Haleakala

Photo: Starburst Crater

Haleakala Crater lit just after sunrise.

Back Story

This image was captured last month during the 3rd Annual Maui Photo Festival as part of their Haleakala Sunrise excursion. It is actually an HDR image created from 3 exposures and using Photomatix Pro. At first glance, it might not strike someone as the type of image people think of when they hear the term HDR. But here, I used multiple exposures to capture detail in the clouds as well as the crater below – which would have not been possible in a single exposure due to the range in highlights and shadows created by the intensity of the newly risen sun.

Here, I wanted to get as much detail as possible, so I shot at f/16. I could have framed the shot without the sun, but knowing that such a small aperture would give me a starburst effect (I was playing around with earlier in the trip) I waited to get enough separation between the clouds and the sun and placed it in the corner of the shot. Of course, it also gave me a bit of lens flare, but I didn’t mind.

Stick Around, It Ain’t Over

This was my 3rd Haleakala sunrise, and just like the previous two trips, right after sunrise, the summit and lookout points go from being shoulder-to-shoulder crowds right before the big moment, to a sparse group of folks right after. I don’t know what everyone’s hurry is, there’s still more to see (and shoot) than just the sunrise.

Better Next Time

I did want to fill in some of the foreground rocks, but my attempts with using a fill flash came up fairly lame. In hindsight, had I brought along my 32″ 5-in-1 reflector with me instead of leaving it in the hotel room that morning, it may have given me a better result than the flash. Something to try for next time.

One Last Note…

Hopefully this goes without saying, but never, ever stare at the sun through your camera’s viewfinder to get a shot like this, or any other sunrise or sunset image. You’re only asking for trouble.

For this and my other sunrise shots from the crater, I have a tripod setup and was using the Live View mode on my LCD to frame the image, switched back out of Live View (to activate autofocus again), and used the autofocus focal point selector to pick my focus point. Finally, I had a remote shutter release to fire off the brackted shots (remember, I was shooting for HDR).

Net result, I wasn’t staring at the sun through the viewfinder. Please don’t learn this the hard way.

Photo: Nene Portrait

A view of the Nene bird in the wild, at about 8,000 feet elevation along the side of the dormant Haleakala volcano.

I don’t normally shoot wildlife, but these guys were too cute to pass up on a little diversion. From what our tour guide told us (also on Wikipedia) this species was down to about 30 birds a few decades ago, and restorations efforts have increased those numbers to about 800. 

Those of us in the Midwest may recognize these birds as distant cousins of the usual Canadian Geese we see on a regular basis, but trust me, these are cuter and much nicer.

Photo: 8000 Feet

Literally coming down from a big high.

The high I’m referring to is both spiritual and physical, as I’ve yet to find many things in my life thus far that have such a spiritual awakening for me than being higher above the clouds and watching that first peek of sun coming over them, starting a new day in paradise.

The physical high, of course, is being up over 10,000ft above sea level, and as I just mentioned, above the clouds, too. This second time I was up there, the wind really wasn’t as much of a factor as it was the first visit back in February. Sure, it’s a lot colder than it is down by the beach, but this time was still such a rush that it didn’t bother me one bit.

The elevation signpost was near one of the parking lots we stopped at on our way back down from the top of Haleakala on Maui a few weeks back. The lot was for hikers starting their trek along the Halemauu Trail, but we were just there for the view and for checking out the endangered Nene birds that live along the sides of the dormant volcano.

All in all, a good morning was had by all.

Photo: Sunrise Fans

Photo: Young, bundled up visitors take in the sunrise at Haleakala on a chilly February morning.

One of the many shots I took on our first sunrise visit to the Haleakala summit on Maui.

It was an amazing experience to say the least, and totally lived up to all the hype I had psyched myself up for.

I might be able to revisit Haleakala for the sunrise part of the Maui Photo Festival in two weeks, and should the opportunity present itself, I’m definitely going back.

New Photoset: Haleakala

It’s been a month now since we’ve been back from Maui, and I’m just a little behind going through the majority of my photos from the trip as far as processing and publishing to Flickr goes. The sheer volume of photos I take when visiting Maui is utterly overwhelming compared to all the other places and subjects I shoot. In fact, this trip’s total came close to 3,500 photos!!!

My plan for the most part is to go through all of them day-by-day, activity-by-activity from the two week trip itself. First up was the early morning drive up to the Haleakala volcano to see the sunrise and so much more. More details about our trek up the volcano can be found in this journal entry over at my Maui blog.

Flickr Photoset: Haleakala

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