We were out on Wednesday night for a quickie shoot. My original plan was to explore the yacht harbor and moorings but my timing was off. I was a little late. This area is probably one of the most overly photo’d on the island of Oahu. BUT, it was still a beautiful sunset and moonrise – I never get tired of those. 
This image was made by doing a “vert-o-rama” with a Nikkor 28mm Perspective Control lens: my most favorite lens for serious landscape shooting.
stk Night, Panorama Ala Wai, Harbor, Moon, Night, Rise, Waikiki
I met up with cuzin: J.T. – on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday – for a photo walk around Kapiolani Community College and Waikiki. (“Sanpo kata gata” is a Japanese term for: “while taking a walk/stroll”. I know everyone uses “osanpo” or “osampo” but that is boring!) The weather was awesome and JT has been looking for some lens upgrades for her Nikon kit. I don’t need “an excuse” to toss some glass into my bag and run out the door – that was TWO! You can click on the photo above to view a gallery of photos from our photo walk, please do.
We swapped between three lenses that day: Nikkor 10.5mm DX Fisheye, Sigma 12-24mm DG HSM, and the Sigma 150mm DG Macro. I was shooting full frame and JT was on DX cropped sensor. Say what you like about “third party” lenses; I love those two Sigma’s! Did I mention that the Sigma 12-24 is a full frame lens? 
NO ONE else has anything to match – not even Nikon (at the moment). The Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 is a phenomenal lens but it is also bigger, heavier, twice as expensive, and it “sees less”: 114 degrees for the Nikon vs. 122 degrees for the Sigma. (These are aspherical super wide zooms. IE: in general, horizontal and vertical lines stay almost perfectly straight.) Although the corner light fall-off for the Sigma is much heavier. So, one could argue that the Nikkor has just as much “usable field of view”. Personally, I have grown to appreciate the in-camera vignette – saves me a step in post… hehe.
stk Galleries, Nature Afternoon, Cactus, Evening, Garden, KCC, Sanpo, Sunset, Waikiki
I hope everyone had a great holiday season! “Twenty ten”, that sounds nice. 
I enjoyed the movie. Let us hope that this reality will be just as good.
I’ve been playing catch up for the last 30, or so, days. I have way too many photos to sort through… (-3-) I am most excited to go through those from our last trip to Japan. That is my, “dangling carrot”. (I am working towards that.) Please be patient, there will be a bunch of galleries in the near future. In the mean time, check out Chad’s Flickr. He has his latest photo selections, from Japan, online. (I gotta lose weight!) (~3~;)
I wish everyone the best for 2010! Aloha!!
stk Random Musings Night Sky, Star Trails
