Hawaii - Part I

Aloha!! Ha I'm such a nerd. I just couldn't help myself. We just got back from a 10-day vacation in Hawaii. What an AMAZING trip! We visited the islands of Kauai and Maui. Kauai was by far the most breathtaking place I've ever visited. I couldn't imagine a more beautiful place. The island was a combination of giant lush mountains, monstrous orange canyons and brilliant blue-water beaches. It felt like Ireland, Fiji and the Grand Canyon in one INCREDIBLE island.

Each afternoon, momentary rain showers blew in leaving behind the most striking and brilliant rainbows imaginable. It almost felt like you could reach out and touch them. I have to admit, this trip exceeded my expectations in a very weird way! Needless to say, it was a fabulous place to practice my photography skills.

In preparation of our trip, I rented a wide-angle lens from borrowlenses.com. After researching landscape photography and pros and cons between telephoto and wide-angle lenses, I opted for the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8. It had impeccable reviews and essentially legendary status in the wide angle category. With a price tag of nearly $2,000, borrowing a lens before you make this kind of purchase is a fabulous idea (not that I could afford this bad boy anyways!). Not to mention, Borrow Lenses made it such a convenient and pleasant experience. I highly recommend lens rental.

The Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G Ed AF-S

For the non-photog readers, the wide angle lens aims to provide a larger depth of field than a standard lens (i.e. "kit lens" - the introductory lens that comes with your camera). The larger depth of field means more sharpness and detail you can capture from corner to corner. This is a recommeded lens for landscape photography since you are usually trying to capture every detail in the photo. For instance, if you're taking a beach snapshot you probably want to capture rays of sun, the texture of sand, and the brilliance of the water. Where if you were taking a picture of a person, likely you want the attention to be drawn to the person and not necessarily background details (street lamps, a neighbor in the yard, a dog in a park, a fire hydrant, etc.). Of course there are many different ways to do this, and this is just a very elementary explanation.

Since I’m a newbie, I'm shouldn't be giving photog tips so check out my fave photo resource DPS for great articles on landscape photography. Here is a very basic landscape article: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/photographing-the-perfect-landscape.

Back to the Hawaii trip! I came home with nearly 1,000 photos. One thing about a photography hobby is there is A LOT more to it than just a fun snappy snap papparazzi sounding cam. It's way more difficult than taking photos with a point and shoot (at least for me it is :). It requires me to stop before each photo and think about the light, clouds, colors, focal point, depth of field and so on. Which also means a lot more editing when you get home from your relaxing vacay.

I have a boatload to learn about all this photog funness! So.....you’ll have to come back soon for pics of Hawaii....only so many fun hobby hours in a day. :) Here are just a few teaser snapshots though.

Cliffs overlooking the Na Pali Coast taken from a helicopter ride.

This pic still needs help but I just love the colors

so I wanted to give you a sneak preview.

The Waimea Canyons in Kauai, Hawaii.

I'm making updates to this one to - just a little pre-editing peak!