Haleakala - House of the Sun

Haleakala (House of the Sun) on the island of Maui, a truly amazing place above the clouds. If you get the chance to go then take it, but also take some patience as the drive to the top is a long and winding road. (The image above is looking west at the peak of Mauna Kahalawai in the West Maui Mountains).

The peak stands at 10,023 feet and looks out over a barren wasteland of volcanic rock. Getting up there does take some time as the road is very slow going. The speed limit on the Haleakala Highway in most places is between 15 and 20 mph and there are lots of blind turns (I counted somewhere around 30 blind hairpin turns), but about half way up you begin to rise above the clouds, which is really cool.

If you're not use to altitude then you'll definitely begin to feel it. We stopped at the visitor centre at around 7000 feet to use the bathroom, and as soon as I got out of the car I could feel how thin the air was; a bit more difficult to get a full breath and a slight pressure in my chest.  Up at 10,000 feet was very noticeable. You do get used to it, but you have to take slow deep breaths. It can be very disconcerting if you haven't experienced it before.

We also got really lucky with the weather. We had a clear day, very little wind and no rain. I have heard of other's experiences up there in the blowing wind and rain, and very cold temperatures. When we left Ka'anapali the thermometer in the car read 82F (27C), at the summit it read 49F (9C). I suggested to my my wife that she should bring her winter mittens, we already had our winter coats going down there from Canada in February. I was pretty ok in a t-shirt and hoodie, and my wife was happy to have had her winter coat and mittens.

So make sure you put this on your travel bucket list...it is worth the drive, trust me!

Cheers!

DC

In the Nick of Time!

You have less than 2 minutes to capture a perfect sunset...don't screw it up! 

Sometimes you see a gorgeous sunset, and it’s always slowly slipping away. This was the case for this image…and I almost missed it! 

My wife and I recently vacationed in Maui. On this day we had just returned from visiting Pearl Harbor on O’ahu and were driving back from the airport. We were heading west along highway 30 and the sun was slowly going down. We were on the twisty turny section of road between Maalaea and Lahaina and there was not really a safe place to pull over.

We continued to watch the sun going down and I was getting a bit anxious because I wanted to pull over and grab a few shots before it left for the day. We had just come out of the twisting section of road, and just as the sun was almost touching the horizon a left turn lane presented itself…like it was saying here’s your chance take it or leave it! 

Now for the record, being safe should always be paramount to getting a photo. I mean there is a sunset every night so it’s not worth causing an accident. However, judging by the way others were driving some just don’t care about safety…sigh!

So we pulled off (safely) and I scrambled out of the car, grabbed my camera from my bag in the back seat, and moved quickly to find a spot (by the way the sound silencers on the Think Tank Photo Retro 7 make it easy to get into your bag quickly). By this time the bottom of the sun had already started to drop below the horizon. Just to give you sense of timing my first shot was at 6:23:36 pm and my last shot after sun dropped below the horizon was 6:25:25 pm, so less than 2 minutes. This shot was taken right in the middle at 6:24:38 pm.

I was shooting with a Nikon D810 with the 28-300mm lens. I really didn’t check all of my settings because I was moving pretty quickly. But I do remember doing 3 things…on the run…AF switch on, check (it can get moved going in and out of the bag), VR on, check (shooting handheld with 300mm lens), and I also switched off bracketing mode that I was using earlier. 

I began shooting and made a couple of exposure adjustments on the fly. But I totally forgot to check my ISO so it was still at 100. Aperture was at f6.3 and I had dropped the EV Comp by 1/3 of a stop. When all was said and done I realized that I got away with 1/400^th shutter speed…whew! This shot was racked out at 300mm so having turned the VR on earlier was helpful for additional stabilization.

Sometimes you have to move quickly and make adjustments on the fly, and then hope that you made the critical choices. I was lucky that I got away with it…this time!

Cheers!

DC

Ghost Town - Nelson, Nevada (Part 2 - "The Shoot & The Gear")

Following up from my previous post "The Shot" (above). This time I'll walk through the "The Shoot and The Gear."

After we arrived and got checked in at Nelson this was the first spot I saw that I wanted to shoot. It might have been the big Coca~Cola sign that drew my attention, it may have also been the overall shape of the barn. As soon as I looked at it I saw a very simple composition.

I knew I wanted to put the peak of the roof in the upper left hand third, which meant positioning myself on the right. I started with my tripod in it's full height position, but after trying a few test shots I lowered it by about a third. This gave me a bit of an upward looking view, which put the peak of the roof where I wanted it in the frame.

It was just past 6:00 pm so the light was beginning to fade, so it was a great time of day to shoot. I knew even before coming to Nelson that I was going to be bracketing every shot and have a little HDR'fest. Even if I wasn't going to do any HDR, but just single exposures, I still would have bracketed multiple shots. I didn't know when I was going to be back so getting a range of exposures provides some latitude to play around with in post.

As you can see from the above image I shot a 7 bracket set (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3) and I've highlighted the exposure value for each image. You'll also notice that these are NEF's so I was shooting in RAW, which provides for maximum flexibility in post. Again, I didn't know when I'd be back so I wanted to give myself the best chance for the best outcome in post.

You can also see that the +2 and +3 images are really blown out, but look closely inside the open door of the barn. In the other exposures there is no detail to be found, but at the high end I was able to get some of that interior detail. Also, check out the sky in the -3 shot. This has a nice natural gradient as the light was fading. So basically I chose 7 shots because I thought that would give me enough range to grab all of the detail from the shadows and highlights.

There's so much really cool stuff to shoot there that I could have stayed a lot longer, but it was getting dark, and our stomachs told us it time to feed them! ;)

The Gear - I was shooting with a Nikon D810 fitted with a Nikon 16-35mm f4. Shot in aperture mode, 16mm @ f6.3. This was my first real outing with the D810 and I'm very happy with how it performs.

Stay tuned for Part 3 - "The Post", where I'll walk through how I mashed all 7 exposures together to create the final image.

Cheers!

DC

Ghost Town - Nelson, Nevada - Part 1 "The Shot"

While I was attending Photoshop World 2014 in Las Vegas last September I finally got the chance to head down to the old Ghost Town in Nelson, Nevada. However, if you punch "Nelson, Nevada" into your GPS you'll get nothin'! Good thing I had a travelling companion that day who told me it was actually called "Searchlight, Nevada" ...thanks +Deb Uscilka! Punched in "Searchlight" and away we went!

If you do go, and it's your first time, be sure to sign-in at the main store. There was $10.00 charge, which is really nothing compared all of the great photo opportunities there. And believe me when I tell you we were not the only ones there that Friday night.

After we checked in this was this first location that I set-up to shoot. As the post title says this is Part 1 "The Shot". I'm going be trying something new here on the blog where I'll take one image and follow it with a 3 part series. I'll walk through "The Shot", "The Shoot & The Gear" (what I used and how I got the shot), and finally "The Post" (post processing to make the final image).  So stay tuned for Part 2 shortly where I'll talk about how I got the shot.

Cheers for now!

DC