We went to Maui in 1993 and stayed at the Paki Maui, our first and only time to that island.  We both used small Olympus 35mm film cameras from which the pictures were developed and printed at a drugstore and all we have are the 4×6 prints which aren’t very sharp.  While Marcia was cleaning out the last of our older prints I decided to scan a few of the prints to see what I could recover as digital images.  We had a large number of prints but I only scanned some to get a flavor of the trip.

Maui was mainly a crowded tourist destination and we don’t like crowds so we avoided most of the crowded tourist spots.  To do that, we rented a small 4WD vehicle and drove where we weren’t supposed to go by circling the island.  As you can see in the pictures we succeeded to avoid the crowded areas.

We also took a helicopter ride over and around parts of Moloka’i Island.  That is where we made the pictures of the waterfalls, etc.  We also drove up to the Haleakala Crater where at an elevation of over 10,000 feet it was windy and cold.  If you haven’t experienced it, open a can of coke and drink it at that elevation.  I know, the things I remember.  We also walked out of the tourist area into the Iao Valley where we crossed paths with a few girls from Russia hiking.

We did venture into Lahaina to dine and walk around once.  It was there that we first experienced eating in a building with windows with no glass or screens and competing with the birds flying around.

Maui has changed a lot since then … at least from what I can find about visiting there on the web.  I’m glad we went when we did.

Due to the lack of new pictures, I have been revisiting older ones.  I took these in 2011 with a Pentax K-5 II and the 18-55mm lens.  I wanted to see how they looked after reprocessing the raw files using the latest version of LR.  One reason I am redoing the files and looking at them closer is to help me decide what, if any, additional lenses I might wish to have for my current Pentax KP camera.

So far, I’m sticking to my preference to not get a longer, heavier zoom lens.  One reason is the image quality of those light enough and cheap enough aren’t very good.  If I continue to think only in terms of the limited lenses, the only one left of interest to me would be the 21mm, and it would come in handy if I ever get back to the streets or traveling.  I am still not sure about getting another 18-55mm WR zoom lens, but there are times it would be handy as a cheap walkabout lens in bad weather or times like when our next flood occurs.  Looking at the above pictures tells me it would be good enough, at least when the lighting is bright.  I might order an inexpensive used one and compare the IQ to the Limited 20-40mm WR lens.

Note that all of these pictures were taken on the big island.  I noticed the “reference” to Hanover in a small general store.  We were visiting the island right before they had an Iron Man event and there were a lot of cyclists getting use to the climate, roads, etc.  The big island is a lot drier and newer, thus the lava flows, than our favorite island which is Kauai.

I haven’t been going out anywhere to make pictures lately, and doubt that I will around other people until after the flu and virus seasons are over.  In order to keep thinking about photography, I had been thinking about whether or not I want to get an additional lens for the Pentax KP, when I remembered the last time I traveled with a Pentax DSLR.  It was when we were in Hawaii right before we moved here to Homewood in 2011.

I decided to reload the pictures into LR and reprocess them as I checked out what focal lengths I used on that trip to Hawaii.  I only had the Pentax 18-55mm kit lens with me and I doubted that the images would be very good, but I found them to be better than I remembered.  While reprocessing them I also decided to see how they would work with my latest B&W style.  You can see the results above.  I like them, especially since they show Hawaii in a totally different light than most people think of when thinking about Hawaii.