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.

Waikiki Walkabout - 4/3/2011

I had a super stressful Monday to Saturday (yes Saturday..ugh) at work so on Sunday, I decided to take a walk around Waikiki and enjoy myself playing tourist doing something I enjoy..taking photos. I didn't want to lug my big gear so I used my Panasonic ZS6 P&S camera to see what I can do. It has a pretty wide angle and a nice zoom so I wanted to try some landscape photos. I started out at St. Augustine Church and took a closeup of the statue of the saint. I headed across the street and saw the statue of Prince Kuhio..and took a picture of him. Then I got the idea to walk around to take photos of all the statues around Waikiki.. The famous Duke Kahanamoku. Lots of people take photos in front of him.. There's also a webcam aimed at him as well. I've walked pass this many times, but never stopped to check it out. These are the Stones of Life. According to the plaque, legend says these stones are the living legacy of four powerful Tahitian healers who once resided near this site. Statue of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. Princess Kaiulani Statue at a small park at the corner of Kaiulani and Kuhio. Mokua and Kila from a children's story. I'm afraid I don't know who this surfer is. Statue of Ghandi fronting the Honolulu Zoo. Then I heard this guy nearby playing the bag pipe. It wasn't until a couple of days ago I found out that I missed the Scottish Festival this weekend! Bummers. When I walked by the King's Alley earlier, I found out that there is a Changing of the King's Guard performance nightly at 6:3opm and decided to check it out. What else would be at King's Alley but a Burger King! I was lucky and found myself in the front row. (ugh..slightly blurry, but I liked the composition) They were twirling their rifle in front of me and I was really worried about the spinning projectile. I put my camera in sports mode, but it was still not fast enough to get the spinning rifle. I tried a few zoom shot of the wave. Pretty good..not fuzzy or blurry. Check out the guy and the kid who's about to get pounded by the wave.

Oahu Civic Orchestra Spring Concert - 4/4/2011

My friend who plays for the Oahu Civic Orchestra told me about the Spring concert and asked if I wanted to take photos. It was at Chaminade University's Eiben Hall and was free and open to the public. I couldn't pass up the great opportunity to practice and also hear great music. I had no idea what the environment would be other than no flash photography. Although I was glad they were photographer friendly, I tried to shoot when music was loud so that the beep of my camera's focusing would not be so disruptive. I had much difficulty since the only low light lens I had was the 50mm F1.4, it was hard to get a good reach to take closeups. And in using large aperture, not everything was in focus so I had to crop out a lot. Most of my photos turned out a bit soft on the edges, so I tried some B&W to see if it would hide those defects. It was a good practice and I got to hear a great orchestra perform music pieces I actually recognized. They played this piece by Strauss made famous by Bugs Bunny Cartoons. The Civic Orchestra is made up of professionals, amateurs, retirees, students, all of whom love to play music and I can tell by how beautiful they sounded.

Super Moon - 3/19/2011

I felt like calling this post 'It was a Dark and Stormy Night'. That's how it kinda was while waiting for the largest full moon in 18 years, hence, called the 'super moon'. It was cloudy and windy and then it rained. My camera nearly tipped over in the darkness. After fussing w/ my settings, I got this shot in between trying to keep my umbrella from flipping and protecting my camera from the rain. The lights from the elevator of the Ilikai made it hard because it was either overexposing the light, or getting really dark building. Somehow it also turned my photo kinda reddish purple but it did make the color of the water really cool..
I was about to pack it up then I heard Celia say something like 'I see a sliver of the moon' from were she was staked out. Then there was the moon.. and then I heard 'here comes the clouds'. The original shot was kinda dark so I decided to crop it. While trying to lighten it, I couldn't get the colors right, so I decided to make it B&W.. I think this effect came out better. The moon finally came out...the B&W helps suppress the brightness of the elevator lighting..
Then the clouds came..
Just before I packed up..the moon was high and visible in the sky.. hmm..somehow it doesn't look as big any more..

St. Patrick's Day Parade - 3/17/2011

I took a day off and decided to check out the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Being at noon, I knew it would be super bright. I tried a different spot and tried to shoot away from the bright beach. There were some weird creatures.. a giant leprechaun?
There were many people wearing kilts.
Coach McMackin.. Even the mayor hammed it up for my camera. This shot originally came out soo dark.. good thing for photoshop element..
More Leprechaun...hey..is that gold in his kettle?
More green.. the army band.
Green Car..
Not sure if this is an Irish brand car..
I had no idea that Star Wars were Irish...
Darth O'Vadar..