On Kauai, we stayed at a vacation rental home in the town of Poipu, smack dab between Poipu beach and Shipwreck Beach.  Poipu Beach was about a 10 minute walk to the west and Shipwreck Beach about the same to the east.  One morning, Eileen and I went to Shipwreck Beach to watch the sun come up and to get some snaps of the view.  It's awesome there because that's where the Grand Hyatt Resort is and my, what a great (grand) place that is!  That's what you see in this photo... Shipwreck Beach and some of the palms and a mini bungalow (for lack of a better term) on the left.

As far as processing this shot goes, I tried something different...  Instead of doing an HDR with 5 different shots at exposures 1 stop apart, I took two shots that were two stops apart, layered them in Photoshop and created a gradient mask to bring out the highlights in the foreground and the dramatic sky in the background.  I kind of like the way it turned out versus the HDR results I sometimes get from Photomatix.  Speaking of which, there's a shot from the Big Island that I took that I'm struggling with and if I figure out a good way to process it, I'll post and let you know what I did.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy this shot and thanks for dropping by!


Exif data:

Camera - Nikon D700
Exposure - 0.6 Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length - 16 mm
ISO Speed - 1600
Exposure Bias -  -1 EV
Flash - No Flash
Exposure Program - Aperture-priority AE
Lens Model - Nikkor 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0


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