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Posts Tagged ‘K?lauea’

Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 4: From a helicopter

21 Jan

In the first part of this series, I talked about shooting Kilauea’s lava surface-flows using a drone. In the second part, I talked about shooting the lava with a DSLR from the ground. In the third, I talked about shooting from a dedicated lava-viewing boat. I’d like to finish this series with a short article about shooting the lava from a helicopter.

I will also try to sum up the lava shooting part of my Hawaii trip, and survey how it ended up being published.

I was very excited for my lava helicopter flight. After my amazing hike to the surface flows, where I also used (and melted) my drone, and after the sail a few days before, I had already gotten many epic shots and had much less pressure to produce something exceptional. My friend and I decided to only take a (relatively) short 1-hour flight, to experience another way of shooting the lava.

There are several helicopter providers available in Big Island, and they can easily be found online. Remember to schedule your flight several days (a week is recommended) in advance to make sure you get the time slot you want. We chose a sunrise shoot.

Upon reaching the hangar, the helicopter was already stripped of its doors (nothing will come between me and the lava!) and our pilot was making his preparations. We took off quickly and were on our way to the Pu?u ???? Crater.

If you intend to take an open-door helicopter flight in Hawaii, remember to dress well. Hawaii is generally not as hot as one would think (it even snowed on the Big Island recently!), and it can get very cold up in the air on the way to the lava. I’d suggest a serious warm jacket and thick pants to be comfortable. I was a bit under-dressed, so it was a bit chilly on the way there.

Upon reaching the crater itself, I started shooting with a medium telephoto (24-70mm). This would prove the last time I used this lens in the shoot, as I quickly switched to my 70-300mm to get better details.

A lava ‘bird’ in Pu?u ???? Crater.
The wonderful details inside the crater.

The crater was nice but I quickly got bored of it. I knew the real deal was the surface flows with all their beautiful diversity. I was adamant on getting some nice abstracts and natural patterns, so I asked the pilot to leave the crater and find the flows.

Once you start shooting the surface flows, it’s endless. There is so much to choose from and you need to manage the time wisely, since the really good light is extremely short-lived. Try to get the shot and already think on what you want to get next. It’s not my ideal method of producing good shots, but in these conditions, time is a serious bottleneck and there’s just no choice.

The lava surface flows look like painted brush-strokes on the dark earth.

Technically, just like the boat shooting, remember that you’re on a moving, vibrating, flying vehicle: exposure speed should be on the high side.

I was aiming for between 1/500 and 1/1000 of a second (with the 70-300mm) and managed to expose in that range most of the time. ISO settings depend on light, but since this was early morning, I had to use ISO 3200 or 6400 most of the time, unless I was shooting into the crater (where lava was brighter) or when the sun went up a bit. In these cases I went down to ISO 1600.

Contrary to my usual shooting style, I tried to put a large emphasis on abstracts. The lava creates such wonderful patterns and colors, it made sense to concentrate on those alone.
The hardening lava seemed like fabric.

Another cool thing about shooting from the air is the visibility of skylights – underground lava flows that have been partly exposed and are visible from the air.

To sum up, the helicopter shoot was a lot of fun. It’s all so easy: you don’t have to hike 8km, there are lots of opportunities, and you have total control and an infinite choice of subject matter (if the lava cooperates, of course).

We paid about $ 1,700 plus a well-deserved tip to the excellent pilot, whose hovering abilities were off the charts. Not a particularly cheap experience, but worth it to me. Remember, Hawaii is extremely far for me to reach and I wanted to make sure I made every effort to go back home with a good portfolio.

If you enjoy aerial photography and lava, I can highly recommend the heli flight in Big Island.

Series Epilogue

I was incredibly lucky in Hawaii. The surface flows outside the National Park, where I was allowed me to use the drone; the crazy eruptions before my eyes; the action and sunrise in the boat sail; every experience was fantastic. While the Big Island was just part of the trip and I took many more images in Kauai, the lava, and particularly the very first day of my trip, was definitely the main event, and for that I’m thankful.

The trip was very expensive. I knew it would be so in advance, but in the end I spent even more than I thought I would. That’s OK, but bare in mind that a visit isn’t going to come cheap, especially if you want to do all the lava shooting from a boat and a heli. That said, it was more than worth it—it was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken, a truly exhilarating experience that I will cherish forever.

The lava shots, and perhaps mainly the fact that I’d melted my drone, meant big publicity in all of the main photographic websites, which was very nice. In addition to lots of licensing deals, my images were on the front page of NatGeo.com (which more than paid for the drone repair) and also the Nat Geo international websites of about 10 countries. Stories about my shoot have been published in over 20 countries and surveyed in countless websites. I’ve been interviewed by Nat Geo and by several international photography and travel sites, as well as by Israeli news sites.

The point is, I had no idea what would come of the Hawaii trip before taking it. It could just as well be bad, with no visible surface flows or (as it is now) no lava in the Ocean Entry. It was a stroke of luck, and happily I was ready to take advantage. I’d like to encourage you to take the risks and, hopefully, you’ll get similar rewards.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

Erez offers video tutorials discussing his images, and explaining how he achieved them.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the most fascinating landscapes on earth with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in locations such as southern Iceland, Northern Iceland, The Lofoten Islands, Patagonia, Greenland, Namibia and the Faroe Islands.

More in The K?lauea Series:

  • Part 1: How to Melt a Drone
  • Part 2: Grounded
  • Part 3: At Sea

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Behind the Shot: Lost in Space
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 3: At Sea

06 Jan

In the first part of this series, I talked about shooting Kilauea’s lava surface-flows using a drone. In the second part I talked about shooting the lava with a DSLR from the ground. This time, I’d like to take you on the mini-adventure of sailing on the Pacific’s rough waters and shooting the lava entering the water at the Kamokuna Ocean Entry from a dedicated lava-viewing boat.

Please note that lava flow is never guaranteed. As I’m writing this, the ocean entry is inactive, so it’s always good to check the situation before traveling.

I was a bit anxious before heading out to the ocean. I suffer from severe motion sickness, and while pills help, they won’t keep my food in my belly if the water is rough. I was overwhelmingly relieved to hear that the ocean was supposed to be quiet the morning of our sail. I still gulped down 4 pills just in case!

Several providers offer dedicated lava-viewing trips, and they can easily be found online. Most offer the excursion at several fixed times each day. It was an easy choice to go at morning twilight, since I’d get nighttime, twilight and sunrise images in one sail. I chose a large boat with room for 50 people, give or take. When we were allowed on, I did my best to find a spot at the front of the seating area, since this would give me a larger field of view and more time doing actual shooting. The sail wasn’t cheap—I paid $ 250—but it was very much worth it.

What a hectic, delightful sight!

Arrival at the ocean entry takes about 30 minutes of fast sailing in open ocean. Bear in mind that this can be a problem if you suffer from motion sickness like I do, so please take precautions or you’ll be very sorry.

Upon arrival at the actual location, I was astounded to see the hectic clash of 1100-degree molten rock and ocean water. The temperature difference creates constant steam, and this, together with the ever-changing lava formations, creates an infinite variety of possible shots. A true delight for someone who thrives on shooting changing landscapes.

There are shapes created not only in the lava. The waves, crashing on the black rock and pushed by the steam, also create interesting shapes that are worth capturing.

Can you spot the tiny dancer?

Technically, there are many challenges one faces when shooting lava from a boat. Upon arrival, when it’s still nighttime, the global contrast in the scene is almost impossible to deal with. The lava is more than a few stops brighter than the solid rock and the water. Add the constant change in brightness and the result is often blown out. The photographer needs to continuously check the histogram and make sure the best compromise is made.

On my Canon 5D4, I tried not to have the brights overly exposed, since shadows are a bit easier to recover.

Since long exposures are out of the question (you’re on a rocking boat), and longer focal lengths are often used, high exposure speeds and thus very high ISO are required when shooting at nighttime. I normally used ISO 6400, just to get some detail in the water and the rocks.

I aimed to expose between 1/500 and 1/1000 sec with my 70-300mm to overcome the constant motion. Since frequent and immediate focal length changes were necessary, I had to have the exposure speed on the high end.

Luckily, when dawn strikes and ambient light begins to appear, global contrast and brightness levels improve a great deal. This was my favorite time to shoot, as the blend of colors (red from the lava, blue from the ocean at twilight) was wonderful, and shooting conditions were easier—lower ISO required and less concern about contrast management.

Wonderful colors and action upon morning twilight at the ocean entry. If you look very carefully, you’ll be able to spot another boat in this image! As light was a bit stronger, I could lower the ISO to 3200 and gain a bit more image quality.

As the light increases and sunrise approaches, the contrast goes down, and the extreme look with it. They give way to a more silky, matted look and a more balanced, easier to swallow histogram. Shooting at this stage is much easier and more fun. The lack of concern allowed me to concentrate on finding interesting patterns and creating compelling compositions.

These conditions were also great for putting more emphasis on the meeting of lava and water. At some points, the waves crash on the lava and flow on top of it, which looks a bit surreal.

Lastly came the sunrise. Luck struck again and this too was beautiful. I hope this last image gives you a feel of what it was like to be there, in the middle of the Pacific, watching Earth’s molten interior flowing to meet the water.

In the next and final article in this series, I’ll write about shooting the lava from a helicopter.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

Erez offers video tutorials discussing his images, and explaining how he achieved them.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the most fascinating landscapes on earth with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in locations such as southern Iceland, Northern Iceland, The Lofoten Islands, Patagonia, Greenland, Namibia and the Faroe Islands.

More in The K?lauea Series:

  • Part 1: How to Melt a Drone
  • Part 2: Grounded

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Behind the Shot: Lost in Space
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 2: Grounded

17 Dec

In the first part of this series, I talked about shooting Kilauea’s lava surface-flows using a drone. Now, I’d like to take a step back and talk about shooting the lava in a more traditional method: using a DSLR on the ground.

If you’re inside the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and can’t fly a drone, this is the only affordable way of shooting the surface flows. But even if a drone is an option, shooting from the ground is different and will give you unique opportunities and some challenges.

Shooting with a DSLR might be the least technically challenging way of shooting the lava in Kilauea, but it’s not as easy as you might think.

First of all, there’s the challenge of traversing the lava on foot. You’re basically walking on very hard, sometimes jagged terrain, and moving from point to point searching for compositions can be strenuous. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a 7-8 km hike to get to the surface flow area, but there’s much more hiking on location to get the actual shots.

When shooting, you often want to get as close as possible to the lava, in order to get more detail and/or a desired perspective. This might be a problem in some cases, as the lava is about 1100 degrees Centigrade, and this temperature can be felt very well even from several meters away.

In some of the shots, I felt like I was inside an oven. I had to find my composition quickly, take a few images, and run away, since staying there would become unbearable after several seconds.

This particular shot has a slightly narrower depth of field than I’d like it to have. The reason is that lava was flowing underground very close to where I was standing, and because of the intense heat, I didn’t have the time to set the tripod. I had to shoot hand held and run for my life!

Protective gear is very important. The bare minimum would be a long-sleeve shirt, sturdy, ankle-high hiking boots, long pants and, of course, gloves. The latter are needed both because the skin on your hands is struck by radiating heat from the lava, and because the tripod can get very hot after staying near the lava for some time. I would also recommend a beanie to protect your forehead and ears from the heat.

Don’t neglect listening to your body—if you ignore the heat and the pain, you might find yourself with second-degree burns. I’ve mentioned it before, but a good guide is very important when hiking to dangerous surroundings, and can keep you in the safe zone (if you so wish).

Last but not least, there’s the heat-haze problem. The heat creates this well-known blur, which means some shots cannot turn out sharp, no matter how well-focused they are.

A decent solution can be waiting for the wind to blow the hot air and supply a short relief from the haze, but the wind doesn’t always cooperate. You’re left with the option of talking multiple shots in hope that some turn out relatively sharp. Another approach is using the haze to your benefit in an artistic way. It surely conveys the feeling of heat to the viewer.

The Hawaiian sunset is brief, which means the really good light is short-lived, and after that’s gone you’re going to need a tripod to keep stable. This naturally makes shooting much more cumbersome, and prevents the shoot-and-run-away technique mentioned above. The upside is that there’s beautiful contrasty details to be shot, which makes for good abstracts.

Regarding photographic equipment, I mostly used the telephoto end of my focal-length range. One lens I didn’t use was my 11-24mm, since it was way too wide, and the 16-35 was also left in the bag most of the time. The lenses I used the most were my 24-70mm and especially my 70-300mm.

The latter enabled me to get the intimate details of the lava from a safe (or rather possible) distance.

Next time I’ll talk about shooting the lava from a boat.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the most fascinating landscapes on earth with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in locations such as southern Iceland, Northern Iceland, The Lofoten Islands, Patagonia, Greenland, Namibia and the Faroe Islands.

More in The K?lauea Series:

Part 1: How to Melt a Drone

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Behind the Shot: Lost in Space
  • Behind the Shot: Spot the Shark
  • The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Shooting K?lauea Volcano, Part 1: How to melt a drone

25 Nov

In October this year, I spent 2 weeks shooting in Hawaii. My first stop was Big Island, where a friend and I shot the lava flows of Pu?u ????—a volcanic cone in the eastern rift zone of K?lauea, a currently active shield volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, and the most active of the five volcanoes that together form the island of Hawaii (commonly known as Big Island).

The Pu?u ???? crater has been erupting continuously since January 3, 1983.

I had booked my flights (about 22 net hours per direction!) to Hawaii before I knew of the lava situation, but a friend told me that there were good inland flows so I kept my hopes up. Still, I went there knowing I could fly all this way and get lousy conditions. Volcanoes are unpredictable, and K?lauea is no different. For example, as I’m writing this, the Ocean Entry is devoid of any flowing lava. The surface flows come and go. Some say Pele (the Hawaiian goddess of fire) does as she pleases.

I did not get lousy conditions. Instead, I got the most incredible lucky streak I could’ve imagined, which helped me produce a set of images I’m very happy with, and encouraged me to write this mini-series I hope you enjoy. I’ll start it with an article about shooting the lava with a drone.

Before I continue, here’s a very important statement. All of these drone shots were captured outside the Hawaii-Volcanoes National Park No-Flight Zone and within FAA drone regulations (line of sight, 400ft, not operated near manned aircraft), without exception.

Flying drones in national parks is strictly prohibited and can get you in very serious trouble (rangers roam the park and its boundaries and some of them arrived when we were shooting). Moreover, responsible flight is mandatory since there are helicopters flying nearby. Naturally, I didn’t fly my drone anywhere near the height the helis fly at. Don’t even think about doing that if you care about other people’s lives and your own.

I highly recommend hiring a good local guide, who can assist you with determining if you are on park grounds.

The drone log from one of the flights. I’m including this since I’ve gotten a ton of hate-mail from people who were sure I was lying and actually flew inside the national park. One even wrote “I’ve been there, these flows are inside the park!”. Seriously?
I’m not that stupid guys. Fly responsibly.

The day after landing in Hilo Airport in Big Island, Hawaii, we met our guide at 14:00 in the afternoon, and started the hike. It wasn’t an easy walk—we had to traverse about 7-8 kilometers on uneven, hardened lava to reach the surface flow area. Luckily, it was cloudy but not rainy; if the sun had been shining right on us the experience wouldn’t be as nice, and rain would have been very annoying as well.

The hike took about 2 hours, give or take, and I carried all of my DSLR equipment, my drone with several spare batteries, and 2 liters of water on my back (after drinking 1.5 liters right before heading out). I’d take 3 liters if I were to do this hike again, as I ran out of water at some point in the late evening.

We reached the lava at about 16:00, and apart from one other person, we had the place to ourselves for the next 2 hours before the tour groups came. I began to scout around and test how close I could get to the lava, and at the same time, started flying and shooting with my Phantom 4 Pro.

A two headed dragon?

The lava had been flowing beautifully since before we arrived, but about an hour into our visit, I started hearing people shouting, and my friend screamed at me to look to the right.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: one of the lava rivers quadrupled in force, simply bursting a huge mass of lava straight out of the mountain side, and flowed, diverging and converging, down the slopes, right in front of our eyes.

Before the river erupted A similar angle after the flow increased.

I continued shooting with the drone and with my DSLR. Here are 2 more shots:

At some point I was noticing the right side of the drone images was getting darker. I continued shooting but when I went back to the apartment, I was surprised to see the plastic inside the drone camera had melted!

It appears that I was so enthusiastic that I kept getting closer and closer to the lava to reach the compositions I wanted—that was the source of the dark patch. If you watch the video I attached above carefully enough, you’ll be able to see the right side growing continuously darker.

See the blur on the bottom right? My poor drone after the incident. It is now fixed!

Shooting lava with a drone was an exhilarating experience, even though I managed to melt it. There aren’t many technical considerations I can give you apart from watching the histogram, since global contrast can be harsh when it’s dark. The sun goes down fast in Hawaii, so make sure you use your time wisely—the really good light is short-lived.

If you’re reluctant to get your drone molten, be careful getting too close to the lava. For me, getting the right compositions was very much worth it. It was also a really captivating story, and my lava shots were all over the internet these last few weeks. There’s good to find in everything, I guess. DJI charged me about $ 450 to fix it, and while I don’t have the numbers yet, I’m pretty sure the licensing deals I’ve gotten since will cover that.

Next time, I’ll talk about shooting the lava from the ground.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the most fascinating landscapes on earth with Erez as your guide, you’re welcome to take a look at his unique photography workshops around the world:

Winter Paradise – Northern Iceland
Northern Spirits – The Lofoten Islands
Giants of the Andes and Fitz Roy Hiking Annex – Patagonia
Tales of Arctic Nights and Uummannaq Annex – Greenland
Saga of the Seas and The Far Reaches Annex – The Faroe Islands
Desert Storm – Namibia

Selected Articles by Erez Marom:

  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • On Causality in Landscape Photography
  • Mountain Magic: Shooting in the Lofoten Islands
  • Behind the Shot: Nautilus
  • Behind the Shot: Lost in Space
  • Behind the Shot: Spot the Shark
  • Quick Look: The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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