Gone to See Hawaii. Big Island Photography Workshop with Thom Hogan. Day 6: Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden.
We stopped at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens on our last day of the workshop. The Garden is located about 7 miles north of Hilo along the Old Mamalahoa Highway overlooking Onomea bay. This was a target rich environment. I do recommend mosquito repellent and possibly an umbrella. The hike down the trail from the gift center to Onomea bay takes a couple of hours, and is about a 500 foot elevation drop. Just remember you have to walk back up (although there is a golf cart for the physically challenged to take you back up). Thom spent some time helping me get the focus right for the image of the yellow orchid. I learned that Varilux glasses can be a problem when trying to get accurate/critical focus through the viewfinder.
Gone to See Hawaii. Big Island Photography Workshop with Thom Hogan. Day 1: Kailua Kona.
It is hard to believe that the day before I was taking pictures of wildlife in Colorado. I read a note on the Thom Hogan site a month earlier that he had a late opening for this workshop so signed up as quick as I could. At that time I was working 2 weeks a month in Boulder, so it would be a bit easier to fly to Hawaii. I previously purchased his D200 and D2xs eBooks and wanted to learn more about the cameras and become a better photographer. For the first three nights we stayed at the Kona Seaside Hotel. The group of four students and Thom met in the lobby at 15:00 for our first lecture. We then walked down to the beach to photograph the beach, some tidal pools, and sunset. Part of this first shoot was for Thom to observe our photographic practices and skills so he could customize individual instruction for the rest of the workshop.
Sunset and Sailboat off Kona Beach. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). (David J Mathre)Sunset of Kailua Harbor from Kona Beach. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 12-24 mm DX lens (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/9, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)Sunset of Kailua Harbor from Kona Beach, Big Island Hawaii. Day 1 of Thom Hogan’s 2007 Hawaii Photography Workshop. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 12-24 mm DX lens (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/9, HDR 9 images 1/800 to 1/20 sec). (David J Mathre)
I used different tools to process the last two images. I think I like the HDR version better because the sun is a disk and not blown out, although the sky/clouds are better in the first version.
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