Wiamea Canyon Park, Kauai

anonymouscuban

A couple of panoramas that I took a few days ago in Kauai. Both are of the same vantage point. This is actually just the start of the canyon, maybe a few miles from the west coast of Kauai. I stopped on the side of the road and hike in a bit and found this view.

This first one is several exposure captured with my D700 in landscape orientation. It spans across almost the entire horizon... I stopped just short of where the sun was because everything was blowing out with flare. You can see that part of the sky in on the right loses some detail, not too bad I think.

You can see the larger version by clicking on the photo:



This one I shot with the camera in portrait orientation. Its made up of 4 exposures. I wanted to capture more of the sky. Not sure which I like better.

Again, click on pic to view larger:



BTW, I shot these with an graduated ND filter. Can't remember which one or if I had two stacked.

anonymouscuban

I recropped the second shot above. I think this new crop is more interesting. Who knows though because I thought the original photos were decent but I didn't get one reply. Maybe just good travel photos but not good landscape shots.

I should stick to shooting people.

kdog

It's beautiful, Alex, especially when one views it at a larger size so that the fine details can be seen. The clouds are really great, but I can't help but thinking what this scene would have looked like either at sunrise or sunset with that sky on fire.

anonymouscuban

Dog... I agree about the sunset/sunrise. Man did I try. We were there a week and hit this spot on our first day. It was midday at the time and the lighting was horrible so I didn't even bother shooting... Just enjoyed the views and scoped out some spots to return to with better lighting.

I wanted to shoot at sunset because the location would have better light at that time but I guess the canyon has a tendency to get socked in with clouds in the afternoon. It did so everyday that we were there. On this day, we headed out before sunrise since I figured sunset was just not gonna happen. We drove all the way into the canyon since it's much more breathtaking htat this spot. Unfortunately that was a bad decision because the canyon is so deep, it was too mucn in shadow. I did get a few shots of the main part of the canyon that I will post once I edit but I don't think they will be that great. This spot we hit on our way out of the canyon. It's almost at the end of the road that leads back down to the coast. By the time we got to it, the sun was a bit high, but still low enough that the light was decent. I wish we would have hit this spot first.

kdog

It would be nice if we could control the elements in landscape like we can in the studio.

That must have been a great trip. I need to get back to Hawaii some day again soon.

anonymouscuban

Yeah... this trip really gave me a greater appreciation for landscape photographers. The amount of time and patience it takes to get truly spectacular landscape photographs is a true testimate to the love of their craft. This really was the first time that I scouted and waiting for better light with any landscape work that I've done. Even then, the best photos I captured are OK at best. Even when you wait until the golden hour or you get out there before sunrise, it's no gaurantee that the light will be perfect for that location.

There was one spot that I had scoped out during the day. I thought that it would be the perfect setting for a very good sunset photo. I only had the opportunity to shoot sunset there on one day. My wife and I got there about 2 hours before sunset because I heard that it gets a lot of tourists action for sunsets. I want to make sure I got the vantage point I wanted. I set up in the spot and played around with a few shots from that location. Then I setup my tripod and waiting. I was sitting in the water for about an hour. I was getting attacked by bugs the whole time. Sunset came and it was absolutely underwhelming. No pop, no color. I waited hoping that the sky would light up after the sun dipped below the horizon. Waited... waited... waited... NOTHING. I did leave with about 10-12 images of a really boring sunset and about 30 bug bites though!!!