Photography – Page 5 – A Darker View

Garden Macro

Photography around the garden? Having fun in my own yard and garden with a macro lens. Yes, a way to spend a couple hours stuck at home under quarantine orders.

The lens is a Canon EF-M 28mm macro, an interesting lens with a built-in ring light. Just a bunch of photos taken walking around the yard, all handheld images, a few of the interesting bits I found…

An ant raids pollen from a weed in the front yard

Return to Goat House Tube

This week’s solo quarantine hike was to Goat House Tube. I have been here before, but had not explored downhill from the entrance, the first time I explored uphill.

The power line access road south of Waikoloa

Goat House is my name for this lava tube, there is no official name I am aware of, I just came up with Goat House when I needed a name for it. Climbing into the tube one finds the reason for the name rather obvious.

An early start saw me walking down the power line road shortly after sunrise. This walk is dominated by the large transmission poles and lines overhead. The lines make an ominous 60Hz buzzing, some of the poles are louder than others, with a buzz and rattle of the wires and insulators.

Puʻu Hinai in Video

How bored do you have to be to make a video of a walk to a hill just a few miles from the house?

Yeah, that bored.

A combination of still and drone photography with a Mavic Air.

I did get out of the house for a few hours.

Flying the Summit

Governor Ige signed the new public access rules, drones would be illegal on the summit in ten more days.

Keck and Subaru in the snow atop the summit of Mauna Kea

With a deadline looming much sooner than I had contemplated there was a narrow window of opportunity. While I had wanted to fly the summit for a long time, I now had a few short days in which to do so. On January 23, 2020 the new rules would take effect.

The Office of Mauna Kea Management has attempted to restrict drone use on the summit by posting signs that drones are not allowed. Problem, they did this with no legal authority to do so. In conversations with OMKM staff I had pointed this out and received a quiet admission that it was true.

The new public access rules would change this… Flying a drone would be specifically prohibited on the science reserve, a civil offence with steep fines involved. With the governor’s signature those rules would be in force.