First snow of the winter?

[hawaiideborah]

AWESOME PHOTOS.
Thank you for sharing these.

I would also like to know your photos tips that KathyH asked about, if you would share them.[]

[TomK]

Oink (and Whitey) - So sorry, sue me! Seriously, I'd be more than happy to take you on a summit tour when you eventually get here but can't guarantee a beautiful sunset - I've witnessed 20 years of Mauna Kea sunsets and the one in those pictures was a bit special.

Kathy (and hawaiideborah) - I did once try a photo book but the pictures didn't turn out well, but might try it again now I know a little more about techniques. My pictures from the summit can't be used commercially though so am a little limited there.

The technique I use sometimes is called High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. There are plenty of places that explain it on the web, but here's a summary:

Your eye can see things that are dark and bright at the same time, let's call it a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being dark and 10 bring bright. On the same scale a camera's sensor can only see from 3 to 8. Anything darker than 3 or brighter than 8 is either black or saturated in picture. There are two ways to get around that in order to make a picture look the way you see it with your eyes: (1) use a graduated filter that darkens the sky so that what was a 10 is now a 7, or (2) use HDR techniques. The latter involves taking under- and over-exposed images and then combining them in software. That way the under-exposed image captures the sky (for instance) and the over-exposed image captures the dark land.

I want to do the former at some point but getting the right filters and equipment is quite expensive, and this has already been an expensive year!

For HDR photography I use software called Photomatix. It's about $100 although if you have an .edu address you can get it for around $30. For regular processing I now use Adobe Lightroom which isn't cheap (around $300) but these days I take pictures in RAW format so need some decent software to process those images. Most people don't bother with RAW format so don't even bother with that route unless you know what I'm talking about! If you have a regular point-and-shoot I'd stick with free software such as Picasa.

(By the way, most of my pictures on my blog and on flickr where taken with a point-and-shoot camera although it was a fairly advanced example - I now use a Canon 60D after the old camera broke on a beach in California!).

Kathy - that Pfeiffer photo was actually quite boring I thought, but then added some positive vignetting to it just to make it look more interesting! (I.e., most photos have vignetting in the corners which makes those parts darker - I just made them look brighter!). I've wanted to take a sunset shot of that place for a couple of years now but wasn't there at sunset. I did the same thing for the Lone Cypress on 17-mile drive shot which is just before those Big Sur photos.

Thanks again, everyone, for your kind words! Wish I could get the camera out a little more often than I can right now...

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[TomK]

PS. Just to get back on topic - looks as though it hasn't snowed at the summit at all!

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[beejee]

@Tom - If you ever set up another summit trip for Punaites I'd sure like to go! I only need a week or two notice so I can make arrangements. In addition, would you mind if I contact you via Punaweb email? I wanted to ask you a few things offline.

Cheers!

[TomK]

beejee - feel free to email me via punaweb or tomhkerr at gmail . com (I think punaweb email should go to the latter). I don't think I can do a summit tour for a little while as I'm ridiculously busy right now, but I'm certainly willing to do another one. Same for anyone else interested.

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[missydog1]

Fantastic explanation, Tom! The HDR is what I recalled from before, but had forgotten the term and the software.

I do shoot in RAW, don't have Adobe Lightroom; I use Aperture, and I have the Canon software that came with my camera. I don't have Photomatix, sounds like what I want.

Haven't been working on my photos this summer and you are inspiring me.
I want to scan my old film photos so as not to lose them, big project.

I guess that I can't fix my old photos as I didn't take them both under and over exposed, at least not on purpose. Love this solution though. I do find the circular polarizing filter a big help with getting the sky color instead of washout.

You have talent ... a great eye. Great material. I share your links with others because your photos are so special.

[TomK]

Kathy, there is free HDR software available, just do a google search for "free HDR software". I think photomatix is the best but some of the free software is pretty good. As for a circular polarizing filter, the one I have is almost permanently attached to my lens, it makes a massive difference with landscapes. Unfortunately most point-and-shoot cameras don't have the thread at the end of the lens to attach such a filter although the old one I used did (Lumix FZ-35).

You do have to be a little careful with HDR techniques though - it's too easy to end up with a picture that looks as though it was taken while high on LSD...

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[Carey]

All during the last 2 hours of "Trick OR Treaters", lightening has been going off over Mauna Kea....maybe, it might be a white "dia de los Muertos"...

[TomK]

I think the lightning came from a storm between MK and Hilo/Puna - right now the summit is actually clear of any fog or snow - at least I hope so because that's what our operator is reporting!. On the other hand the forecast is pretty dreadful for the next few nights so suspect there will be some of the white stuff soon. We had an observer drive down on the Saddle Road this afternoon and reported the rain was so hard the road was breaking up in spots - this was on the unimproved section between the 11 and 8-mile marker.

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[Carey]

Mauna Loa had snow earlier today, and the current UKIRT webcam looks like SNOW!!!!
http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/jac-bin/irtvid