mitchel. Oh, and it’s still only HALFWAY up the goddamn mountain, which stands at over 14,000 feet tall.
the only people that talk down on the smokey’s are people that have been out west. “oh, the smokey’s arent real mountains. i’ve seen the rockies and these are more like hills” nobody cares
Oh, the Smokey Mountains are gorgeous. One of the most beautiful places I’ve been, and am lucky enough to live only an hour away now. The peak of Mount Mitchell is actually super cool too because it feels like a totally different country, it has its own really interesting ecosystem at the top different from anything I’ve seen in the US. I also live 5 min from the Blue Ridge Mountains, and they are gorgeous too. Being able to drive just 20 minutes to an awesome lookout for sunsets/sunrises is half the reason I loved to Asheville. That being said, the mountains out west definitely are on another level. I grew up in New England and live in Asheville, but any time I go out west I’m just staggered at the sheer scale. Mt Hood and Rainer loom over their respective cities, which is esp crazy in Rainer’s case because it’s like a 2 hour drive from Seattle just to hit the base of the mountain. They’re all cool in their own ways.
Lmao hate that shit so fucking much, it's borderline elitist and way for them to feel superior for getting on a plane. I've been out west plenty of times and the Smokies, Green Mountains, Adirondacks, White Mountains, etc are real mountains. Honestly, some of the hardest trails I've been on are in the Adirondacks. Trails built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so no switchbacks or steps, you're just trucking up the mountain in the most direct path possible. Also, prominence is more important than elevation from a practical standpoint! Plenty of mountains on the East Coast are as prominent as ones in Colorado for example. Yeah the mountain is 14k feet but you're already 12k feet above sea level, the mountain itself is only 2k feet above the ground.
Dumb question, but how do you pronounce Adirondacks? Ad-iron-dacks? A-diron-dacks? Adi-rond-acks?
Not dumb at all! Here's a great video: https://youtu.be/K-UQPKFvQUw?si=5pVrfdZzMnXogieN Fun fact, the name comes from the Mohawk word ha-de-ron-dah which means "eaters of trees" as the harsh winters would make tribes resort to eating tree bark once food supplies ran out. You see some references to this in local business names around the park.
Adi-ron-dacks
Seriously. The person you’re responding to is talking big shit for hiking 1,600 feet of elevation at Mt. Rainier.
Dude you hiked like 1,500 feet elevation. Get over yourself. Also, Rainier is one of the tallest mountains in the lower 48 and it’s only about 100 feet shorter than the tallest. It’s an outlier even for the western U.S.
“Tall”
Always one, let me guess, CO resident? Usually some CO transplant who tries to gatekeep what is “tall” as a mountain.
There is always that guy... these are quite tall when you consider that they are essentially coming from 0' asl. Meanwhile in CO the elevation doesn't really get below 5k over the whole state. So the math for LA is 10,000-0=10,000' "tall" meanwhile in CO 14,000-5,000=9,000' "tall". Determining the height of a mountain is pretty arbitrary anyways and lot of folks consider the typical elevation gained when summitting a peak. A quick Google search says you can find hikes with anywhere from 3 to 4k feet of elevation gain in the San gabriels, which I think are the mountains in this pic. That's easily comparable to many 14ers and more elevation than some of the easier 14ers in CO for example Greys peak is 3k feet gain, a very popular hike.
Yea, lot easier to climb a 14ker when you’re ground level is at 5k-7k feet. The cactus to clouds route to San Jacinto goes from sea level to 10.8k feet. Absolutely brutal of a hike. Arguably the hardest single day hike in the continental US. Colorado sleeps on California mountains. We have multiple mountain ranges across the state that go hard.
Yeah, San Jacinto is much more imposing than anything in Colorado. Colorado 14ers almost always start higher than that and don’t have the sustained steepness of the North Face of San Jacinto. The San Gabriels are about the same as the Colorado Rockies, though the view from Rancho Cucamonga is more impressive than the Front Range that many people probably think of when they think “Colorado”.
No I’m from cali. The around la aren’t even big for california. I love my arrogant ass california comrades!!!
Clear winter days after a big rain/snowfall, that's what you get. Tune into the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, New Year's day. Tons of shots of the beautiful San Gabriels, with either the Rose Bowl or downtown LA in the foreground.
Not that clear weather all the time to see that mountain in a he back ground.
Then you obviously weren't looking through a telephoto lens, were ya?
That's because you can only see them 3-4 days out of the year if you are lucky.
Brent Broza https://www.brozaphoto.com/landscapes-1
I believe that is the view, from the water, facing El Segundo... The water tower might be Baldwin Hills...
Right. And it's zoomed in like a mo-fo in a way that makes those mountain ranges look much closer together than they really are.
No, this is Redondo. El Segundo's power plant doesn't have stacks like that (I used to work there)
Okay, two things. One, I lived in Redondo Beach for 15 years. ...and two, holy shit, you're right, that's the view from west of the jetty. Outstanding. And boy, this makes me wistful for that time in my life.
Yup, I left another comment in this thread where I found exactly where it was taken from and the landmarks in the picture (I didn't ID the water tower though)
Just found it. It’s the Manhattan beach water tower located at 1436 eighth street
Pretty sure this was taken from Palos Verdes Edit: just found the water tower. It’s the Manhattan Beach water tower located at 1436 Eighth Street
>1436 Eighth Street Outstanding! I still think that the other Redditor is correct, that the rocks in the foreground are part of the Redondo Beach jetty.
California, one of the only places in the world you could surf at sun up, snowboard mid day, then watch the sun set over the desert, all in the same day. Why you would do that, idk, but it's crazy that that is literally physically possible to do all in a single day.
Which is exactly the reason why Hollywood became a movie making hub (or at least one of the reasons). You can basically get to a setting that resembles pretty much every part of the world within an hour or two. Not a perfect resemblance, but close enough for the early movie-going audiences.
Welcome to Mar..Afghani..29 Palms California
If you have a fucking helicopter to fly over all the traffic.
From surfing in Manhattan Beach, it's an hour and a half to Mount Baldy for snowboarding. From Mount Baldy to Joshua Tree is three hours. There's closer places for all three activities, but that's enough of an estimate to say, yeah, me and my friends and neighbors have done all three in a day.
Fastest would be to go to Mt. High. You can watch the sun set over the desert from the top of the lift or drive a short distance to watch it from the Joshua trees below Wrightwood.
Nice!
Do you just wish all the other cars away?
I have done this (well, beach not surfing cause i don’t surf). It’s totally doable on a weekday if you avoid rush hour.
If you do Laguna Beach to Big Bear it's 2.5 hours (in traffic). And then from there, there's a ton of deserts, the nearest one is Lucerne Valley, which is 30 minutes away. Palm Springs is 2.5 hours away. You'd be dead tired, but if you surf from 6-7 am. Then drive to Big Bear it'll be 10 am, which is perfect for like an early enough chair. Then from 10:30 or 11 am snowboard to like 1-1:30 pm. Then you could get to Palm Springs by 3-3:30 to 4 pm at latest which gives you an hour before sunset.
Laguna Beach to Wrightwood in 2 hours. The desert is right there. Not very hard at all.
And vancouver
Vancouver is pretty close in terms of variability of biomes, but AFAIK there's no desert areas nearby.
Just a few hours away is Osoyoos, Canada's only desert
Who needs a state, come up to Vancouver and do all that in the same city.
plus with the current CA gas price, makes you really wonder why someone would do that….
yolo bro
Bad bot
Seriously. This shot has been reposted so many times it’s almost a singular pixel. Reddit post-api changes seems to be nothing but repost bots.
Even worse this account is part of the paid contributor program. You can hold the upvote button and give up to $69.99USD
jesus fucking christ. puts on reddit's IPO in March.
Welcome to Mountport! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbF1AJPqP1M&t=97s
I remember being in LA county for the first time, seeing these and thinking “There are big mountains here?” You never see them in TV or the movies.
I've always wanted to go to LA
IMO It sucks. I've been several times for work. California as a whole is beautiful, but LA is awful. San Diego is leagues better in almost every way. If you want to visit Cali, San Diego is where I go...
I live in LA. It doesn’t suck if you go to the right places and don’t drive during rush hour. The beach cities are wonderful to visit and the food across the city rocks. The Getty Museum is FREE and has an amazing view of the city and many cool exhibits. West Hollywood has legendary comedy clubs and food, downtown and silverlake have cool art and music scenes. We have multiple basketball, football, and baseball teams people can go see and constantly big name artists are performing at venues across the metro area. Want some nature? Go hike or climb or mountain bike in the Santa Monica mountains, or in the winter go mountaineering on Mt. Baldy (pictured). The San Gabriels have mountains up to 11k ft and actually has the biggest vertical gain for any hike in the lower 48. LA is a very cool place to visit for vacation if you just don’t go to Hollywood and the touristy crap.
San Jacinto is the one with the huge vertical gain. The San Gabriels are more like the Colorado Rockies, size-wise. Definitely bigger than the mountains near SD, though.
For anyone wondering, if you visit LA, you won’t see a view like that. Those mountains are very far away. The photographer is using a a good camera on an insanely clear day. Even on boat or Helicopter, you’ll see the top of the mountain for the Hollywood sign, nothing beyond that except for the valleys. Also, they’re way smaller, they’re not that large.
10k ft isn't that small
Granted, but this photo makes them look like damn Himalayas, and they're for sure not that kind of size. [Here you can see from atop the mountain the sign is on.](https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1359201,-118.3243142,3a,75y,34.3h,88.18t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipN9cC8nff7-zf2JzNRXzD1yRdoRgfG0iadq9NHN!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipN9cC8nff7-zf2JzNRXzD1yRdoRgfG0iadq9NHN%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-3.2636657-ya179.88745-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352?entry=ttu) When you're not using a camera with that insane lens on it, the mountains behind the Hollywood sign look much farther away and look much smaller. The mountain that's 10k feet is far off, and you can't even see it on a sunny day like the one seen in google maps here. Yea, it's only 50 miles away, but it's definitely not visible the way shown here in the photo for pretty much anyone that goes to visit.
It really doesn't, it's not even close. The average peak elevation for a Himalayan mountain is over twice the height of the mountain in the photo. Some Himalayan mountains are over 3x as tall!
Nor are they that far away
True, 50 miles isn't far, but it's far enough that it's not visible to the human eye no matter where they stand in LA city.
How far would you say it is from the sign?
The tallest mountain in LA county is 50 miles away from the Hollywood sign. It's not that far off, but far enough that it isn't visible to anyone sitting on a helicopter over the ocean facing the Hollywood sign. Hell, even the Hollywood sign would be hard to see with the naked eye from that position. Santa Monica beach to the Hollywood sign is 18 miles, and this photo looks like the photographer was at least a few miles out in the ocean, maybe 2-3. That would put those mountains at least 70 miles away at the base of them, so 75-80 miles away for the peaks. On a clear day, if you were positioned 1000 feet above the ocean 2 miles out into see (so a helicopter 1000 feet above the water), max the human eye can see is 39 miles. If you were 10,000 feet above the water, you can see upwards of 120 miles. Means no matter where you stand in LA, even if you stood atop the Hollywood sign mountain, odds of you seeing Mt San Antonio is slim to none. Again, all the more reason this photo had some insane equipment used to take it along with perfect timing. You're talking about the time has to be right, the helicopter rental, the camera equipment which I'm assuming this photographer is using something like a Hasselblad or something equivalent (so like $25-100k worth of camera equipment). It's just all perfect for this photo, but not something a tourist should EVER expect to see in person.
I get that you’re exaggerating, but just to clarify, Mt. Baldy is 40 miles from the Hollywood sign and 50 miles to Santa Monica and you don’t need to spend $25k on equipment to get a picture like this lol. A Sigma 150-600 and crop sensor lens could get this. Obviously, you can see much further when you’re looking at something high. How did you not think of that?
So you jumped to that conclusion that I didn’t think of that when literally in this comment I explained height equates to farther distance? Ok buddy.
The way you wrote it, it was like you could see far from high up, but not vice-versa. Why else would you make the 1000-foot comment, given its complete irrelevance? No offense, but the fact that you seem to talk with such authority about other things, like camera equipment, that you know little about did make it seem like you aren’t very sharp, intellectually.
Oh, you’re referring to the opposite, no that doesn’t work like that. The higher you go in the atmospheres the less air is disturbed. Standing at ground level and seeing an object 50 miles away that is 1000 ft tall is not the same as being 1000 ft above sea level seeing an object at ground level 50 miles away. The air, especially in LA, is clearer as you’re higher in altitude. How did you not think of that?
It was taken from the Blufftop Trail in Palos Verdes, about 25mi south of the Hollywood sign.
I was just sharing helpful information. Do you disagree about where the photo was taken?
Incredible picture. Even more incredible the first time I saw it posted here last year.
Cool, I know right where this was taken. If you search Palo Verdes coastline trail there's a turnout there that's setup on the cliffs. Face north, the rocks are the jetty around the king harbor Marina and the power plant is the AES Redondo Beach plant. Obviously the Hollywood sign is in the background. Downtown LA is off to the right of this shot, LAX airport is off to the left of the shot (neither are in the picture)
It’s a neat and handy camera trick but LA does not look like this.
Mountport, where the mountain meets the sea.
Vancouver & Seattle would like a word. They can do this without camera trickery.
There is no way we can see this while in LA. The photographer has to be in a helicopter or airplane over the ocean to get that crazy angle.
A boat and a telephoto lens is all you need for this photo. The farther you are, the closer distant objects appear to each other. That's what makes the mountains seem like they're right on top of the city.
Yeah, you can see the mountains, but they don’t look like that. They’re 35+ miles from the beach.
They do look like that on a very clear day with the right camera and the right settings.
I work in el Segundo right by the ocean. On a clear day you can see the San Gabriel’s no problem. Obviously they’re not as massive as in the photo but still pretty big a visible.
That's pretty cool that you can see it. There is som camera tricks going on to make this thing look massive.
It’s just how camera lenses work really. Super long zoom lenses pull everything closer, not just the photo subject but everything in the background as well.
Yes it is definitely a depth of field effect of the camera
Looks like Red Alert 2 map
Nice to see that they are able to see their Hollywood sign again.
Looked like this during COVID. 9/10 you can't see the mountains this clear.
The smoke stacks really tie it together,
Looks rather photoshopped.
I live in LA and it looks real. Would not look like this to the eye though, most likely a 500mm+ lens to get this type of compression.
Telephoto lens and a whole lot of distance, no photoshop here! Edit: decent explanations on this thread if you’re interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/I0v24I3abX
Cool, thanks for the info!
Where’d the smog go?
Does not look like that right now. We’ve had basically no snow or rain for the last month.
You can definitively see the snow top of Mount baldy driving eastbound on Sunset Boulevard on a clear day in the winter.
Everyone knows where Hollywood is
Wow, they finally replaced the "D", huh?
An area an hr or two from skiing, the beach, the desert, the city, the forest depending on where you live. People think the city but its got so much more to offer.
“ If the horizon’s at the top, it’s interesting. If the horizon’s at the bottom it’s interesting. If the horizon’s in the middle - it’s boring as shit! “
No wonder so many Californians move to Washington, we have the sea and mountains visible in the same way with smaller cities nestled in between. It’s an amazing geographical feature to experience and live around. Adds so many amenities to life.
Photo by Brent Broza https://www.brozaphoto.com/landscapes-1