From imagination to image
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This just goes to show you that in the fish world like in the bird world the male is the flashier of the two. The females are a uniform brown with white spots while the guys are dark blue and have orange markings across the back and eyes. We saw many more of the females than males
Canon 50D, Canon 24-105L f/4.0, Ewa Marine underwater housing.
Tags: Boxfish, Hawai'i, Kahalu'u Beach, Kona, male, Snorkeling, Vacation
We saw this little guy as we were walking around the condo area in Kona. He didn’t sit still for long, but I was faster than he was in this case. And he didn’t try to sell me any insurance either!
Well Mike and I made a great final push to get the web page for our trip done. You can see it here Now it’s time for me to get serious in deleting all the extraneous images and see what I find that I wanted to include but didn’t.
Heiau means temple in Hawai’ian There were many types of temple from those for healing to those for luck in fishing or harvest, in voyaging and even those for success in war (although those were dedicated through human sacrifice). This Heiau is the only one in Hawai’i that was dedicated to surfing. Surfing was only for men of the noble class (who surfed naked apparently) commoners surfing in this area were put to death. But times have changed. This young Hawai’ian is sitting in front of the offerings on the Heiau watching the tourists surf in the fading of the day.
Canon 5DMII, Canon 16-35L f/2.8 3 images combined in Photomatix, contrast and noise adjusted, color stylized with Nik software plugins in CS4
Tags: Canon 16-35L f/2.8, Canon 5DMII, Hawai'i, Kahalu'u Beach, Kona, Ku'emanu Heiau, Nik Software, Sepia, Sunset, surfing, Vacation
I saw this wandering tattler while sitting on the rocks at Kahalu’u beach in Kona watching Mike surf. It seemed to be looking for crabs since the snails at it’s feet didn’t seem to be exciting it very much. These birds winter in Hawai’i and summer and breed in Alaska
Canon 5DMII, Canon 100-400L f/4.5-5.6
Tags: Avian, Bird, Canon 100-400L f/4.5-5.6, Canon 5DMII, Hawai'i, Kahalu'u Beach, Kona, Vacation, Wandering Tattler
It was a beautiful morning when we left Lihue to drive to Waimea, but by the time we got to the canyon the morning clouds had settled down into the valley (see Rain over Waimea Canyon)) but we still headed up into the mountains to see what there was to see and when we reached Pu’u o Kila Lookout it was pouring rain. As we sat in the car watching people hurry back from the Kalalau valley trail the rain cleared and the sun came out so we took a short walk along the begining (or end) of the trail until it started to rain again, about 20 minutes later. You can see how the clouds and fog came up from the valley behind us – one moment you could see out over the valley and then 30 seconds later it would be completely covered in clouds. We traded favors of pictures with another family to get this shot of the two of us.
Canon 5DMII, Canon 15-35L f/2.8
Tags: Canon 16-35L f/2.8, Canon 5DMII, Hawai'i, Kalalau Trail, Kalalau Valley, Vacation, Waimea canyon
Taken while standing in the ocean in front of the Hilton Kaua’i where we stayed all 4 nights on Kaua’i. It wasn’t good for my tripod, I know that but it was hard to resist wading into the incredibly clear water in the warm pre-dawn hour instead of shooting from the beach. And the angle was so much better. I’m paying for it now, I should replace all the hardware on the tripod since it’s begining to rust.
This is a Pano HDR composed of 4 HDR images each of which was composed of 5 images taken at 1EV. The HDR was done in Photomatix and the pano was stiched in Photoshop CS4 (which rocks!). Adjustments were made with Nik plugins and Luminosity painting with Tony Kuypers luminosity mask actions. Canon 5DMII, Canon 16-35L f/2.8.
Tags: Canon 16-35L f/2.8, Canon 5DMII, Hawai'i, HDR, Hilton Kaua'i, Kaua'i, Panoramic, Sunrise, Vacation
The last morning on Kaua’i was frustrating in a way, the flight out to Honolulu then Hilo wasn’t until 2:45 which meant we had time for a nice lesiurely breakfast and lunch but left us with too much time on our hands, yet not enough to go anywhere significant. So we wandered the grounds, Mike going for shots of some of the waterfowl and birds on the property and me looking for some more scenic images of this beautiful spot. I was struck by the shadow of the palm tree in one of the pools but wanted something a little extra. So after fooling about a bit with the Nik plugins I decided on the “glamour glow” effect. I think it’s pretty cool.
For comparison here is the non “glamour glow” image:
Canon 5DMII, Canon 15-35L f/2.8 Polarizing filter. Finished with Nik Plugins in LR2 (after removing a stray swimmer too!)
During the snorkeling tour with Liam and Sea Quest Adventures we made a stop at “Turtle Reef”, a quiet section of shore where the water was clear down to at least 100 feet. Of course it was one of those things we just hoped to do was to see a green sea turtle. This was the only one we saw on the snorkel tour but we found about 6 more before the trip was over.
Canon 50D in a Ewa-Marine housing. Canon 580EX flash, Canon 24-105L f/4.0 lens at 24mm
As we drove down the Chain of Craters road we passed by a lava covered field that was being reclaimed by grasses. This lava flow is about 40 years old and I am not sure if this tree was killed during the flow, but I am guessing it grew since then and reached a size that the sparse minerals in the lava could no longer support. In another 40 years it probably would have survived to be twice the size it was.