Beach

Strolling along the sand with the water washing ashore.

Back Story

This shot was taken during the day one golden hour shoot at the ’11 Maui Photo Festival.

Check out a few others from the shoot in my complete review of the festival last week.

Christian’s first steps into the ocean at Kam III in Kihei, Maui.

Back Story

Over the Fourth of July holiday, we tested the waters – so to speak – at my cousin’s pool to see how our son would take to the water outside of a bathtub setting. That didn’t go too well.

Two months later, it was time to see if the ocean was a friendlier setting for him, and although he appeared a little unsure about what was happening between the waves and the wet sand below his feet for the first time, it went much better.

Seeing that he’s only nine months old and will have no recollection of his first trip to Maui last week, this shot will be the ultimate keepsake of that experience for when he’s older and well versed in the beaches of the Valley Isle.

Photo: Series of waves washing on the shores of Wailea Beach, with clouds over West Maui near the horizon.

Now that I’m sort of back in business with my laptop situation, I wanted to throw in a few paradise shots before getting back into all the hockey images from the last two Chicago Wolves games I shot.

First, The Composition

Before I get into the detail conundrum I’m in, I wanted to say I really liked how this composition came out. Not just with the waves and the trees, but the clouds over the mountain as well.

Contrast that with this similar shot that has a more wider feel to it, and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, The Conundrum

This image made its way through my workflow with a stop in Topaz Adjust, the new Version 4.0.  I’ve been using TA for a few months, and this one is with one of the new presets named “Detail – Strong”.

Now, I also did this same image with Topaz Detail, which I’m just starting to experiment with.  You can view those results on Flickr here.

The Vote

Which one do you prefer?  I’ve added a call for input on both images on Flickr, but if you’re not part of the Flickrverse, please leave your thoughts here or on Facebook when the post is published there shortly.

Many thanks in advance,
- Kris

Photo: An old image of Waikiki Beach captured with my very first digital camera back in 2004.

For those that are following along on my Facebook page this week might have read, I recently went through some of my old digital photos from our honeymoon to Oahu and Kauai back in May ‘04. This is one of the photos I’ve played around with to try and “rescue” into a something more respectable to the level of standards set by today’s technology.

This photo was taken with the very first digital camera my wife and I bought as an Xmas present for ourselves in 2003. We knew we wanted to capture photos for our upcoming honeymoon in May after all the photos of our wedding we received from our friends back in September. Yes, there was an eight month gap between our wedding and our honeymoon – about the length of a hockey season.

Specs Back Then

The camera used was the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P51, which you can see more about in the retired section at the bottom of my Point and Shoot cameras page. To sum it up, this old sport shot with only 2 Megapixels and had a max resolution of 1600 x 1200. According to the official info from Sony, that was good enough for prints up to 8×10.

Nowadays, most cell phone cameras have better specs. My current phone, the HTC Touch Pro, has a 3.2 Megapixel camera with a max resolution of 2048 x 1536. Now while I wouldn’t be using a cell phone to capture a scene like above, it does do a darn good job with random quick snapshots like this one.

What was your first digital camera?

Do you remember your first digital camera?  Sure, it’s no first kiss, but if you’ve been playing around with digital photography for at least a few years now you probably have one or two cameras that have been put out to pasture now, but were the great tech at the time.

Feel free to leave a note about your first digital camera, and even a link or two to some images if you have them on Flickr or somewhere else.

Photo: An aerial view of the peaceful D.T. Fleming Beach Park in West Maui, just passed Kapalua.

Like many beaches on Maui, I have fond memories of patrolling the sand from end to end looking for different views to capture. Yet, when I get to capture the entire crescent beach from above like this photo, it truly is a thrill.

How did I get this shot? I was hanging out of a helicopter without doors on it during the ’09 Maui Photo Festival, that’s how! Maybe I’ll see you there in August?