Molten rock and steam fly as the 61g lava flow, emanating from the Puʻu ʻŌʻō crater of Kilauea, meets the ocean. This shot was taken before sunrise after a hike through a lava field in the middle of the night. We were perched on a fairly unstable lava shelf overlooking the active lava delta below (we followed all Park Service warnings and had a local guide with us to try to do it as safely as possible). Soon after our trip, I believe much of this area collapsed into the ocean.
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Wow!! Great saturation and sharpness all at once. Were you using a Neutral density filter to prevent overexposure.. And if you are willing share your camera settings for the shot..?
Thanks Max, glad you liked it! I was targeting 1/2 second for exposure time (a bit of motion blur, but still some detail in the steam and water), so the rest of my settings are built around that. This was shot at:
120mm, 1/2 sec, ISO 800, f/4 (you can see the focus fall off at the upper right, but it didn't bother me too much)
No ND filter, but the shadows were significantly underexposed to not blow out the highlights, and raised in post. This is a single exposure, but if I shot it again I might bracket to better capture the detail in the shadows here.