On our last night on Kauai, I visited a local beach near our rental house to capture the sunset. As with many Hawaiian sunsets, it was pretty amazing. What’s not pictured here is the dozen people sitting to my right on the rocks drinking wine and soaking up the last rays of the day.
Kauai, Hawaii has had a long time to settle down. As the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands, it hasn’t been scarred by volcanic eruptions for millions of years. The much younger Big Island is all jagged edges and dynamic severity while Kauai feels like a place where the slow grind of erosion and the ceaseless march of flora and fauna have found their rhythm so there’s no rush. Why not sit back, munch on some shave ice and watch the sea turtles tumble around in the waves?
My first trip to Hawaii was 5 years ago, when my family spent a week on the Big Island. On that trip I was able to explore much of the island and made a few memorable images, but I left feeling disappointed in the lack of greenery. I hoped that this year’s trip to Kauai would scratch that itch and despite the fact that it was a family vacation and not a photo trip, I planned to snag as many amazing images as the “Garden Island” would allow me to steal. Turns out, I was not disappointed.
On approach to Lihue on Kauai, passengers on the left side of the plane were treated to a glorious view of some of the mountains that make Kauai so spectacular.
Before I jump into the trip, let me tell you how I prepared for my week on Kauai, (in case you decide to make the voyage yourself). First, I read the impeccable guide book “The Ultimate Kauai Guidebok: Kauai Revealed” by Andrew Doughty. I had used his guide book on my prior visit to the Big Island, and found it to be spot-on. He also has a handy app that you can put on your iPad or iPhone so you don’t have to lug the book around. The guidebook is so admired by locals and frequent visitors to Kauai that it’s simply called, “the guidebook”. I brought my copy but as it turns our there were at least seven copies in our rental house. It became a joke for us. “I left it over there by the guidebook,” we’d say, knowing we would rarely be wrong.
For photographers, Kauai tends to be the island of choice. There are several good YouTube videos about photography on the island, and I watched many of them and cruised Google Earth to scout locations that might interest me. I also booked a charter helicopter flight with Jack Harter Helicopters, which I will get back to soon.
We chose to rent a big house in the south coast town of Poipu, which is more of a collection of resorts, restaurants and beaches than a cohesive town. We would be sharing the house with my wife Julie’s mother, sister and her partner and daughter. The “partner” is my good friend and frequent photography sidekick Cal Mukumoto, so we spent some time discussing which gear would work best for the subject matter we’d be shooting. We both shoot Sony cameras and share similar kits, but we both opted to bring slightly different setups. Cal rocked his Sony A7RIII and A7RII cameras with the Sony 24-105 F4 G, 70-200 F4, and 16-35 GM lenses while I brought my Sony A7RIV and A7RIII bodies and 24 F1.4 GM, 12-24 F4 G, 24-105 F4 G and 100-400 F4.5-5.6 GM. Both of us also brought along DJI Osmo Action cameras for use in and around the water.
Much of our gear load decisions were driven by what we’d want to have on the helicopter charter. I reasoned that 2 bodies would allow the use of two lenses, a wide zoom and a tele zoom. Cal questioned that logic but relented. Turns out, he was right, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Wiamea Canyon in itself is enough reason to visit Kauai. From the safety of the lookout you can take in miles of colorful ridges and lush valleys, most with waterfalls. Oh, the waterfalls!
Wiapo’o Falls dominates the scene at the top of Wiamea Canyon. The two-tiered falls drops 800 feet to splatter on the rocks well above the valley floor. This shot was taken from one of the roadside lookouts along Route 550.
One of the first excursions I took once we had settled in on the island was to drive to the top of Wiamea Canyon on the western side of Kauai. The trade winds that deliver hundreds of inches of rain to the northern side of the island leave the southern side fairly arid. At the base of the canyon near the town of Wiamea, the climate is toasty warm and fairly dry. As you ascend the road that flanks the western rim of the canyon, you reach wetter and wetter environments and the roadside vegetation changes from cacti and scrub brush to lush jungle in less than 20 miles. In those 20 miles you climb to almost 4,000 feet above sea level, so the temperature also dips. When we started at the bottom it was a temperate 76˚ F and at the end of the road it was a crisp 61˚ F. The viewpoints along the way were incredible with jaw-dropping vistas of the canyon’s red, yellow and green walls made up of layer upon layer of ancient volcanic deposits. The faults that opened the ground to the relentless island rains allowed the small streams and rivers to carve deep down into the earth. For a geology nerd like me it was awesome. For the photographer in me, it was epic. The steady flow of clouds from the north left dappled light on the canyon walls, painting the scene with color and texture.
To add to the spectacle of Wiamea, a major waterfall acts as a wispy exclamation point at the upper end of the canyon. Coming from Oregon, where we know waterfalls, the falls of Kauai are a whole other level. I took a while for a nice band of light to grace the falls, but one thing I realized about Kauai is good light is probably only about five minutes out, so just hang tight and wait for it.
At the end of the road (Route 550), we parked at Puu o Kila Lookout and walked to one of the most inspiring vistas I’ve ever seen. As you stand on a narrow ridge, on one side is Kalalau Valley on the iconic Na Pali Coast and on the other is the Alakai Swamp, the highest swamp on earth.
Just beyond the fenced lookout at Puu o Kila is a red dirt “trail” that follows the ridge. It looks precarious, and it kind of is, but a tumble here would only take you about 30 feet down to some cozy-looking bushes.
The view from the Puu o Kila ridge above Kalalau Valley is simply stunning. In a matter of minutes is can go from soupy clouds to blue skies, with rainbows and incredible light in between.
Five minutes later.
Now let’s talk about photographing Kauai by helicopter.
At Lihue, which is where the airport is on Kauai, there are six helicopter companies conducting flightseeing operations around the island. At any given time between 9 am and 3 pm each of those companies have two to four helicopters in the air, so getting a seat on a flight is as easy as swiping your credit card. The problem is, most of the helicopters flying in Kauai have doors and all of them usually fly at full capacity, which tends to be five passengers and a pilot. So if you book a flightseeing trip you run a very good chance of trying your hand at aerial photography through a plastic window and/or across the body of someone sitting next to that window. Not good.
A couple of operators offer doors-off flights, which get rid of those pesky plexiglass windows. In exchange you get a cold and usually-damp ride. If you end up in a center seat, you can escape some of the damp but then you are shooting past a fellow passenger to get your epic images. Better, but not the best.
For the best photography from the air, you will need to charter a doors-off helicopter, which is what Cal and I did. It cost a lot. Each of us spent a little over $10 per minute for our 60 minutes in the air, which was foremost on my mind as I geared up to ride one of Jack Harter Helicopters’ snazzy Hughes 500 helicopters. The Hughes 500 is a great photo platform, and it’s so Hawaiian. It’s the same kind of helicopter TC flew when his buddy Magnum needed a flight, remember?
Anyway, we donned jackets and grabbed our cameras for the flight. I chose the put the Sony 100-400 zoom on the A7RIV and the 24-105 on the A7RIII. In my pocket I stuffed an extra battery, SD cards and lens cloths. Cal slung his A7RII with the 16-35 and the A7RIII with the 24-105. Again, he chose wiser.
Cal hanging on over the Na Pali Coast.
When you fly doors-off, everything needs to have a strap, so both of us had neck straps on our cameras. In addition to those straps, we each wore life jackets in belts around our waists, kind of like a fanny pack but in the front. When they took us out to our helicopter, they strapped us in like precious cargo. In the front seat I got a four-point harness that was cinched down like a damn tourniquet. Cal scored a three-point harness as he was in the back seat right behind me. The main buckle of said harnesses was a big round metal affair that all of the straps plugged into. Once we were strapped in tight, they gave us our headsets, which had a coiled cord and a little box with a button that you could push when you wanted to talk. That box clipped to the shoulder strap. I felt like a human face surrounded by a nest of straps, cords, boxes and buckles. I could turn about 20 degrees to my right and look out of the open door, so my ability to pivot was pretty limited. I have flown in doors-off helicopters a few times, but this was my first time in a flightseeing helicopter and I wasn’t expecting to be so encumbered.
As our pilot completed our pre-flight checks, we powered on our cameras and got ready to shoot. I took a moment to unhook the neck strap on my A7RIV/100-400 camera and replace it with a hand strap. I clipped that strap to my shoulder belt with a carabiner, which allowed me to set that camera and long lens beside me on the empty seat between myself and the pilot. That left the A7RIII and 24-105 combo on my belly atop the giant metal seat belt buckle and life jacket fanny pack. It was a handy spot, but I found that every time I set it down to use the other camera or push the intercom button to talk with our pilot the buckle pushed on the control dial on the back of the camera and opened the white balance menu. Subsequent movements ended up opening the customize white balance option and midway through the flight I noticed that the images on my screen were very dark. Stand by while I get geeky.
White balance isn’t usually anything I worry about because I shoot in Raw mode. I usually have it on AUTO and spend my time thinking about exposure, focus and composition. But when you enter customize white balance mode, you can start tweaking the gamma and that has a big impact on your JPEG preview image on your screen and in the histogram, (which I refer to constantly). So as we flew up through the amazing Wiamea Canyon I was unknowingly slowly fooling myself into making darker and darker images as my EVF/LCD images became altered by the changing WB settings. Ugh.
We flew over the southern coast of Kauai on our way to Waimea Canyon. One of the benefits of chartering the flight is the control you have over route.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we arrived at Wiamea Canyon, we flew over the lovely southern coast. The normal tourist flight routes for the helicopter companies are well established. After launching from Lihue, the flights usually cut north over the lightly-populated center of the island to Wiamea Canyon. From there they fly along the Na Pali coast and then back over the center of the island to Lihue. They tend to avoid resort areas and towns where the buzz of helicopters would not make for relaxing Aloha vibes. On a charter, we had more options. We hopped over the mountains just west of the airport and flew along the south coast near Poipu, where we were staying. It’s worth mentioning at this point that we were flying on a fairly choppy and windy day and the ride in the little Hughes 500 was a lot like riding on a galloping horse. Cal and I both have flown many times on helicopters and small airplanes, but this was the roughest ride I’ve experienced. It was lively and more than once I had to grab the “oh shit” handle above my head.
Manawaiopuna Falls, otherwise known as Jurassic Falls for its role in the famous dinosaur movie, is massive. Even more impressive is its proximity to several other lovely falls. For scale, notice the helicopter parked in the grassy field at the bottom of the photo.
After turning north from the coast, we soon came to Manawaiopuna Falls and the incredible collection of falls nearby. Again, as an Oregonian I’m not easily wowed by waterfalls, but these are worth admiring. Simply stunning to see.
Four or five waterfalls, each worthy of their own park, sit deep in the forest of Kauai far from any road.
Kauai has the drama of Yosemite, the severity of the Grand Canyon and the lushness of the Olympics all in one little island.
With a few bumpy hops over ridges we transitioned from the verdant greens of central Kauai to the vibrant reds of Wiamea Canyon. I really can’t think of very many places where you could photograph such a wide spectrum of environments in a 60-minute flight. Kauai is surprisingly compact but diverse and anyone with an interest in geology or dramatic landscapes will find plenty to love there.
Wiamea Canyon isn’t a straight single canyon, but a collection of valleys that splay out like branches of a tree.
Evident in the steep walls of Wiamea Canyon are numerous layers of volcanic material, a reminder that underneath its green blanket of vegetation, Kauai is a volcano.
Volcanic forces may have built Kauai, but the relentless work of running water gets the credit for Wiamea Canyon. Here the branches of the Wiamea River converge and tumble seaward, leaving red cliffs of crumbling ash and lava.
From a helicopter, the dramatic transition from dry canyonland to emerald seacoast is jarring. The rim of Wiamea looks like a giant carved the canyon with bare hands. It reminded me of a cut cake with lush green icing on top and crusty dry cake beneath.
The upper rim of Wiamea Canyon. Look closely along the rim and you can find a white car at a scenic overlook. Yeah, it’s a big canyon!
Looking east along the Na Pali Coast. There’s not a single road, house or gift shop anywhere in this image.
There are three ways to see the Na Pali Coast, which is without a doubt the most spectacular part of Kauai. You can hike the treacherous Na Pali Coast Trail, which takes most adept hikers at least three days. You can hop aboard a boat and motor or sail along the wild coast, or you can fly over it. From the air the scale of the mountains that plunge into the sea is deceptive. As we crested the mountains and turned up the coast, I asked the pilot to get lower so we could see the mountains from a more dramatic angle and as he spiraled down, I did something I’m not happy about.
My A7RIII had become ridiculously out of whack from all of the inadvertent button bashing and I was by this point keenly aware of the fact that a 100-400 lens may be a lot of fun on a leisurely and smooth flight, but ours was a bucking and frantic ride and spending long moments looking through a long lens was turning my stomach. I was shooting most of my shots with the lower-resolution A7RIII and it was getting harder to use by the minute so I removed the 100-400 from the better camera and put it on the screwed-up one. This involved a couple of minutes of incredibly tense work where I had to swap straps on the two cameras so I could set the useless one on the seat. As I was trying my best not to freak out over swapping lenses and straps on my gear, our pilot had us down to a better altitude and in position for some amazing shots. I couldn’t wait for the straps, so I made several dozen exposures with the A7RIV with it unstrapped in my tightly-clenched hands. It was not my best moment.
Can you find the helicopter in this shot?
By the time I had my shit sorted out, I was kind of frazzled and unfocused and it took a few deep breaths to get my head back into my work. By this point, we had passed by several of the most spectacular parts fo the Na Pali Coast and the clock on our 60-minute flight was ticking. It was this point where I concluded that 60 minutes is not nearly enough time and two cameras were way too many. I also found myself all the way out to 24mm and wishing for more. The mountians along this part of the coast are just too tall! In hindsight, I would have directed our pilot to back off and give us room to work, but he’s used to flying people with iPhones and GoPros so he’s hugging the mountains. I told Cal later that the best lens for the flight was probably the Sony 12-24, which (of course) was safely back in my bag in the trunk of the rental car.
As we proceeded further east along the coast, I asked the pilot to pull off the coast so we could get more water and sky into our compositions. He was easy to work with and angled out, and we had some nice angles on the big waves rolling into the shore.
The Na Pali Coast has to be one of the most striking seascapes on Earth.
Ke’e Beach marks the beginning of the Na Pali coast and the end of the road on Kauai’s North Shore. This shot is looking West.
By the time I was settled down and feeling creative again, we had reached the eastern end of the Na Pali Coast at Ke’e Beach. Here, big swells were kicking up large waves and the dropped further down to line them up with the coast laid out behind them. Here I made one of my favorite shots of the entire trip. The big waves and trails of foam combined with the deep blue water was perfectly complimented by the white clouds and blue sky. Sandwiched between was the formation of headland after headland marching off to the west. A large waterfall is tucked in on the left edge of the frame and the sunlight breaking through the clouds brings the warm sands of the beach to life.
To avoid the busy Princeville and Hanalei Bay areas, we cut inland toward the truly jaw-dropping Wai’ale’ale crater. Normally, the crater is socked in with clouds but on our flight it was “open” so our pilot was eager to get us in there. We had just enough time left on our charter to buzz in and out and make it back to Lihue.
Looking out of Mount Waialeale’s crater is like looking out of a cave.
Mount Waialeale’s crater isn’t like most volcanic craters. Instead of a neat circular caldera, we were met with a vertical-walled valley that ended in a claustrophobic three-sided hole. It’s the wettest spot in Hawaii with about 500 inches of rain per year. It may very well be the wettest spot on the planet. The crater gets rain every day as the warm air coming from the ocean is forced to rise to over 5,000 feet by the sloping flanks of the mountain. Inside there are waterfalls cascading down and their rivers have carved out the inside of the volcano on their way to the sea. Inside the crater, we were too close to the walls to see their tops, which were buried in clouds anyway. It was only when we turned around inside the “Blue Hole” and headed back out that I could get any shots that made sense. The cloud cap atop the volcano created a dark, moody scene inside the crater but once we looked out we could see the sunlight outside. It was mystical and very eerie.
Yes, this is a real place. Inside the crater of Mount Waialeale.
As fast as our plunge into the dark crater was, it seemed to be over in seconds. To be honest, being inside of such a confining space in a helicopter was disorienting. It was like flying into a closet with no lights.
Once outside of the volcano, we made a straight shot for the airport and was on the ground in minutes. And therein lies the most amazing thing about Kauai. It’s not a big island, but it is home to so many big things: waterfalls that cascade hundreds of feet, (maybe even a few over a thousand?), canyons that seem to go on and on, and the jungle that covers the mountains so that they resemble massive rumpled bedspreads. An hour wasn’t enough for me to photograph everything the way I’d like to, but it was plenty to see the whole island. On the ground, you can drive from one end of the main road to the other in a couple of hours. Pretty amazing.
So, what are my take-aways from my photography charter?
1) Bring one camera, and make it a good one like the Sony A7RIV.
2) Think hard about customizing buttons on the back of your camera, especially if there is a heightened chance of them being bumped. I love Sony’s (and others’) options to customize buttons and dials on cameras, but I am not going to assign jobs to buttons unless I really, really need them.
3) A wide-angle zoom lens is the best bet. The 24mm end of my 24-105 wasn’t quite wide enough, but it was nice to have the 105 end for grabbing closer shots of features. I think in a perfect world a super-sharp 14-90 would be awesome. Go ahead and make it an F2.8 while you’re at it.
4) Don’t be afraid to use the rear LCD screen for live shooting. It’s not always practical, (like when you are strapped down tight) to use the viewfinder. I relied on my rear LCD a lot on the flight and it allowed me to make compositions I would have missed if I had to look through the camera.
5) The charter was worth the money, and having the doors off was a must. Having control over what we photographed was amazing, and having a pilot who was game to work with us to find better altitudes and angles was a very nice luxury you wouldn’t have on a scripted flightseeing trip. It cost us just over $1,200 to charter the helicopter for the hour. Had we opted for the doors-off standard flightseeing tour, we would have paid $309 each and had no say in the route or which seats we got. I would argue that for twice as much, we got a lot more than two times the photo opportunities.
The Kilauea Lighthouse on Kauai’s northern shore is lovely. Did you know that it’s the northern-most point in Hawaii? Now you do.
With our photo flight behind us, we settled into a more sedate island routine with some beach time, lots of sweet drinks, shave ice and family time. I was eager to see the northern end of the island by road, so we drove up there and spent an afternoon enjoying the sights. Along the way we stopped at the very Oregon-esque Kilauea Lighthouse. The postcard-perfect viewpoint adjacent to the peninsula where the lighthouse sits was the perfect place to make some mid-day long exposure shots. I used a 10-stop filter and a circular polarizer to smooth out the water and clouds, (and the faster tourists in the frame). The deep blue of the water in Hawaii is quite different than the murkier water off Oregon, but everything else about the lighthouse reminded me of home.
Further North we found ourselves near the end of the road past Hanalei Bay. At a very lovely beach Cal and I found a handsome surfer and some knock-your-eyes-out turquoise water. It was so nice to just stand barefoot in the sand and motor off shots of the surfer frolicking in the waves.
Living the Aloha life on the North Shore of Kauai.
Chickens everywhere on Kauai. I found them to be quite charming and photogenic, but I hear they don’t cook up well. These hans and a rooster were snacking on a coconut next to a rusty pickup at a beach parking lot. That is full-throttle Kauai right there!
Kauai is of course home to many native Hawaiians, but I didn’t meet many in the touristy towns we frequented. This nice gentleman, however, was a joy to meet and talk to. He was selling coconuts and palm frond creations along with his wife, who was making and selling lovely beaded bracelets and necklaces on the North Shore. I bought a necklace and dropped a few bucks in his cup for being such a cool photo subject.
I really enjoyed the North Shore of Kauai, and our time there was limited. I would love to return and shoot a sunset at Ke’e Beach, the lovely Hanalei Bay Pier, and several of the other beaches we missed up there. The north end was much more green and wild than the swankier Poipu area, but it also seemed a lot busier. Hanalei was packed with people and the traffic was backed up much of the way. I can only assume that’s because the area is so spectacular.
On our last full day on the island, a couple of us traveled up the Wialua River to the incredible Hindu Monastery there.
The hand-chiseled Hindu Iraivan Temple on the banks of the Wailua River is stunning. Each marble block has been hand-carved in India and on site. Each block takes months or years and the entire temple has been under construction for thirty years and is nearing completion.
The Hindu Monastery, called Kauai Aadheenam, on Kauai is a sprawling collection of natural areas and temple grounds. When we visited, only a small portion of the grounds were open to visitors but what we could access was incredibly beautiful and peaceful. The under-construction Iraivan Temple is the centerpiece of the temple and we could see it from a small viewpoint near the active temple. The marble and gold temple has been growing stone-by-stone for 30 years as devout workers hand-chisel each stone in India to be installed by hand by other Hindu faithful in Kauai. The temple is almost complete and features an open architecture which contrasts with the current temple, which looks more like a typical church.
At the Hindu monastery we encountered two large snails out for a stroll near the temple.
The larger of the two snails had a big shell about the size of an egg. Both were happy to pose for photos.
The Hindu Monastery was a wonderful place for close-up detail shots. Kauai is absolutely covered in amazing plants.
Adjacent to the Monastery, the swamis, yogis and sadhakas maintain a forest of Rudraksha trees. This is the only forest of this type of tree in the Western Hemisphere and while it wasn’t huge, the trees were very impressive. When we visited there were several chickens pecking about and the forest was very peaceful. The trees have very photogenic trunks and roots, and they drop incredible blue seeds that look like big bright blueberries. The chickens don’t seem to favor them.
The small grove of Rudrasksha trees made for fun compositions.
A couple of Rudrasksha berries and a cool twig. I love the color of the tree’s berries. They had an iridescent quality and that color. Wow!
A Lono Ganesha murthi statue keeps watch over the Rudrasksha forest. Say that five times fast.
Like with many of my vacations, the trip to Kauai went by in a flash. Just as we were starting to settle into the rhythm of island life it was time to pack up and head home. I really wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted more time snorkeling and playing in the surf with my kids. I wanted more time to explore the island. I really wanted to try more shave ice! After spending the afternoon packing for our early morning flight the next day, we went down to the little park in our neighborhood to catch the sunset. Hawaii is known for amazing sunsets, but we didn’t have any whoppers the entire week. They were most brief bits of warm light followed by clouds. I was thrilled to see that conditions were different for our last night on the island, sort of a thank you from the sunset deities. People were gathered along the beach with wine glasses in hand to take in the show and Cal and I found good spots near the water’s endge just in time to shoot the final moments of sunlight. It did not disappoint.
A good sunset brings everyone out to the beach.
I almost always prefer the light after the sun dips below the horizon. The more-subtle tones of the Blue Hour allow for more creativity and nuance.
Well after the wine-sipping crowds wandered back to their condos, we indulged in a last shave ice at a local shop. Not wanting the evening to end, I walked to a nearby beach with my son Cooper and niece, Rachel. There we found several sea turtles hauled up onto the beach for the night. Keeping our distance, we sat quietly in the still-warm sand and quietly enjoyed time with the snoozing turtles. It was the perfect way to conclude our trip.
The lights from nearby buildings provided just enough illumination to make long exposures of the turtles. My 24mm F1.4 lens proved perfect for this task as it allowed me to shoot almost wide open and avoid a noisy high ISO compromise. Settings for this shot: Sony A7RIV with Sony 24mm F1.4 GM lens at F2.8 for 30 seconds. ISO of 2000 and stability by the very handy Peak Design Travel Tripod.
This shot may be my favorite of the whole trip. Seven napping sea turtles with my son by my side loving the experience. Image specs: Sony A7RIV with Sony 24mm F1.4 GM at F2.8, 30 seconds exposure at 2000 ISO.