Aloha,
Its been a long tough summer, finally I got the chance to breakaway from the gallery and get out to a place I want to shoot!
Finally After years of lugging the thing around in my bag, I will publish a piece taken with the 400mm
It seems my working kit is my 35mm which pretty much stays on the camera, my 75mm, 120mm macro, and mostly because it fits in the long side of the lowpro h20 dry bag the 400mm
I have a CPL for each of this lenses that stays on. I always carry a complete set of grads, at least three batteries and a headband type flashlight, my tattered manual, some cards, a leatherman tool, step rings for the grads and a filter holder and a wimberly sidekick. Various other things seem to make it into the bag as well. Prior to shooting I'll go through the bag, thinking of the hike ahead and decide if I really need to carry all this stuff! My first instinct is always to leave the 400mm behind I never do, whether its from fear that it will get stolen, or the thought that it is a very capable, sharp lens, that with the CPL on the front has decent contrast, I couldn't say for sure. With the Manfrotto tripod and Arca swiss ballhead strapped to the outside, the bag weighs north of 30 LBS. So leaving the 400mm behind isn't saving me much weight, verses the security of knowing that its safe with me nestled in it's pocket, off on an adventure with it's companions.
I love shooting Kauai, it is by far the best Hawaiian island for photography in my opinion; although Volcano addicts will say it is the Big Island that offers more. Kauai is also the most problematic, in terms of guessing or anticipating weather, light or sea conditions. I I typically like to go only in Mid to late August, September or early October.
But Kauai is relatively small so you can change locations pretty quickly, and it offers a very large diversity of shooting locations.
On my early October shoot, I had pretty clear air, some decent clouds, and the island was still pretty green due to a wet summer. The surf was running a bit high causing the hoped for clear water to be a little less than perfect, but term of Kauai weather, pretty much excellent conditions.
This is an area I call rock piles, it is on a short trail at the end of the road, past Ke'e beach. It Offers some very nice shooting, and is a location that can pretty much be shot all day and even offers some great sunrise or sunset opportunities.
At any rate, I am pretty pleased with this one, I was thinking of pulling three shots from the session and doing a tryptic, but in retrospect, this is the one that works best, and it will be fine alone.
So finally, The 400mm gets its shot, so to speak
Pentax 645D 645 FA 400mm attached to a wimberly side kick, manually fired 1/640 of a second, f8 iso 200
The sunset is with a soft 3 stop, and reverse grad, using the trusted 645 FA 35mm
