Painted Trees of Maui

Hasselblad H1 with PhaseOne P45+ back,  HC 55-110mm at 65mm

ISO 100, 1/8th at f/8.0

Located 15 miles past Mama’s Fish House on the Road to Hana, this group of painted Eucalyptus trees is a favorite location of mine.  I visit Maui once or twice a year, and have tried shooting these beautiful trees a few times.  While they look fake, those that have seen them in person can attest to the amazing bark and stunning variety of colors.  This image, taken with my Hasselblad, has great detail - the web doesn’t really do it justice.  I have printed it as large as 24x60, and it didn’t disappoint.

PREVIOUS IMAGES FROM THE WHAT’S NEW PAGE...

Aspen Ridge ’07

This is a location I re-shoot most falls.  It’s on the way to some of my favorite fall locations, and after I finish here, I have plenty of light to shoot a grove of aspens a few miles into this scene. On my welcome page is a version of this location from a couple of years ago.  This year a slight cloud layer softened the light, so it has a little different look to it ... a lot of depth.

This is one of those images that has so much potential detail available, and each year I try to do a better job.  I used my Hasselblad with  300mm lens and PhaseOne P45 back, capturing 6 vertical slices. I used the new stitching tools in photoshop which did a decent job in creating the final image, which is 24,798 pixels wide. Att 240dpi it will print 103” long.  Why so much detail?  My goal is a final print about 8 - 10 feet long, with so much detail it pulls you into the image.  From 20 feet away it looks great, but even a non-photographer will get “pulled” in, experiencing the scene similar to really being there by examining smaller and smaller regions.  Thats my goal anyway.  So far I’ve printed it 24x88 inches, and there is plenty of detail to go larger.  One downside is it’s nearly impossible to make this look good when reducing 25,000 pixels to around 800 pixels for a web page.

To get an idea of the detail, here is a 500x300 section at a 1 to 1 pixel ratio on your screen.  You can make this area out in the above image... a small group of white trunks about 10% from the left side of the image.   As you can see, even individual leaves are quite distinct.

Yes, it will take a pretty big print for this much detail to make a difference.  But to me, big prints are not meant just to be viewed from a distance ... even non-photographers can get intrigued and fascinated with the detail ... if it’s there.

For more of my personal feelings about this, read my article “How much detail?”.