Aaron Feinberg Captures the Landscapes of Hawaii

Everybody know's Hawaii can be a dream vacation. Aaron Feinberg shows us how beautiful it actually can be. In three days, he traveled around the island of Kauai and spent the best hours of the day photographing some of the most beautiful places of the island.

While pretty pictures might seem easy to capture in a place like Hawaii, I really appreciated seeing how Aaron worked. These days, it seems like a lot of people like to throw a camera on a tripod, take a few different exposures, and come up with a fakey looking HDR image in post. It's refreshing to see Aaron using several different tools besides his camera body and lens to get the shot.

David Strauss's picture

David Strauss is a wedding photographer based in Charleston, SC.

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22 Comments

AWesome photos. 

wow, amazing work.

off subject
david strauss is look like david spade on this small picture +)

LOL true

Haha, I was just thinking this.

Wow, thanks for picking up on the documentary. It was great fun to shoot and learn how Aaron works, he is a truly great and fun guy to be around and takes the most breathtaking images of Hawaii you could imagine. You can check out more of his work at www.aFeinPhoto.com and support him at his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/afeinphoto.

Nathan Ashby
Videographer/Editor
www.BrovadoMedia.com

Around the 3 minute mark he is playing with an filter and moving it around in front of the lens, what does this do?

He's rotating his polarizer filter to eliminate glare in the image :)

 He is using Graduated Neutral-Density Filter (Grad or Grad ND). It lets to fit big dynamic range between sky and ground. He is moving the filter up and down to get softer border than the filter offer.

As others  - Graduated ND filter.

Reason for moving it around - my guess is he's either trying to find the optimum positioning OR doing it while shooting and wants to smooth out the transition between light and dark more that the filter currently provides.

Excellent work Aaron, Beautiful photos from dedication to the art.

damn, awesome work!

Thanks so much all!! Was a surreal experience on the OTHER side of the lens :) 

@facebook-1110120006:disqus -the filter is a 2stop hard GND or 3stop Reverse GND (cant remember which one).  Holds back the sky to balance the difference in light from top to bottom.  Can blend too but with water it's easier to get everything in one shot.

<3 for the support!!
aF

Really awesome shots and a great video!

amazing stuff, makes me one to go out and shoot right now....but its 11pm...

11pm is amazing time for shooting. city lights? If you dont have many available lights, then go back to 'photo-graphy' painting with light. Tripod the camera and use a flashlight to paint in parts of the subject, bridge, building, beach etc.

Hi Aaron, I really love the ethereal look of your photos. As a newbie to photography I was wondering if you could tell me if the Grad ND filter is my best option of balancing the exposure in an image? I shoot in the snowy mountains of the Rockies and often find the sky can often be very over exposed when I focus on land based objects. Can the ND be combined with a polarizer?

Thanks !

im sure aaron has his own input. Just wanted to throw mine into the mix. Yes, the GND balances out the exposure. When you have properly exposed land / overly exposed sky. Think of it as using a pair of sunglasses on the top part of your picture. Remember graduated nd, top dark, bottom clear. Regular ND (neutral density) makes the whole picture darker, use ND when you want a longer shutter but its middle of the day, like getting the flowing water. Also, yes, ND can be used with a polarizer, a polarizer only cuts certain lines of light, typically 90* to the sun, where ND cuts all.

Awesome stuff! What kind of tripod does he use?

I was in Kauai in March, and had the opportunity to peek through the windows of his Hanalei gallery (it was closed). Breathtaking. As you might imagine, his photos are much more impressive in person -- even through the windows. Glad I saw it toward the end of my trip though -- I might have been too discouraged and just put the camera away. :-)

I liked the video, too -- really well done. Except for the beginning -- I've watched it twice and still can't figure out why we see the plane fly from the Midwest. He lives there, right? It's not like he was on vacation for a week. . . . Maybe that's where Bravado is from?

wondered the exact same thing w/ the plan flying in