Canon Rebel XSi

Photo: An aerial image of Cana Island near Baileys Harbor in Door County, Wisconsin and the lighthouse that shares its name.

Preparing to be overloaded with hockey imagery soon, I thought I’d bring back a few older photos to add a little variety.  This image is from the aerial photo shoot I did back in October over the coastline of the Door County peninsula in northern Wisconsin. You can read the post behind the photo shoot there to relive some of the challenges I encountered with this particular aerial shoot, but I gave this image another go now that I’m trying out Topaz Detail from TopazLabs.

I’m still getting the hang of some of the options and when to use Topaz Detail instead of some of the presets in Topaz Adjust, so we’ll see how this works its way into my workflow in some scenarios.

Drop the Puck

Time to get ready. First of two hockey games at ice level starts on Sunday, following up with a rendezvous in almost the exact same seats the following Sunday.  Getting excited!

Let’s see how the Canon f/2.8 70-200mm lens I’m renting for these games steps up to the challenge that my existing lens have struggled with.  Here’s to hoping for the best.

– Kris

Photo: The clown fish from the crystal piece “Harmony” of the 2005-07 SCS Swarovski Trilogy.

Since my wife picked up her 100^th crystal piece from Swarovski today – yes, I said 100^th – I thought I’d fish out a photo from the set I shot last year in commemoration. Now, you’re probably thinking a 100-piece collection of these little guys is a lot. We’ll … you’re right.

But keep in mind that Cindy’s going on her fifth year as a SCS Member, and with their annual member pieces and new collections coming out 2-3 times a year, it’s easy to see how it adds up over time.

Photo: Taken at the top of many cliffs during a hike along the northern end of West Maui.

At first this might seem like a typical landscape photo looking into the vast Pacific Ocean. Maybe it’s not even that interesting during an initial flyby when flipping through a stack of photos. But there’s a few things I like about this shot that I wanted to share.

• Look down there, tiny little people. Both at the very bottom of the image and down by the water – just below center. Goes to show you just how high up we were.
• See that peak there just before the giant volcano in the background? That’s Kahakolua Point, which I also captured later that same week during my helicopter tour. I thought that was pretty neat that you can see it from here.  Check out this map on Flickr to see just how far about these two points are.
• And of course, the volcano on the horizon. Okay, it’s only the dormant volcano Haleakala and not something spewing giant amounts of lava. But it’s intriguing to me that you can see it in the distance from so many places around the island.

So, maybe this image isn’t going to be hanging up on someone’s wall anytime soon or may not get attention from too many others, but every now and again, I like having images that I personally find interesting or share a special meaning only to me and a few others.

That is sort of the point, right?

Photo: Looking at the tops of the West Maui mountains while cruising out on the water.

One year ago today we were on our way to Maui for our most recent 2 week stay on the Valley Isle.  This shot was taken during the dinner cruise we signed up for near the end of that visit.

While a winter/spring trip wasn’t in the cards this year, it’s always wonderful to revisit photos from our previous trips to keep us motivated to save up for that next trip.

Photo: The Hawaiian flower lei I gave my special wahine for Valentine’s Day.

Ever since we first caught the Aloha Spirit in 2006, we try to keep it around us as much as possible. Few things can bring that magical island feeling back like a fresh Hawaiian flower lei.

We’ll order them from time to time, usually from hawaiian-leis.com, and while they usually only last a few days, the memories they bring back are well worth it.

Wait ‘Til Next Time…

This particular lei was a surprise V-day gift for my lovely wife, and I only had about 30 minutes from when it was delivered to when we came home – talk about cutting it close!

That didn’t leave a lot of time for me to set everything up for more thorough photo session. I almost wish I had a macro lens or had switched to my 50mm f/1.8 instead, so the next time we order these little floral gifts of Aloha, I may be better prepared.

I did take a few smaller bracketed exposures to play around with the Super Resolution technique I’m reading about in Photographic Multishot Techniques from my book list earlier this year. I honestly never knew it existed and haven’t tried the software yet, but at least I snapped the necessary shots to experiment with.

If it works out, you’ll probably be seeing this image again in the near future.

– Kris