Photography by Aaron P. Brown

Drobo FS... a preview

2011-05-27T08:15:00.007-10:00

Hey all,

Excuse the absence of posts, I'm in The 'Stan supporting Operation Enduring Freedom with the 552nd Military Police Company based out of Schofield Barracks, HI. The good news is we get back in 48 days! So what warrants a blog post on my Photography Blog, that's a good question...

So one of the gadgets I convinced myself I was gonna get upon returning to the states was building a Windows Home Server Box (using WHS 2011). Picking the individual components was pretty fun, I used my goto site for computers Newegg.com. So I had everything picked out, case, motherboard, processor, memory, OS hard drive, Data HDDs (5x 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green), etc. The price was double to triple what I originally planned, but I also upped the ante going from one to two 2TB drives to a whopping 5 2TBs drives :D

Fast forward to two days ago and I get an email from Data Robotics offering a Memorial Day Sale of their Drobo's

Basically it was $100 off the normal price plus a chance to win a 2nd Drobo if you ordered one, or linked to their site.

So I started doing a little research, seeing if a Drobo could replace the idea of a WHS box. After reading that Microsoft was cutting Drive Extender from WHS 2011 (one of the best features of WHS v1) I was pretty bummed, but had options. Either use RAID to ensure no loss of data or use an add-in for WHS 2011 called StableBit Drive Pool, essentially a third party option that put DE back into WHS 2011. Still sounded like a little bit of work for the latter and a ton of work for the former (RAID=headaches galore).

I've actually heard of Drobo and their products for quite some time (atleast a couple of years) after reading a review from a professional photog who uses them to backup his photographs. What he liked (and what attracted me to the idea as well) was it was a pretty simple and an ingenious way to ensure you have your data (in my case photos mostly) is safe. You add drives to the Drobo (the size/brand/etc can vary unlike RAID arrays), you select single or double drive redundancy (if you want your data to survive one or two disk failures at the sacrifice of available space. You can calculate the space available using Drobo's Capacity Calculator (I linked the calculator to their 5 bay Drobo's as that's what I was looking for). I added 5x 2TB drives to the calculator and came up with 7.26TB with single drive redundancy or 5.44TB for dual disk redundancy, I'm leaning toward the latter.

The more and more research I did and reviews I read, the more and more I liked the idea of a Drobo, plus the idea of winning a 2nd one for free and a roughly "one in four chance" sounded awesome. So I did what any gadget obsessed compulsive spender did, order the Drobo FS (5 bay with gigabit Ethernet) from Data Robotics themselves, using the promo code (email me, or comment with your email address and I'll send you the promo code) to get the $100 off and a chance to win two. Opened a new tab, zoomed to Amazon and ordered my 5x 2TB WD Green drives. I then put away my hot-to-the-touch credit card, while my savings account scowled at me.

The best part is, it can work in conjunction with a WHS box, by either mapping the Drobo to the WHS or using the Drobo to back-up the WHS. Maybe once my car is bought, my block leave (post deployment vacations) are over, and other expenditures are done (install iPad into car aka soundmancaraudio on YouTube) I start saving (again) for my WHS build.

So here's to Drobo and I hope it lives upto my expectations. The best part is, it'll be in Hawaii before I get back (care of a friends' mailing address) so I can play with it right away if I choose :D

Thanks for reading and of course, once I get hands on with it, I'll post more :)

Aaron

Stairway to Heaven (Haiku Stairs)

2010-07-03T10:19:00.004-10:00

Hey all,

I know it's been a while since I posted, but I've had a lot going with work and not so much with Photography :( So the Haiku Stairs, aka the Stairway to Heaven, well a little back story on them and how I first heard of them. It was actually right after I hiked Koko Crater. I was showing the pictures to my boss and she was like "That isn't the Stairway to Heaven is it?" I was like "I don't think so, I'm pretty sure this was Koko Crater. What's the Stairway to Heaven?" So she proceeded to tell me it's a little stairway that's on the East side of the island, you can see it right after you get out of the tunnel on the H3 interstate. Naturally the next time I had some free time I drove that way and caught my first glimpse of it, I immediately thought "I have to climb that!"

So I did a little research, came across a great site Friends of Haiku Stairs, on the first page, "The Haiku Stairs lead 3,922 steps up the Koolau Pali to the 2800-foot summit of Puu Keahiakahoe overlooking Haiku Valley." Holy bigebus, Koko Crater was only 1,205 ft high and 1,106 steps and kicked my butt pretty good. Then I read the tiny fine print above the info, "WARNING: THE HAIKU STAIRS ARE CLOSED." My heart sank a little bit. I did some more web searching, saw some awesome pictures, some videos on YouTube, which just upped the ante on me wanting to do it. I dunno if it being closed made me want to do it more, probably not since I first heard of it in March 2009 and didn't climb it until July 2010. Every now and then I'd find someone who hiked it, since it was a dangerous hike I definitely didn't want to do it alone, and I wanted someone who had done it before to go with me, since you have to sneak in and all. I had some co-workers who wanted to do it over a long weekend, however they picked a day when I said I was shooting a wedding :(

So flash forward to this week, we had some training over on the marine base on Kaneohe, and we're all riding a bus. I look up as we pass the tunnel to catch a glimpse of the elusive stairway when I hear someone say "Man I wanna hike that..." we get to chatting and I was like I'm down, and he's like Let's do it Friday, since we have a four day weekend. I was stoked. I had driven around the neighborhood where you have to park to get it, but I re-googled it to make sure I knew where to park and have directions.

So Friday morning rolls around, I wake up at 5:30am, since we wanted to leave Schofield by 6:00am to make it there before the security guard showed up. It was raining on our side of the island, but we both figured maybe it was only raining here, and we were already awake, let's do it anyway. I packed my Army issued wet weather gear, a camelback, and my camera. Speaking of camera, since I'm deploying in July and had no inkling to take my DSLR with me, I left it with Steph so she could get pictures of the kids while I was gone. I was thinking of buying a camera before deploying to take with me, but when I heard I was going on this hike, I had to have a camera. So Wednesday I picked up the Canon Powershot G11 from Best Buy, a camera that was getting great reviews "near DSLR performance from a compact camera", which is exactly what I wanted since I consider myself a DSLR snob, I didn't want a POS camera that I'd be frustrated with all the time. Anyway back to the hike, so we get to the gate, park the car, try not to attract too much attention and slip through the gate. It was right about 7am.

Our first view of the H3 overpass from inside the gate.

So we start up the access road and neither of us have no real clue where exactly we need to go. Out of respect for the residents who live near the gate, there isn't a definitive guide on where you need to go (I guess this is there to try and cut down on people hiking the stairs). So we're wondering and wondering, there's a couple of forks in the road and we end up at a dead end.

Dead end number one.

Well crap, so we head back to the nearest junction and take it, find another junction pick one way and crap another dead end. So we start heading back to where it split when finally we catch our first view of the stairs...

Well this gets us fired up and we kinda have an idea on where we need to go.

More awesome views along the way.

We finally find the entrance to the stairs after an hour of walking around (I guess this is pretty common).

Thankfully even after wondering around for an hour we still got to the entrance before the security guard. Here's some pictures and videos of the hike... For the videos, turn your speakers down as there is a ton of wind noise, it was a really windy day on an already windy hike...

The H3 interstate

Soon to be the first citizen of Kreplachistan to summit the Haiku Stairs ;)

A view down, I wish I'd gotten more of the actual stairs, but since 1) it was windy and rainy 2) my first time hiking and 3) I didn't want to let go of the railing much I didn't get as many shots as I wanted. Keep in mind these stairs are only about 18" wide...

One of the steepest parts of the stairs

The clouds whipping around the ridgeline just looked awesome

Another scenic spot to take a picture with the H3 tunnel in the background. We were warned it was pretty socked in so we wanted some pictures of us while we could still see

Into the clouds, literally

View from the first landing (1620 ft out of 2800ft, holy crap we're just over halfway...

The next section, yikes...

Me at the first landing

Progress Report

Almost there...

Socked in...

At the top!

I'm trying to smile and look happy but the wind was gusting probably around 40-50mph up here

And back down...

1st Landing on the way down

Back on the ground!

So definitely the hardest, scariest and probably awesome-est thing I've ever done. When we got down the security guard was pretty cool, we chatted and BSed with him for about 15-20 minutes. He said on the weekends on holidays he gets there early and will chase people down the stairs. Yes the stairs are closed, and yes you are trespassing if you decide to hike it anyway. I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but if you do decide to hike it, remember to be respectful of the environment, other hikers, and the security guards if you're instructed to leave. It took us somewhere between an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes to summit. My legs were on fire most of the time, and were definitely shaking (muscle failure) on the way down). It took about an hour to get down from the top. The security guard said his fastest summit was 37 minutes and he did Koko Crater in 14:54, yikes.

Afterward we grabbed some lunch in Kaneohe and of course the summit completely cleared up. As we left it was socked back in again. I heard from a friend there's only about 15 days a year where it's clear the whole way up. I didn't mind the cloud cover, mist and wind going up as it kept me pretty cool. I couldn't imagine hiking it on a clear day. After I got back yesterday afternoon I took 3 extra strength Ibuprofen as my back was very sore to the point where I really couldn't walk without looking crippled. Today my back is better, or since my calfs are literally on fire I don't notice my back hurting ;) I can't really walk, I kinda hobble if I need to move. I have weird bruises on my arms, they're sore from when I'd used them to help pull me up to give me legs a break, and using my arms and hands as brakes on the way down. Other than that I feel great (lol yeah right) it was definitely worth it. Koko Crater aint got nothing on Stairway, and Koko Crater was still pretty tough lol. So will I do it again? I dunno lemme see how long it takes to recover ;)

Thanks for reading,
AB

Will and Megan Huff's Wedding

2010-04-13T17:40:00.004-10:00

Hey all,

I'm sure just about everybody who follows this blog is also friends with me on Facebook lol but I thought I'd post some of my favorite pictures from a wedding I shot on Saturday anyways.

Click here to see the entire shoot

Thanks for looking,
Aaron

Animoto and Baseball

2010-02-13T12:32:00.007-10:00

Well with Baseball Season coming up soon, and football being over :( I decided to play around with Animoto some more since I recently upgraded to their unlimited videos for a year. Anyway I made two quick videos: 2003 Kansas State Baseball and 2009 Hawaii Pacific University Baseball. There's some quirks I'd work out, like the weird crops Animoto likes to pick sometimes, but overall it's a fun new way to show off my pictures :)

2003 Kansas State University Baseball

2009 Hawaii Pacific University Baseball

Two thumbs up for Garmin!

2010-01-19T19:40:00.004-10:00

I know this isn't really Photography related, but I just wanted to post this RAVE I have about Garmin's customer service.

I've been a loyal Garmin customer since the days of the Garmin V. That thing was a beast, no color screen, no touch screen, heck it didn't even connect to the computer via USB, it was a serial connection back then. It didn't even come preloaded with the US Maps, it had Interstates and major highways pre-loaded on the device, but you had to select which areas you wanted detailed data of. And it took forever to upload that data thanks to the serial cable, think 2-3 hours to upload 25MB of maps to the device. Still an awesome GPS.

Anyway I've owned various Garmin GPSs since then, even a few other brands, had the iPhone with it's GPS, but every time I'd compare them to Garmin and my old Garmin V. So in June I purchased a Garmin nuvi 885T, at the time Garmin's best model, you could talk to the device and it would work off of voice commands ie "Navigate to McDonalds" and it'd direct you to the nearest McDs.

Well on vacation in Colorado, I noticed the device was no longer charging. Lucky for me I got the 4 year service plan with Best Buy when I bought the Garmin. I bring it in and Best Buy was like we don't carry this model anymore. Ok no biggie, I have the Service plan, not the Replacement plan, so send it in for service. Didn't even get that far, Best Buy is like no we're gonna give you a brand new different unit today. Well score, that's pretty awesome, no waiting until my 885T gets back from service.

The customer service rep initially got me the 1390T, the downside was none of Garmin's current models carried the voice recognition, I was a little bummed. I guess Garmin discontinued that feature because it was really buggy about working or not. I didn't seem to notice too many problems unless I had a lot of background noise. Anyway so the 1390T looked nice, seemed a lot more responsive and quicker to respond than my 885T. They do the exchange and I take a lap around the store. I head up to car/audio/gps and see the next model up 1490T with it's huge 5" screen for the same price as the 1390T they just switched me to. After a little bit of coaxing the manager agrees to give me the 1490T instead :)

So where does Garmin come into play? Well earlier in November I purchased the lifetime map upgrade for my 885T since it was a nice model I planned on keeping it for a while, little did I know it would be replaced in two months. No biggie. So I get home after giving the 1490T a little test drive and pull up Garmin's website. A little bit of searching later and I found out it's not possible to transfer my lifetime map updates :( Well it's not like I just bought a new unit on the whim, hopefully they'll be able to make an exception.

Eventually I email Garmin, explain the situation and about 2 days later the Rep says, sure sounds good just get me a copy of the receipt via email or fax and we'll be good to go. It takes me a couple days to respond, I couldn't find the receipt so I had to goto Best Buy and get another hard copy. I do, take pictures and email that back to Garmin. Now I'm expecting it to be another couple of days before they get back to me, not a problem at all. Well about an hour later I get a new email alert, I think it's Garmin's automated response, saying yes we got your email, standby before a normal human reads it and replies. But sure enough it was from a real human being, and they had already switched the lifetime maps to my new GPS.

Pretty awesome customer service there, other companies take note. I'm definitely a technology junkie, always looking at the latest and greatest out there, but to have a company that has great customer service, treats you like a human being, is willing to make the exception to keep a customer happy, is one that will stay successful, and more importantly, keep my fickle techno obsessed self loyal to their company. :)

Hooray to Garmin, keep up the awesome work (and quality products too) :D

Aaron Brown

Pictures - Family in Colorado - December 2009

2010-01-05T17:55:00.004-10:00

Click here to see the entire gallery, the rest of the photos have been posted in other Blog entries

Animoto & Smugmug & Me

2009-12-26T12:18:00.004-10:00

I was reading a Blog today about Animoto and how they've created a partnership with SmugMug (the site I use for hosting my pictures) and thought, hey that sounds Awesome!

So I decided just to play around and create a short (ie free) video of the images I have in my Wedding Porfolio Gallery. Their integration is so easy with SmugMug, I went to my gallery, clicked Buy, then Create a Video with Animoto. It automatically selected the images from that gallery, I shuffled the order of the photos, picked the Music, then clicked Compile.

The process took no more than 5-7 minutes, and most of that was Animoto doing their magic behind the scenes. So without further ado, my first (hopefully of many more to come) Animoto & Photography by Aaron P. Brown joint ventures :)

By the way their pricing is awesome, it's free for a 30 second video, $3 for a full length (non-commercial video) or $30 for unlimited videos for a year :)

Catcha soon!
Aaron

Kids and Parents

2009-12-23T23:30:00.001-10:00

Here's some of my parents with the kids, more to come...

New Changes to Website

2009-12-11T02:33:00.003-10:00

Hey all,

A new year is coming, I'm on vacation, and with all this free time I decided to make some fun changes to my Photography website. The first change you might notice is my Photography by Aaron P Brown logo is no longer centered, it's aligned left, and the toolbars instead of being centered and below the logo are now on the same level and aligned right. This will change to depending on the browser window size, the reason I did that was to make more screen room available for this next change...

The biggest and most noticeable change was done to the slideshow on my homepage. I found out some SmugMug users had improved the code on the slideshow to also make it "stretchy" so on real high resolutions you'll see more detail on my pictures, which is especially awesome for the panoramas I have in the slideshow. So no matter what resolution you're running the javascript will resize the slideshow to be optimal for your browser, pretty awesome eh?

I also randomized the order of the images in the slideshow. I edited my blog to match the new arrangement as well. At the bottom of my homepage and blog are now clickable links to email me, instead of the 1988 method of having to either copy and paste it, remove the spaces and change [at] to @, etc. Plus on my webpage it's spam bot proof, mouse over the code to see, on the blog I couldn't figure out to get that javascript to work, so it's just an old fashioned a href="mailto:"...

While messing with all the code, I noticed some of the pictures in my slideshow were just web uploads 800x533, etc. So I'm in the process of uploading full versions to replace the web ones.

Last but not least I uploaded the "Keepers" batch from my December 2004 McKinney, TX Tiger Shoot. A few of these were already in my portfolio, but while looking for the originals to replace the web versions I had uploaded, I noticed some awesome shots that weren't on my site, so I did a quick run through, proccessed the keepers and uploaded to a new gallery: Tigers @ McKinney, TX - December 2004

And now it's 5:43am Mountain time so I'm probably going to pass out here in the next couple of minutes :)

Thanks for reading/swinging on by, and catcha later,
Aaron

Arili - Dec 10th

2009-12-10T18:14:00.001-10:00

Arili hamming it up for my camera :)

New Hawaii Shots, Round Top Drive, Diamond Head (Taken Dec 2nd)

2009-12-03T01:45:00.008-10:00

Hey all, I'm still alive and still taking pictures! In fact I have some really good ones from today. Been working on them since I got back from shooting in fact. I stayed downtown too long and was stuck in traffic for an hour plus, but these shots were definitely worth the hassle.

As some of you may know I just got a new lens (EF 17-40L f/4) off of craigslist for a steal and a half, and today was the first day I really put it to use. I've had this lens before, Rocky Mountain National Park - October 2004 so I know it's an awesome lens to have, and I'd already tested the lens out indoors and was very impressed with the quality inside at ISO 1600 wide open (ie f/4), so I couldn't wait to get some real shots out of it. Anyway I'm sure you're thinking Aaron quit blabbing and show me the money, err pictures :)

Take a look!

I think the clouds really make this picture, they're the only reason I posted this one image in addition to the 2 panos I did from Round Top Drive.

View of Diamond Head Crater, downtown Honolulu and Manoa Valley (in the foreground) taken from Round Top Drive in Puu Ualakea State Wayside located in the Round Top Forest Reserve.

--

This is the second panoramic shot I took from this location. This one I used just a UV filter instead of a polarizing filter. It's another hand-held (no tripod) panoramic and I'm very impressed with the results. Yeah I can nitpick and say the horizon bows instead of being a straight line, but this is light years better than my attempts and hand holding panos in RMNP circa 2003-2004 :)

Panoramic shot of Diamond Head Crater, downtown Honolulu and Manoa Valley (in the foreground) taken from Round Top Drive in Puu Ualakea State Wayside located in the Round Top Forest Reserve.

19 shot hand-held (no tripod) panoramic composition stitched in Adobe PS CS4.

40D EF 17-40 f/4L USM
Shot @ 40mm ISO 100 f/8 1/400s

RAW conversion done in PS CS4

This PS file is 113MB and a resolution of 13081 x 3739 or 54.5" x 15.6" at 240dpi or a 139.9 megapixel image!

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This is the third panoramic I took from Round Top Drive, and I call this version "Wider with Less Sky" :) Still a UV filter, and still hand held. I really like this one, extremely happy with the results. And the best part, aka the little easter egg, click on the picture, and the very right hand side you can see an airplane. I purposely waited for one to be in the last frame of the pano, and thankfully it didn't get cropped out when this pano was assembled. I don't know if I had better luck in this one, or since the horizon is higher, but there's almost no bow in the horizon at all.

Panoramic shot of Diamond Head Crater, downtown Honolulu and Manoa Valley (in the foreground) taken from Round Top Drive in Puu Ualakea State Wayside located in the Round Top Forest Reserve.

20 shot hand-held (no tripod) panoramic composition stitched in Adobe PS CS4.

40D EF 17-40 f/4L USM
Shot @ 40mm ISO 100 f/8 1/400s

RAW conversion done in PS CS4

This PS file is 126MB and a resolution of 13529 x 3766 or 56.4" x 15.7" at 240dpi or a 145.8 megapixel image!

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This is my favorite image I took of the day (Dec 2nd), it's the Diamond Head Light House from the summit of Diamond Head. I took a bunch of shots of that little lighthouse mostly just point and click, but this is the one where I composed the shot, waited for the waves to be just right, etc. :D I'm really glad it turned out as well as I envisioned it. Not to flatter myself but it reminds me of a post card, or a pictures from a lighthouse calendar.

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I took more pictures from the Diamond Head and Hanauma Bay, but I'm still working on those. Stay Tuned!

Aaron

My Rant on Elizabeth Lambert and her apology

2009-11-18T20:45:00.003-10:00

Yahoo Sports Blog: Vilified New Mexico soccer player breaks her silence By Chris Chase

First off, I stand by this even today. She's only sorry because she got caught and became vilified by the media.

A poster on this article commented about how video compilations seem exaggerate the actions of the one in question. He claimed how a video compilation of Dennis Rodman's cheap shots throughout his career would leave us all wondering why he wasn't suspended indefinitely from the NBA. Fair enough, however keep in mind all of Elizabeth Lambert's cheap shots came in ONE GAME, not an entire season, or even a multi-year career.

Seeing her cheap shots, especially the hair pulling, remind me too much of Todd Bertuzzi's cheap shot on Steve Moore. For those who don't know the history of the Bertuzzi incident, on February 16th, 2004, Steve Moore checked and injured Canucks captain and NHL leading scorer at the time Marcus Naslund. The check was questionable and as a result Naslund missed three games with a concussion and a bone chip in his elbow. Moore was not penalized, fined, or suspended because of this hit. Canucks players and coaches were appalled, players vowed to get even, one went as far as putting a bounty on Moore's head.

So the next time the Canucks and Avs played, the NHL execs kept a close eye on the game, no major incidents occurred and ironically the game ended in a tie. March 8th, 2004, another rematch. First period, Moore fights Matt Cooke of the Canucks. Both serve a five minute fighting penalty. The Avs went on to build a large lead. Late in the third period, Todd Bertuzzi is sent onto the ice with the intent of picking a fight with Moore. Bertuzzi fails to get Moore to bite on the bait, and continues to skate behind Moore for a long period of time when Bertuzzi finally grabs Moore's jersey, punches him in the head from behind, drives his head into the ice, and continues to punch him after Moore was down. Moore suffered three fractured vertebrate in his neck, cuts and a concussion. Moore laid unconscious and motionless on the ice for about 10 minutes until he was wheeled off in a stretcher.
Bertuzzi was immediately suspended for the remainder of the season, the playoffs, and was barred from any international play during the lockout of the 2004-2005 season. He was reinstated for the 2005-2006 season.

If Lambert played hockey, regardless of if she was penalized after the first punch, an enforcer would have checked her the next time she was on the ice, probably resulting in a fight. If Lambert continued to throw cheap shots, then things would have probably escalated to a bench clearing brawl.

Hockey and Soccer are two totally different animals, I understand that. Moore's hit on Naslund was questionable, I'll concede that. And he probably should have been penalized/fined/suspended by the NHL as weird as it sounds for his own protection. I think some repercussions from the NHL would have calmed the storm in Vancouver a little. I don't know if it could have prevented it all, but hind sight is 20/20. Regardless Moore skated freely, and I'm sure he was told by his teammates for the remaining games against the Canucks to keep his head on a swivel.

Granted a soccer pitch is many times larger than a hockey rink, but at some point someone had to bring Lambert's actions to the attention of the officiating crew. Had they decided to intervene, ie give warnings, a yellow card, then a red card, the score would have been settled, Lambert would have been ejected, and the media would probably have not even blinked twice at this. But to watch Lambert get away with cheap shot after cheap shot, and only get a yellow card for an obviously injury seeking trip/leg-lock was appalling.

Yes I like the way hockey protects its stars, if you get a cheap hit on someone you will pay your dues, but NHL players walk on very thin ice (pun intended) on getting retribution and becoming the next Bertuzzi vs Moore incident.

Go KSU - from Hawaii

2009-10-20T19:51:00.003-10:00

Who would have thought there were KSU fans, let alone KSU alumni in Hawaii! Anyway here's some pictures from our football watch parties (for those who haven't already seen these on Facebook)...

Happy Birthday from The Army!

2009-08-08T16:44:00.001-10:00

Happy Birthday from The Army!, originally uploaded by aaronpbrown.

So I got my first birthday card, from my Batallion Commander and
Battalion Command Sergeant Major, aka the big dogs. Their present to
me: my birthday off which gave me a 3 day weekend :D

Baseball - Hawaii Pacific University vs Dixie State 04/09/09 - Game 2

2009-04-10T20:20:00.005-10:00

Hey all,

Here's game two from yesterday's double header. I think most of the rust (or nerves) wore off by the second game. I seemed to get more keepers :)

#1 - Pitcher

#2 - Breaking up the double play

#3 - More breaking up of the double play

#4 - A different view (from the Press Box)

#5 - Foul Ball

#6 - Classic batter after hit pose :)

#7 - Pick off at 2nd

#8 - You're OUT!

#9 - Like his pose

#10 - BOB

Click here to view all my favorites from HPU Baseball

Also take a look at my post for Game 1, if you haven't already. Thanks!

Aaron

Baseball - Hawaii Pacific University vs Dixie State 04/09/09

2009-04-09T23:27:00.005-10:00

Hey all,

Here's some images I took from HPU's first game (of the doubleheader) on Thursday against Dixie State...

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8 - some jube after hitting a solo HR to give HPU the lead (and eventually be the game winning run)

Click here to view the gallery and see larger sizes of the images

Thanks for looking,
Aaron

Koko Crater - Part 2

2009-04-04T20:09:00.002-10:00

Yes I'm still alive, busy week at work and all studying for the board, anyway here's some more from Koko Crater...

Views from the top

I didn't lug my tripod all the way up here for nothing, here's two "summit" pictures of me. It was really windy hence the "not really smiling-ness"

Panorama: Diamond Head Crater and Honolulu

2009-03-27T06:26:00.002-10:00

Here's a pano I took on Tuesday of Honolulu and Diamond Head Crater from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (also known as the Punchbowl National Cemetery) named for the crater the cemetery was built in - Punchbowl Crater.

Click the picture or here to see a larger version

Yes I know I promised more pictures and to finish blogging about the hike, I will, just wanted to post the pano.

Thanks,
Aaron

Hiking to the summit of Koko Crater - Part 1

2009-03-24T22:16:00.006-10:00

So today (Tuesday March 24th) being the last day of my three day weekend, and me amounting to being a total lazy bum on my first two days off (besides shipping a package, and getting my haircut on Monday) I decided I must find something to do that is: 1) fun, 2) active, 3) something I can take pictures of.

So I pull out my handy dandy notebook, err Hawaii Military Guide book that I got back at replacement, and started flipping through the Top 25 places to see on Oahu.

#1 Aloha Tower - ehh, going to a building didn't meet being "active"
#2 Kakaako Waterfront Park - same as above
#3 Waikiki, The Miracle Mile - ditto
#4 Diamond Head Crater - active yes, but already did it...
$5 Koko Crater - "... a prominent 1,205-foot-high... 1,106 wooden steps..."

Sounds like I have a winner. Turns out I'd driven past it on my last "weekend" off and I remember making a mental note to climb it. Perfect, so I leave Schofield about 11:00am or so, drive past Honolulu, grab some lunch, and go to the scenic overlook where I knew I could get a good shot of my objective.

After getting the mandatory scene setting picture, I head to Base Camp, err the parking lot where I'll start this hike. Got all my camera gear out, and thought hey, what a perfect time to try out my new camera backpack, see how it holds up during hiking. That way I wont get to the summit and think, dang I should have brought my tripod, other lens, etc. So I load it all up, grab the camera so I can take pictures along the way up, load the camelback and started my ascent.

I get to the start of the trail and snap these quick picture off...

Damn that looks pretty steep, I could use a good challenge. People said Diamond Head was a tough hike, and I summited while taking pictures, with a tripod on my back in 18 minutes. My guidebook said this trail is "medium" danger and "intermediate" skill according to expert hikers. I'm in good shape, no problem... right?

Here's some shots from my many break on the way up. Maybe that backpack with 40lbs of gear wasn't such a good idea, add on the camelback full of 100oz of water. Where's my Sherpa and my O2 when I need it?

This hike is no joke, and that could be the 40lb backpack on my back talking, but there were many times I was very winded, never light-headed, but definitely out of breath more times than I cared for.

So I start to catch my breath quicker, get a little pace going, when I notice I'm not doing to bad. I look up to see this...

After it got steeper, I come across this section where the railroad tie steps are spanning a 15-20 foot drop. I'm already winded pretty hardcore, now I have to balance my way across a bridge while being top heavy? Eff that, I'm crab walking across the bridge. Believe me, my dignity was already gone after all the breaks I'd taken, rather be smart and not dehydrated and not having an injury than try to look macho.

You can see the spanning section

A view looking down once past the dangerous 'bridge' section

After the bridge things started getting really steep, but atleast I could see the end in sight. Plus I noticed the railroad ties were marked every hundred, so you had an idea of how many you had left, a curse and a blessing lol.

It's gets steeper, and a lot steeper real quick, great...

A look down

800+ feet up

Each step brings me a little bit closer, until the end of the stairs is finally within reach.

I felt like Gold Five and Red Leader in Star Wars - A New Hope, because I kept telling myself over and over "Almost there..." Like who was I trying to convince, one I wasn't saying anything out loud, nor was anyone around me in case I why *shrug*

That first section up looks almost flat from way up here, gotta love perspective

I can almost touch the top

Now I can, thank goodness the pain ends soon, and yes it was pretty painful at this point. Next time, no backpack and no tripod.

Maybe I could summit in some time more respectable that over an hour.

Plus to rub it in, there's people running, yes running up and down this trail *scoff* Good for them they're in awesome shape, but the evil side of me really wanted to see someone biff (going up, I wouldn't wish anyone biffing on the way down, that would get messy). I'm vindictive, but not a sociopath ;)

A look down from the top of the stairs

Still a little bit to climb to summit, but thank goodness no more stairs

And this ends part #1 of however many parts it takes, because it's 11:35pm and I have to be up at 4:30-4:45am.

1060 railroad ties I'm assuming, or steps, I dunno, whatever 1060 represents it's a lot, and I definitely felt it, and probably will for the next couple of days.

Final altitude for Part 1: 1138 feet (bonus points for those who can recite a Star Wars quote with 1138 in it).

Gross look at all the sweat, on my arm. Imagine how my back felt with that ginormous backpack. Granted the backpack was great, holding it in my arm felt 2-3x times heavier than wearing it. And did I say I'm in love with my new lens? It's the same one I shot the Waikiki beach shots with, it's awesome, and this is coming from someone who's very critical on camera equipment.

Well I hope you enjoyed this first part and I should be able to finish and add more pictures probably on Wednesday. Thanks for reading!

Aaron

Panorama - Many Parks Curve (RMNP from October 2004)

2009-03-22T11:42:00.011-10:00

Feeling kinda lazy today on my first of three days off (hopefully), so I was browsing through old (as in 4-5 years old) photos I took and found this Pano which I hadn't assembled. This panorama was photographed at Many Parks Curve on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. I photograpghed this panorama in my visit to RMNP in October of 2004 with my buddy Brent DeShazer.

Click on the image or click here to view this image and others panos I have photographed

11 shot panoramic composition stitched in Adobe PS CS3.

1D EF 70-200 f/2.8L USM (non-IS)
Shot @ 200mm ISO 200 f/8 1/500s

RAW conversion done in PS CS3

This PS file is 62.5MB and a resolution of 11278 x 2224 or 47" x 9.3" at 240dpi

Thanks,
Aaron

Panos of Waikiki

2009-03-20T11:43:00.005-10:00

Here's two panos I took last night from Waikiki. I'm very excited about them, I think I may need to crop a little off the left side on #1, still deciding. I just got my EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM in yesterday afternoon. Got a chance to go out in the late evening and take these pictures. I got totally soaked shooting #1 since there's nothing slowing the incoming waves down. After seeing the results, it was well worth it :D

#1

Click here to view the image

This shot of downtown Waikiki was taken from a walkway that leads out into the water about 100 feet from the beach. It's located in the area of the intersection of Kapahulu Ave & Kalakaua Ave. This shot is a tribute to one I purchased back in 2004 from Steven Noyes. Click here to view Steven's picture. I purchased a copy back in 2004 and have it framed in my kitchen. Click here to view more of Steven's awesome work!

10 shot panoramic composition stitched in Adobe PS CS3.

40D EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM
Shot @ 35mm ISO 100 f/8 30s

RAW conversion done in PS CS3

This PS file is 121.1MB and a resolution of 11568 x 3658 or 48.2" x 15.2" at 240dpi

#2

Click here to view the image

This shot of downtown Waikiki was taken from the beach near the walkway in the previous shot. It's located in the area of the intersection of Kapahulu Ave & Kalakaua Ave. This shot is a tribute to one I purchased back in 2004 from Steven Noyes. Click here to view Steven's picture. I purchased a copy back in 2004 and have it framed in my kitchen. Click here to view more of Steven's awesome work!

9 shot panoramic composition stitched in Adobe PS CS3.

40D EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM
Shot @ 38mm ISO 100 f/8 30s

RAW conversion done in PS CS3

This PS file is 103.9MB and a resolution of 10886 x 3337 or 45.4" x 13.9" at 240dpi.

--

Any feedback, critiques, comments are welcome, thanks for taking a look.

Mahalo,
Aaron

Panorama - Two Islands

2009-03-11T21:20:00.005-10:00

Click the picture to be brought to my Panorama Gallery on my Photography website Photography by Aaron P. Brown

18 shot panoramic composition stitched in Adobe PS CS3.

40D EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Shot @ 135mm ISO 100 f/8 1/320s

RAW conversion done in PS CS3

This PS file is 160MB and a resolution of 15095 x 3704 or 62.9" x 15.4" at 240dpi

Picture - Two Islands

2009-03-10T22:59:00.006-10:00

Click the picture to be brought to my Hawaii Gallery on my Photography website Photography by Aaron P. Brown

This shot was taken just off of Kalanianaole Hwy (Hwy 72) in Makapuu Beach Park. The two islands I can't find the names of. I'm working on assembling a Panorama I took of these islands. It's giving me a little more difficulty than normal...

Thanks,
Aaron

Panorama - Kahana Bay

2009-03-10T22:06:00.004-10:00

Click the picture to be brought to my Panorama Gallery on my Photography website Photography by Aaron P. Brown

Shot from the west side of Kahana Bay looking to the south east. Kahana Bay is located just north of Kaneohe Bay on the east side of the island of Oahu.

16 shot panoramic composition stitched in Adobe PS CS3.

40D EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Shot @ 28mm ISO 100 f/8 1/320s

RAW conversion done in PS CS3

This PS file is 109.6MB and a resolution of 11084 x 3457 or 46.2" x 14.4" at 240dpi

LOST - Mackey's Shrimp Truck (spot)

2009-03-10T21:41:00.007-10:00

So we had nice weather (ie not cloudy) for the first time in a week, and it was my day off too, so I decided to get out and shoot some pictures. My first stop was a LOST site, where the scene where Sawyer confronts and kills Macky in Season 1 of LOST. Second goal was to eat a meal from Fumi, Macky's competition. The spot where the scene was filmed was owned by Fumi, and LOST brought in Macky's truck to shoot. So darn I have to go find Macky's truck (I found it it's located in Haleiwa, just didn't get a chance to stop and photograph it) and have a meal there.

Those are actually the same spot, the 2nd is just a crop. I snapped those real quick as I pulled out of the parking lot after finishing the meal.

For lunch, I had the Garlic Butter Shrimp (#2), their most popular meal. Next time I'm up there I'll have to try the Spicy Shrimp, their next most popular meal. The food was really good, I think I got 10 or so jumbo shrimps, 2 clumps of rice, a salad, and a big chunk of fresh pineapple (the pineapple was very yummy). I was impressed by their food. First time I've eaten at a shrimp truck. For those curious it was $12 for the meal, and $1 for a can of Pepsi. Not too bad for seafood on the island, for reference a value meal at BK or Jack in the Box costs $7.

Next time I'll get some pictures of Mackey's truck and have a meal to complete this...

Laters,
Aaron

LOST - Plane crash site on beach...

2009-03-10T21:34:00.005-10:00

Click the image or here to view my Pano gallery

UPDATE - So instead of having a whole blog dedicated just to LOST filming spot finds, I'm redoing my whole blog to be focused on my Photography in general, and I moved the post from my LOST blog to be the first post on this blog...

Holy crap it's been a long time since I blogged, and not like the few month break most people take, I'm talking like YEARS. So much of a break that I'm starting over on this blog, just with the intent of posting images I've taken across Hawaii!

Ever since coming to Hawaii, I was excited and interested in finding filming spots from LOST, and visited a couple of websites here and there. Then kind of put it on the back burner. So late last week I go out driving to this place I saw on the map and figured it would be pretty cool to go check out. I'm pulling up to the beach, and I get this surreal feeling like I've been here before. And it wasn't one of those oh, I've seen this place once or twice, it was like I know this place. I didn't have my camera with me, so I took a couple of quick snapshots with my BlackBerry, upload them, and start seeing the similarities to the beach from LOST.

I upload the pictures and my wife is immediately like, dude that's the beach from LOST. I was like no, it might look a lot like it, but it's not the beach. But I started doubting that more and more, so I pull back that website again and voila, my beach I randomly drove out to, is indeed the site where they filmed LOST.

The place, for those curious, is Ka'ena Point or Army Beach (wiki) Google Maps

Here's some pictures I took (hosted on my Flickr site)

At first I thought this was the tree where we see Jack's Father, but it turns out that tree was burned down :(

From my first visit with my camera phone (I know not bad for a camera phone)

Screen captures from LOST and LOST Virtual Tour

So this was my first location scouting if you will, I plan to find more spots and get better shots of the beach too.

Aaron