I’ve seen fantastic places, but no other experience has been like photographing Hawaii, a world of vibrant color, people and landscapes. The combination of tropical beauty and soaring green cliffs is astounding. And colors are everywhere, every day. It was all so inspiring that I want to share them and how I photographed them.

Photographing Hawaii – Gear

The way I approached photographing Hawaii was to look for simple images of color that felt like Hawaii. I wanted to avoid tackling or planning too much and avoid expecting every shot to be on National Geographic. This was a family trip, not a photo shoot.

To start, I needed to travel with less but serious photo gear. I stuffed everything except my tripod into a Tenba Discovery mini pack, which stretched at the seams trying to contain my DSLR with battery grip, three lenses and a flash plus more accessories. I chose the pack so I could be more agile yet still keep my most essential gear with me. It took this experience to realize the value of an 18-200 mm lens, which I don’t have but would’ve greatly preferred. Instead, I packed my 70-200 2.8, ultrawide 12-24 and standard 24-85. I did get great images, but I’m confident I would’ve gotten mostly the same images with a single 18-200 lens.

So, my first piece of advice is take one lens if possible. Don’t worry about an 18-200 not being as tack sharp or as fast as a single great lens for each length. Unless National Geographic is paying you for a minor technical advantage, one lens will do you wonders. For family trips, I try to travel lighter. Since I didn’t have one lens that covered every range, and I couldn’t decide on just one lens, I took my favorite three. If this had been an assignment, I’d have brought even more gear.

I found myself using the polarizers frequently. For travel photography, I hate filters because they add hassle, but in a place like Hawaii, you can’t leave home without it. Hawaii is about color — deep blues and greens, lots of water, and lots of bright light everywhere. Even in overcast conditions, a CPL can save you work in post and make the difference between an OK shot and a standout. The CPL was the only filter I used. When it didn’t work or wasn’t necessary, I took it off and used no filters.

I took my Sekonic L-358 but used it infrequently. Often there simply wasn’t time or it wasn’t practical to stop and take a reading, and I’m good enough with matrix metering to get the shot. To be sure, I often bracket, and at the end of the day I delete the dark or bright images in camera to recover card space, as I don’t travel with a laptop.

The ColorChecker is great for white balance when you use it, but I used it rarely just for practicality reasons. Much of the time I was shooting with the 70-200, which is too long to shoot the ColorChecker in my own hand. Sometimes I just didn’t feel like having it in my pocket. Also, I wasn’t on a critical shoot, and in-camera settings got me very close 100 percent of the time.

In Hawaii, simply using the daylight setting gives a pleasing look in most circumstances, and it’s unlikely to be off by more than a few hundred Kelvins. In fact the only times I moved off it were to shoot in overcast conditions and when I used white balance tricks. I did use the CC for light profiles, which is essential, and occasional white balance reference in tricky conditions and when I used custom white balance and wanted a reference to fall back on in Lightroom.

I used the tripod twice: once at Haleakala for sunrise and once for a family portrait. Had I been getting paid for images, I might have set up a few more times but I wouldn’t have lugged it everywhere.

Saltwater hurts gear

The D200 took some damage this trip. Being near and splashed with salt water didn’t help. Some of the metal parts started corroding, including the hot shoe, and the SB-800 fritzes out and starts flashing rapidly or the TTL mode stops working. Somehow the D200 battery door lever got tight and the pop-up flash doesn’t spring up as nicely. And sometimes the vertical trigger doesn’t work; these are new problems and I’m not sure if they’re simply a result of age or entirely a result of a little salt water splash and sand. At one point I thought the whole camera was shot until I realized I had accidentally switched it to manual focus drive. It’s time for a new camera anyway.

No, these ain’t your grandma’s vacation photos. See the difference? If you want yours to look more like mine, I happily provide mentoring, speaking and workshops because the answer to better photography is education, not equipment. I have tips and techniques you can take on any vacation with one camera and one lens.