Landscape

Photo: Iconic green palm trees against cloudless blue sky.

Grabbed this shot back in ‘07 while walking around the grounds of the Westin Maui Resort in Ka’anapali. We were just taking in the sights – as it was our first return visit to Maui – and happened to look up and decided to snap this one. It became an instant favorite.

A Different Look

I posted this image in a different form about a year or so ago when I was playing around with AndreaMosaic. Here’s another look at that image.

Click on the image to see a larger view on Flickr where you can see all the tiny little photos it’s comprised of. Seeing as I’ve been to Maui two more times since I last played with AndreaMosaic, I should probable give it another whirl.

Photo: A panoramic view of Honolua Bay in West Maui near Kapalua.

One of the bigger panos that I’ve managed to shoot well enough to work. This view was a combination of 12 vertical images I captured on a golden hour excursion during the ‘09 Maui Photo Festival.

Since I was facing generally northwest with trees and mountains between me and the 7am sunshine, the light wasn’t the greatest. Still, I liked the detail in most of the final image and decided it post it here on the blog.

Click on the photo to view on Flickr and see a larger version with more detail.

Save Honolua

One last note about the area of Maui that this photo was taken. Its natural beauty is currently being threatened by commercial and private development, and one of the groups aiming to stop those threats is the Save Honolua Coalition. If you wouldn’t mind, take a moment to read the story behind their cause and follow their regular updates on the Save Honolua Coalition page on Facebook.

Mahalo,
– 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: A colorful Maui Sunset over the island of Lanai as seen from Maui’s west coast in Ka’anapali.

One of my favorite sunsets from Maui – and there are many to choose from.

No two sunsets on the islands are ever the same, so when you see the colors and clouds like this, you can’t help but grab a camera and try to capture it forever. You never know if you’ll see one like it again!

– Kris

Photo: A view of the mysterious Alau Islet from the intriguing red sand next to Koki Beach near the small town of Hana, Maui.

Another image reliving our fond memories of visiting Hana last February and making the wise decision to spend a night there.

Going back to Hawaii (Photography)

No official trip plans to Maui yet, but as I’m starting to revisit my previous images of Aloha and running them through my newest workflow, I’ll be working to add a format and output step for posting to the Hawaii Photography site, too.

Of my latest images (i.e. since September), this is the first one I’m adding there, but will work to go back and upload some of my recent creations as well.  To see all my photos at HP, check out my profile page.

And if you have lovely images of Hawaii that you’d like to share with other fans/photographers of the Aloha State, be sure to sign up while you’re there.

– Kris

More Reading: More on Hawaii Photography (Dec ‘08 post)