Oahu Civic Orchestra Summer Concert - 6/26/2011

This is the second time I attended the free concert put on by the Oahu Civic Orchestra and this time it was at the First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu at Koolau. The acoustics was great and the orchestra sounded even better. The main problem I had was that it was really dark and I had a hard time finding the right settings to use, so I spent most of time listening and enjoying the music instead of struggling w/ my camera.
I used my 50mm lens in hopes to use the larger aperture to get more light, and thanks to Photoshop Elements, I reworked the photos to rid the yellow and reds in the darkened shots.
I walked around to find a good position.
I ended up back in the front row hoping to get some closer shots using my 100mm lens.
I tried shooting through people to get individual performers.

Pan Pacific Festival Parade - 6/12/2011

Final day of festival is the parade. This year the parade seem shorter than previous year since it ended just before sunset and I didn't have to even use a flash. This year, I used a 100mm and practiced my newly discovered technique.
I saw the tuba player pass by and notice the really cool reflection on his shiny instrument.
Of course in every parade, there will be a pageant queen.
There were these big hair kimono customed women.She was really cute, but some lady got right in front of me w/ her iphone..There were students from a Sendai School.The finale of the parade are these lanterns. They stopped in front of us and then heeve-ho and lifted this huge float.
The drummer drummed on the float.
I took two shots then stitched them together to get the entire float.
Then it was all over.

Pan Pacific Festival - 6/11/2011

Wow..it's already been a year since the last Pan Pacific Festival. This year we found a different spot and were directly across from the center of the stage, although we were right behind the entertaintment staff so it was hard to avoid their heads in my shot. I used my 70-200mm lens to get closeup. This time I tried using manual settings and also the center focus point and it worked out really well. The trick is to use it to focus first then reframe for composition. Previously I had been moving the focus points but that didn't always resulted in sharp shots. I did a lot of practicing on the center focus point for these shots.
As usual, there were hula dancers...
It was pretty dark at the stage. I used mostly ISO650 without a flash.There was a gospel singer who was sang really well in English.There was a Taiko performance from the local Okinawan group.This guy came in the front to capture his family members on stage and I thought I'd capture him in my shot.Then there was a Kimono Fashion show of antique Kimonos from Hiroshima Japan.These are antique Wedding Kimono. It was hot in the afternoon and I'm sure they were really uncomfortable in these heavy outfits. They really looked like Japanese Dolls I've seen at Shirokiya.Then there was this musical about mythical creatures. I really love their bright and colorful costume. I heard this costume weighed 30lbs..The mythical devil was shot by an arrow and finally killed. The color of this costume was so cool.

Sand Island & Moanalua Garden - 5/15/2011

Erick wanted to check out Sand Island and I got a chance to tag along to try out my polarizing filter. Unfortunately, it only fit my 70-200mm so I could only get close shots. Fortunately, we were there just in time to see a large sailing vessel leave the Honolulu Harbor so it was a great lens to capture some of that. It was a sunny, but overcast day and the clouds were not as puffy as I'd like, but I think still a great day for using a filter. Afterwards, we checked out Moanalua Garden to find other cool portrait locales.
From Erick's blog from last 4th of July fireworks, he got great firework shots. I now know you can see the entire Aloha Tower from there.
You can see the dinner or lunch cruise come in as well.. The polarizing filter turned my photos really blue. I actually have to de-saturate the blue color in PSE. I think it did make the clouds 'pop'.
I caught a speeding harbor master's boat.. I didn't realized I had panned.
Then we saw this cool vessel w/ huge mast, the Kaiwo Maru of Tokyo Japan, leave the harbor w/ tug boats guiding it's way out.
The ship was soo cool!
Die hard photog..
Could not resist taking a photo of Diamond Head from Sand Island.
We ended up at Moanalua Gardens. This plantation house was cool..but I didn't have my wide lens to get the entire house. Even with the polarizing filter, the afternoon glare was still too harsh.
I tried taking shots of the water.. I don't know if I was turning the filter ring correctly... was the water supposed to not have reflection? I donno..but still this shot came out nice.
There were LOTS of cardinals.. they were flying in and out super fast.. I was only able to get one that stopped just as I clicked.
I tried taking soft water shot w/ the polarizing filter. I learned I need to use aperture priority using a small aperture.. after like 10 tries, I finally got one that was soft enough.. my last shot was my best..
Hey, could not resist taking the tourist shot of the famous Hitachi tree.. I had to use my Lumix to get the entire tree.

EOH State Library Exhibit - 5/5/2011

This is, I think, my third year participating w/ the State Library Exhibit. It's always fun to see all the photos by the other photographers from the club. This year there were 44 photos on display in the lobby area in the front and in the back reading room. This year, I brought my Lumix instead of using my cell phone to get some shots of the set up. The photos in the lobby area is usually displayed on the racks.The photos in the reading room are hung.I met Erick and Celia. I think this was when she told Erick..'you better delete that!'..
Here's the finished display.I wanted to take a slow motion photo of people walking around the display and after playing around w/ the Manual settings a bit, I was able to get this. Trying to stablize my camera on the ledge, I almost dropped my camera from the 2nd floor if not for the cord on the camera! OMG! phew!I include this shot of the ceiling light because I'm surprised how sharp it came out for the P&S. I didn't sharpen this but just cropped the original shot and adjusted the level to try and get rid of the yellow and to lighten the dark areas a bit.

Thunderous Rain Storm - 5/2/2011

In complete contrast to my previous post, tonight, I was in the midst of a lightning and thunder storm. Of all days, I had taken my car to the shop so I had to catch the bus. I could see continuous lightning on my bus ride home and the street was completely flooded and as I stepped off the bus stop, it was pouring dogs, cats, and actually more like elephants and I was deep in water puddle everywhere. I ran for the bus stop covering along w/ a bunch of people waiting for the passing rain. I saw this guy walk by taking a cell phone video and gave me an idea.
I took this w/ one hand holding my umbrella and the other hand holding my phone.
Oh yeah and when I finally got to my apartment, the electricity was out and I ended up huffing and puffing flights of stairs in the near darkness lit only w/ my tiny light painting flash light.