Christmas in Hawaii (Early Edits)

[Eric Swenson]

Here are some early edits of my (thus far) favorite shots that I took this last week in Hawaii on a family vacation.
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Near the southern tip of Hawaii (and therefore the United States as well), fierce winds howl about, causing trees to grow like this:

A55 + Minolta 70-210mm f/4 "Beercan" at f/8, ISO 400, .ARW converted to .DNG, edited in LR

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Up in northern Hawaii near Waimea, light shines through the low clouds veiling a part of Mauna Kea.

A55 + Minolta 70-210mm f/4 "Beercan" at f/8, ISO 100, .ARW converted to .DNG, edited in LR

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This little guy was inching along the cement at Kona Joe's Kona Coffee outside Kailua-Kona.

A55 + Minolta 70-210mm f/4 "Beercan" at f/5.6, ISO 320, .ARW converted to .DNG, edited in LR

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A woman by the shore, reading in the morning light

A55 + Minolta 70-210mm f/4 "Beercan" at f/5.6, ISO 100, .Jpeg in camera using "Toy Camera" filter, edited in LR
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Chelonia mydas, the Green Sea Turtle (In this case, of the darker Pacific variety) on a black sand beach on the south eastern edge of the island.

A55 + Minolta 70-210mm f/4 "Beercan" at f/8, ISO 100, .ARW converted to .DNG, edited in LR
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Fierce winds provide renewable energy, but the old turbines remain.

A55 + Minolta 70-210mm f/4 "Beercan" at f/8, ISO 400, .ARW converted to .DNG, edited in LR (Currently too noisy due to the push-pull B+W, and with slightly slanted vertical lines that are bugging me to death)
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Hiking on the solidified lava flows in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park:

A55 + Sony 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 SAL Kit Lens at f/8, ISO 100, .ARW converted to .DNG, edited in LR

 

[Pete Askew]

Some great looking shots in there Eric. Love the sense of scale in the landscapes and the B&W treatment of the turbines works very well I think. And I like the framing / crop of the turtle very much. Looking forward to more!

 

[adrian jordin]

Brilliant pictures, Eric.
I love the little caterpillar...
.. and the framing of the turbines is great. It probably wouldn't have worked as well with more of them in the shot.

 

[Kev Pugh]

what a great set Eric nice

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Some stunners there Eric

I love the depth you got in #2, with the slight mist in front of the mountains

DOF is stunning on #3 - man, that little guy was GREEN!

Loving the candid portrait shot in #4 - lovely light and a good comp tells a story.

Loving the dark tones in #5 - must have been an exposure nightmare!

And the sign in the lava is a classic

 

[Hamish Gill]

Love the little caterpillar shot, perfect dof
Great shot of the turtle too! brilliant composition!
Great set, looks like a nice holiday really!

 

[Brodie Jackson]

Great set, Eric!!

 

[Eric Swenson]

Some great looking shots in there Eric. Love the sense of scale in the landscapes and the B&W treatment of the turbines works very well I think. And I like the framing / crop of the turtle very much. Looking forward to more!

Thank you! The shot of the turtle is completely un-cropped, which is rare for me as I generally crop my shots at least a slight bit.

 

[Eric Swenson]

Brilliant pictures, Eric.
I love the little caterpillar...
.. and the framing of the turbines is great. It probably wouldn't have worked as well with more of them in the shot.

I wish I could have gotten more turbines, as there were two full rows of them... (one old and one new) and there was an angle where I think it could have been interesting, but to get to that angle I'd have to tresspass past barbed wire into ranch land, so it wasn't an option.

 

[Eric Swenson]

what a great set Eric nice

Thank you I still have things to fix with these and a lot to learn... I was frustrated to come home to shots I thought would turn out nice and find out that I'd missed some things in composing them that I hadn't noticed as I'd rushed to take the shots. I guess that just happens sometimes.

 

[Paul Lange]

They are all nice but but I like the topsy turbiness of number 2. Just when you think land has ended and sky begins you find you're looking at a mountainside! If the sky was red it would be very Flash Gordon!

 

[Eric Swenson]

Some stunners there Eric

I love the depth you got in #2, with the slight mist in front of the mountains

DOF is stunning on #3 - man, that little guy was GREEN!

Loving the candid portrait shot in #4 - lovely light and a good comp tells a story.

Loving the dark tones in #5 - must have been an exposure nightmare!

And the sign in the lava is a classic

Yeah I wish I'd gotten more pictures of the area in #2, it was simply stunning. The grass was so green it honestly looked like it was from an oversaturated HDR, but it was real!

#5 actually wasn't hard to expose, simply due to the nature of my Sony A55. Sometimes the camera is an absolute pain compared to something like a D300 or a 7D or FF cameras, but at the same time, the constant live view EVF is absolutely amazing when working in tough lighting. It's especially useful for me when I do low light staged performances such as plays, musicals, and dance productions. I don't have to worry about how the camera will interpret whitebalance, colors, or the metering, as I can see what it will look like in the end before even taking the photo.

 

[Eric Swenson]

Love the little caterpillar shot, perfect dof
Great shot of the turtle too! brilliant composition!
Great set, looks like a nice holiday really!

Thank you! It was quite a nice holiday, though I became awfully jealous of this one old chinese man who was using a 5D Mark II, 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM II and 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM and yet had almost no clue of how to operate his camera... =_=

I also ran into my first digital back. One guy was using a IQ180 to take a photo of the glow caused by the lava at night in a specific spot. He was joking around calling it his portable SUV. A pretty decent SUV at that too!

And the other thing was that after the final shot of this series (the sign) I was coming back and twisted my ankle on the easiest section of the path to walk on after having climbed over various sections of the solidified lava flows. It was quite sad, and quite ironic, though it's not the first time I've had a lapse in attention on an easy path causing me to twist an ankle.

 

[Eric Swenson]

Great set, Eric!!

Thank you!

 

[Eric Swenson]

They are all nice but but I like the topsy turbiness of number 2. Just when you think land has ended and sky begins you find you're looking at a mountainside! If the sky was red it would be very Flash Gordon!

The real pain of this shot is that we didn't actually stop in the region at all, so this was through the car window, while we were moving at 40 mph. I honestly really really wish we'd stopped there, at least for 15 minutes, but we didn't as we drove from Kona to Hilo.

 

[Brian Moore]

Great set, Eric. Caterpiller, turtle and "Road Closed" stand out for me.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Iq180 eh... Blimey ... I'm not sure I'd even know what to do with all those pixels!
What did he have on the front of it?

When I was shooting with a d300 I met a chap with a d3 who had no idea how to use it... Sickening it was! I asked him if he was shooting raw, he didn't know...

Bad luck on the ankle, hope it's ok now!

 

[Eric Swenson]

Iq180 eh... Blimey ... I'm not sure I'd even know what to do with all those pixels!
What did he have on the front of it?

When I was shooting with a d300 I met a chap with a d3 who had no idea how to use it... Sickening it was! I asked him if he was shooting raw, he didn't know...

Bad luck on the ankle, hope it's ok now!

Honestly don't remember exactly what he had in front of it, but it wasn't cheap either. Something contax and something else as well. I once ran into a guy who went on a family trip to Alaska and bought a brand new D3x, 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR, and 300mm f/4 as well as one other lens. That's it. I'm not quite sure why he decided he needed the 105mm f/2.8 Micro VR for Alaska, and even more curious why you would want a 300mm on FF for Alaska... That just doesn't cut it for wildlife there.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Different strokes for different folks i suppose...
I have no problem with peoples kit choice a long as they are not buying it for the "its the camera that the sales person said was the best"
I used to sell cameras, we had people come in once in a while asking for the "best" ... on one occasion I down sold a man from a d3 to a d90 on the basis that i felt he should learn a bit more about photography before going to the expense of a d3 ... just dont tell my ex boss that!