Rodney Campbell's Blog

Not much of note on our second day in Hawaii

A little shopping in a nearby shopping mall (the Ala Moana Center – the largest shopping mall in Hawaii, and the largest open-air shopping center in the world apparently). This place pretty much had everything and it in combination with all of the high class boutique stores in the main street of Waikiki meant there was probably very little reason to spend all that time shopping in New York… I’m just sayin’… 🙂

Ala Wai

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/80 sec at f/8, ISO 250

This was also the day our littlest munchkin got ill and spent nearly two days in the hotel room intermittently vomiting and generally feeling unwell 🙁

I’d mentioned in a previous post that I’d taken two sets of images to create stitched panoramas whilst on the Opera House side of Circular Quay for Vivid Sydney

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

The first was taken directly opposite the MCA and is comprised of six (6) vertical frames

Vivid Quay

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 8 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

the second (which I much prefer) was taken with a longer focal length much further down Circular Quay towards the Opera House and is comprised of twelve (12) vertical frames – it covers the whole of Circular Quay right around past the bridge and North Sydney and around to the Opera House on my right – probably about 230º

I actually took a couple extra frames just around the MCA area where it was all lit up green to allow me to stitch both red and green versions

Keyed on Red

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm, 15 sec at f/8, ISO 50

and now the obligatory panosphere 🙂 – I ended up stitching the green MCA version of the panorama and used that as the source for this circular quay tiny planet…

Keyed on Green

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm, 15 sec at f/8, ISO 50

We spent most of the day flying from New York to Hawaii (we were staying in Waikiki (Honolulu) on the Island of Oahu) and didn’t arrive till late afternoon. Just enough time to do a quick wander along the main street of Waikiki (Kalakaua Ave) and have dinner before heading back to the hotel. Sunset was looking promising and I wanted to see what sort of shots I could get from our balcony 🙂

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

The view from our room and the balcony was spectacular but boy was it windy out there. It was windy most of the time we were staying in Honolulu – especially in the evenings. Pretty much the entire time we were there the wind would blow from the north east over the mountains and across us out to sea (and the clouds would follow that path constantly moving diagonally across our view)

Most of the time the wind was quite gusty and I was a little concerned with my camera and tripod blowing off the balcony (which it didn’t) but more concerned with having blurry shots from the gusts of wind moving the whole setup (perhaps the long exposures helped but the majority of my images taken out here over many days were sharp enough even at 100% – good tripod technique or luck? – maybe both?)

Waikiki Burn

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 6 sec at f/11, ISO 100

A stitched panorama consisting of seven (7) vertical frames (starting on the right where it’s darkest about 15 minutes after sunset)

Waikiki Twilight

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 44 sec at f/9, ISO 100

This one is the whole wider view and is my favourite from the first night. It includes a beautiful twilight blue, the remnants of sunset and the amazing city lights of Honolulu. This one eleven (11) long exposure frames (which I had to adjust the exposure as I went around due to changing light) taken starting on the right half and hour after sunset and finishing on the left ten minutes later

Oahu Dreaming from Level 26

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 30 sec at f/8, ISO 100

How epic is the view from this place!…

The Vivid projections onto the MCA were probably some of the best I’ve ever seen – so clean, crisp and detailed – and some of them had an amazing 3D feel to them

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Gerry and I spent ages in and around the MCA taking shots (over 2 hours all up) – first staring right in front of the main central projection tower looking front onto the MCA and then moving forward to just over the barrier just in front for a closer view which include a clearer view at the bottom (but you loose the sides of the buildings because even the ultra wide 16mm isn’t wide enough) and finally to the other side of Circular Quay to take some shots across the water

In this first set we’re right back up against the tower with a wide lens – this allows us to fit the whole width of the MCA in and allows us with some long exposures (especially if we overexpose a bit) with some projections to expose the light beams at the top in the shot (which are cool)

Wavy

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 8 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200

3D Boombox

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 6 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200

Alien Invasion

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 10.00 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200

The Aliens are Coming

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 25.00 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200

Those Eyes

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 10.00 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200

Then moving up just onto the barrier we get a clean view at the bottom

The Devil Inside

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 2.50 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800

3D

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1 sec at f/5, ISO 800

Left and Right

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/2 sec at f/5, ISO 800

MCA Ice

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 2 sec at f/5, ISO 800

Wanna know what it looks like when you look back towards the tower where seven of the massive light cannons in one of the three towers which project onto the facade of the MCA building are…

Vivid Rays

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 30 sec at f/7.1, ISO 200

This one is a hastily taken pano comprised of three horizontal frames with the ultra wide (idea totally stolen from Gerry – sorry mate) and bashed into shape in Photoshop (man was this one curvy – it needed a whole lot of Adaptive Wide Angle love :))

Beaming

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 20.00 sec at f/7.1, ISO 200

When we moved to the other side of Circular Quay to shoot across the water towards the lit up MCA I had this idea in my mind of long shutter speed shots with smoothed water and the reflections of the bright coloured lights on the water. Whilst it didn’t pan out exactly as I’d envisaged we got a few OK images. I think the main problems here were; the large ferry which moved in and stuck out on the left, the massively bright lobby on the right of the MCA, the shutter probably wasn’t anywhere near long enough to smooth the water and I probably should have used a light grad just to hold down the building lights a little more and let the darker reflections burn in a little more

A Maze ing

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 20.00 sec at f/5.6, ISO 50

Waves

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 20.00 sec at f/5.6, ISO 50

I also took a pano from this spot which isn’t fantastic but I’ll post later

We then moved down towards the Opera House because Gerry was keen to shoot the House from down there – however as this was still a test night before Vivid was really on the projections on the sails were mainly test patterns or other random stuff

Whilst here I grabbed some shots looking back towards the MCA again with the city backdrop

MCA Weeds

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 25.00 sec at f/8, ISO 50

Vivid at the Quay

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 34 mm, 25.00 sec at f/8, ISO 50

and again I took another wider more telephoto pano from here which took in the whole of Circular Quay right around past the bridge and North Sydney and around to the Opera House on my right – probably about 230º – I’ll post this soon

Day 9 and our last day in New York City. We woke to a lovely sunrise with these fantastic stripes of pink and purple in the sky – had to shoot this handheld as I’d already packed my tripod in the luggage

Dawn Stripes

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/6 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

Then it was off early in the morning for our tortuous trip to JFK (our experience with Super Shuttle was much less than stellar – frankly it was terrible). Instead of giving us the single SUV we wanted (which would have cost $93 in total) they put the 5 of us in a shared ride van service which ended up costing more and taking an extra 90 minutes (so we were late) than it should have to eventually get to JFK (after picking up many people after us and taking a magical mystery tour through the suburbs (to avoid tolls? I’m not sure) and a side trip to LaGuardia Airport on the way) – never again!!!