I often mention the heat here in Kailua Kona . . . but, for a couple of days now, it’s not been that bad. Meaning, we’ve had a few days when the morning temperatures hovered in the high-70s and in the afternoon they rose to the low 80s. More important, the humidity is kept low by brisk trade winds (the trades, as they’re referred to here). Side note: these last two nights are the first in a long while that we didn’t have fans running. Why, I even pulled the sheet all the way up to my neck. 

This being the third Sunday of the month, a portion of Aliʻi Drive would be closed starting at around 1:00 pm for the monthly street fair. 

. . . that’s why we went down there in the morning while it was cooler and with fewer people to get underfoot. 

But, before I get to those photos, a couple of observations about the  — yes, you guessed it — the Note 8 (and other cameras).

Beautiful flower, ain’t it?

Here it is in its setting . . . 

Notice something different from one photo to the next? I mean besides the wider zoom. The color of the flower has changed. Well, I’m here to blow your mind . . . this is what the flower actually looks like to the naked eye:

Well, it’s close. I think it looks even bluer, as in the color and not it being sad. I mean, it’s a flower; what’s it got to be sad about?

Anyway, that’s something I’ve noticed happening with many cameras, primarily with flowers. Blues and purples are difficult colors for cameras to resolve accurately . . . in flowers. With scenery, fabric, painted surfaces, cameras have less-to-no problem resolving blues and purples reasonably accurately (no color is ever reproduced the same way we see it with our eyes; what we loosely refer to as “accurately”). 

If you do a search, you can find lots of information as to why this happens, but it can basically be summarized thus . . . you need to tone down the Acqua and Purple and maybe a bit of the Magenta. Round off the adjustment by tweaking the saturation and luminosity of Blue. You can also tone down the Green, but that might mess with the foliage or other colors. Here are the settings I used in Lightroom for these photos (click for a larger view):

Now, most people won’t care about this . . . until they photograph a blue flower and it comes out purple. 

The other things I want to mention is that while the P900 has some difficulty with sunsets, the Note 8 handles them just fine. 

That’s the wide angle camera . . . here’s the 2X camera . . . 

I added a frame to this but otherwise did very little to the photo. I can’t really ask for more out of a lens that’s only a few millimeters across.

Anyway, Sunday . . . 

As usual, you can click on the photo for a larger view, or you can go to SmugMug (HERE) if you want to see the original size photo. For them with a decent Internet, click HERE (8 MB).

Here’s a single shot:

That’s taken from outside the front door to our condo. Something to note; this is not usual. Usually, it’s hazier and the view is further degraded by rising heat (minimal in these shots). 

Anyway, that’s what prompted us to head down there; the cool breeze and the clear view. Oh, and the scarcity of people. 

We were lucky to find an open parking place close to where we wanted to be. Not only that, I parallel parked, so I wasn’t worried about getting my doors dinged (I normally have to squeeze in between two badly-parked cars — between the tourists not caring about their rentals and the locals not knowing how to park between two lines, getting a ding on my door is a constant concern). 

Anyway, the first stop was the marina. Some might remember this is where the Triathalon begins, with the two-mile swim.

Again, for the full-size version, click HERE (5MB).

That happens to be the panorama Google Photos put together on its own. I had done one as well, using the same photos, in Photoshop. 

For the full-size version, click HERE (8 MB).

From there, we walked to the lagoon for guests of the hotel that you can see on the right side of the Google-generated panorama. 

The full-size version can be seen HERE (5MB).

I have one that was done by the phone using the on-camera option. 

The full-size version can be seen HERE (7MB).

Most people won’t click on those, but we spent a few seconds trying to figure out if that bird . . . 

. . . was real. I mean, it looked fake, but through an optical illusion of some reflections, it looked to both of us as if it was opening and closing its beak. It wasn’t; it’s fake bird!

That’s the beauty of the P900 zoom. Not photo quality but sufficient for identification and for the blog. 

From there, we made our way back up Aliʻi Drive; Melisa wanted to check out the newly-opened Hilo Hattie and I wanted to put the Note 8 through its photographic paces. Hilo Hattie used to hand out necklaces made out of tiny shells to all who entered the store. They don’t do that anymore. We may still have some from our previous trips, but I doubt it. 

Being morning, the sun was still low, so this guy was strongly backlit by the reflected light off the surface of the sea. I had to adjust the photo a lot to bring out the shadow detail. 

Next, a photo of a tree that many visitors to Kona — even from 30 years ago — would probably remember. The black bands on the side are due to the perspective adjustments I made using DxO Viewpoint 3.0. I left them on there as opposed to cropping parts of the tree. Again, most of the following photos are of the Note 8. I’ll say when they aren’t. 

Here’s the thing . . . I don’t think it’s doing all that well. Here’s a shot from our December 2009 trip . . .  

That’s taken with my then-camera, the Nikon D200, and the somewhat capable but useful Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. If you look on the left side, you see what the tree looked like eight years ago. Let me blow it up a bit . . . 

You can see the tree was a lot fuller and if you look carefully, there was another three in front of the store to its right. This is what the branches look like now. 

The places where you can see past branches were cut off look like mouths open in silent screams. You are welcome (for that mental image). Beyond the branches being trimmed out, there are a lot fewer leaves and what leaves there are look sickly. I’ve not asked anyone, but I think I will next time we’re down there. 

Continuing on — this being Sunday morning — this church was open . . . as was the bar. I like how the sign that says “kids welcome” looks like it’s inviting them to have a beer. I guess people can choose whatever spirit they want to be filled with. 

A little farther down, there’s another big tree that’s been there a long time. This one is looking healthier. 

I like the trunk of this tree but I don’t get to shoot it often because it’s right by a crosswalk and there are always people there either waiting to cross or themselves shooting photos of the trunk.

I tend to shoot this next building a lot just because it has so much stuff going on that I think it will impress. 

OK, I just wanted to shoot a photo showing there was a pretty good breeze (look at the flags). Also, while the shops are probably not happy about it, I love it when there’s an absence of people. 

Opposite there, there’s a little outdoor shopping center. I don’t normally like to walk between the buildings because it always seems hotter than the sidewalk, but this time it was very pleasant. 

I’ve shot this next tree macro before and the Note 8 also proved up to the task. 

I also like these shops for the colorful displays . . . 

Those last two shots show the front of a shirt that was for sale. Notice that the blue color is accurately reproduced without any help from me. I don’t know why flowers are different; it must be something about the way the light reflects from them, perhaps tied to the vision of pollinating insects (some insects see different parts of the spectrum than we do). 

Here are a couple more colorful shots. 

The last one is part of a display of table runners arranged on a vertical rack. 

Let me show you this other tree and then I’ll tell you a quick story. 

So, as I was taking this shot, I was listening to a man that was seated on a bench nearby. Listening is the wrong word. More like I heard his voice. He sounded like he was on the phone (there was no one near him) and I did look his way when I became aware of the “conversation” he was having, reproduced here to the best of my memory. 

” . . . it’s a secret installation, and they don’t want me near it. If I went there, they would charge me with treason. It’s what they do. I’m a citizen, I have rights, but they don’t care. They say nothing’s going on there but I know; I know what they’re up to. That’s why they want . . . “

That’s all I heard because I realized he wasn’t on the phone — he was speaking in earnest while staring at a spot on the boardwalk about three feet in front of him — and I didn’t want to be dragged into the conversation. I mean, I’ve had my share of dealings with secret government installations and I don’t want to bring up those memories. 

The funny part is that at this time we had split up, Melisa and I. I mean, we were walking separate paths. Wait, that sounds wrong as well. She had stopped at a store and I had gone ahead. We were going to meet at a park near there where I like to go and watch waves (which, these days, are pitiful). When we met up again, she recounted having walked by a guy that was talking to himself. She hurried past, but she heard the following. 

“I’m not gay. They think I’m gay, but I’m not, but they keep saying I’m gay and I’m not . . . “

I don’t know who was saying he was gay. Perhaps the government has some sort of gay-identifier we don’t know about . . . but it’s not working all that well because this guy isn’t gay; he said so several times. 

Near the same place — but around the corner and out of earshot of the bench-man — is a door that I’ve been meaning to photograph. Again, the Note 8 came through.

The door is in deep shade, but the phone handled it fine. Right after this, I got to the park that is behind the Kona Inn Restaurant, where we occasionally get a Kona Mud Pie . . . which reminds me; it’s been a while. You can see a photo of our last one in THIS post.

Anyway, time to switch back to the P900 . . . 

So, let’s all remember why I got the Nikon P900 . . . 

It’s so I can zoom in across the bay to men with an excess of white chest hair. I think that’s chest hair. Whatever, I zoomed back out a bit. 

This is sharper than it would usually be because of the cooler weather and that it was still morning; not as much evaporation rising from the water.

I snapped away at things in between filming slow-motion waves (which will be in another post since this one is already getting long in the tooth and most people have already given up on it).

The last two take advantage of the long zoom; I mean, I have it, so why not use it? In fact, I used it for these next shots, but the lighting was difficult for the camera to handle (darker rocks, lots of water reflections, and the feathers of the bird throwing off highlights). 

Yes, I have slow-motion video of the bird. Only half speed, though. I’m reasonably certain that is a Pacific Golden Plover. I think this is one case where the Nikon D7000 and the 70-200mm lens would have given better results. I mean, not in identifying the bird, but in getting a better photo of it.

I did try photographing a few waves but, again, I think the D7000 would have done a better job. 

I guess I’ll have to walk around with two cameras and the phone next time I get down there. However, back to the Note 8, here are a couple of flowers shots (two more in the gallery below) . . . 

. . . and then back past additional shops on the way to another little beach park where I shot more — you guessed it — slow motion videos. Here are some of the photos I took as I walked along the storefronts. 

For a while — after we got here — I was seeing FBI shirts (without the translation below) and thought that maybe a lot of agents retired here, or people here were friends with agents, or that people had stolen FBI shirts. It just goes to prove that when one operates with incomplete data, one is likely to arrive at the wrong conclusion. 

Note: the design is copyrighted and I make no claims to it. If anyone objects to me posting it here, let me know and I will take it down. 

That said . . . yup.

Here are a couple of surfing boards shots, more for the geometry than the design of the boards. 

I also walked by a store that had all these masks stuck to the outside wall . . . it’s like they invited me to photograph them. 

There is a lot of art stores, some showing very nice pieces. I’m not sure we’ll ever again get to the point that we were at as far as decorating a house. I think our next house will tend toward minimalism. That said, some of the Koa wood pieces are really attractive . . . and very expensive. 

Here’s a test of pastel colors . . . 

This lady was way out there on a paddle board, and it looked as if she was losing her balance . . . 

. . . and she was; a second later, she splashed in the water. 

This is here to point out one of the shortcomings of the P900. In single shot mode, the recovery time is not conducive to capturing fast-developing action. I could have recorded a video, but my finger was on the shutter, not the record button. I could have set up the camera to shoot continuously, but that would have involved getting into the menu and changing my shooting mode. 

Had I been shooting with the D7000, I would have shot a burst by just holding down the shutter button. 

This subject, on the other hand, posed for me without moving a muscle.

. . . as did this next one . . . 

By then, it was 12:20 pm and it was already twenty minutes past warm and into hot. We went back to the car and got back to the condo. At a higher elevation, it kept cool long enough for the sun to drop to the horizon and quit making everyone sweat. 

Thanks for walking with me. You know, I used to ask people to share these posts, especially if they liked them. Why, even if they hated the post, I asked them to send it to someone they didn’t like; let them suffer as well!

I don’t do that anymore because people are already digitally swamped, wasting more time on the Internet than is good for them. I don’t really want to add to a stranger’s distraction . . . and no; I’m not using reverse psychology. Everyone knows about it already, so it’s a useless ploy.

. . . unless I’m using negative reverse psychology which — I think — has a better chance of working. 

Anyway, here’s the gallery of the above photos in random order:

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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