Vacation Pics - Long Overdue

Hi All, I have been saying I would publish pictures from our sailing vacation in February for some time. Well, I have finally done it! Check out:

http://www.campbell-tx.net/polynesia/polynesia-1.html

There are two pages of thumbnails there. Comments welcome.

BTW, it was *incredibly* easy to build the gallery you are looking at when you visit that link. The amazing CocoViewX (http://www.stalkingwolf.net/software/cocoviewx) did all the work. All I did was put all the photos in one folder, pointed CocoViewX at it and issued the command [File, HTML Export]. It did the rest. I did about 5 minutes of minor tinkering with the resulting HTML files (added the navigation bar at the bottom, and adjusted some spacing) and uploaded the results - thats it! It was SO easy! What a great program!

The pics look great! Looks like you had a blast on that vacation!

Wow! Gorgeous colours on those photos, mac57! Simply beautiful. Makes me want to go there too!

Thanks MHC. Most were shot in Adobe RGB using a Canon EOS-30D; it does a nice job. I did convert them all to sRGB before posting, so that I could share the URL with my less enlightened (i.e. PC-using) friends!

That EOS 30D is something else!

MacHeadCase said:

That EOS 30D is something else!

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That is ONE great camera, but one thing never to forget, a good camera in the hands of a bad photographer will yield bad Pics. The fact the pictures look as good as they do also shows that mac57 is a very good photographer!!!

When you put a great camera in the hands of a pro the results are amazing.

I agree.

Great shots! The deep blue water looks very appealing. The sky looked a little too light next to it. Maybe a GND filter would have helped balance it out. I like the very last shot with the palm trees framing the scene of the water.

What's with the pink building? Is that the local Mary K branch? Between the fpig masks and guy with nothing but a cape on, it looks like you'll need to adapt the Las Vegas slogan: "what happens in Polynesia, stays in Polynesia"

Great pics - looks like a beautiful place! Thanks for sharing.

Those are incredible photos. Thanks for the link how to build the gallery.
I love the logo on the ship.

I'm diggin' Steve the pirate.

Great vacation

Aaahhhh! Sitting here in the "still cold" Northwest, those look like pictures of heaven.
You're a very good photographer, great shots and nice color. Thanks for sharing them with us.

It looks like an interesting trip, how long were you there for?

Its not the kind of holiday for me, but i'd love to take some paints with me and try my hand at the sea

I'm very fond of your colour use but I felt on the pictures where you had a boat on the centre, there wasn't much to focus on with such a large amount of water left around it (Its the sea, I know, I know!)

I would have cropped them a bit more

Hi mac57!

Great photos! Enjoyed them. The airport at St. Barts looks "interesting".

Thanks for all the comments folks! Glad you enjoyed the pictures. I agree that some of them could use a little work, but by and large I am satisfied with them.

mathogre, the airport at St. Barts *is* interesting. The runway is so short that they can only accomodate specially modified planes (more wing surface than normal to allow for a lower landing speed) flown by specially trained pilots. They *regularly* have planes run off the end and into the water. They told us they have some custom equipment on a floating platform for fishing them out... it is that common, even with the wing modifications and special training for the pilots!

This is part of why St. Barts is such a favorite of the rich and famous. Large jets (and thus hordes of tourists) cannot get in there. Likewise, large cruise ships (and thus again, hordes of tourists) cannot get in there either - none of the ports is set up to receive them. Even as a comparitively small vessel, we had to anchor off the island and use launches to go back and forth. Hence, St. Barts is still fairly private for the rich and famous and thus a popular destination with them.

Great idea - I have done this after the fact on several shots (none of these ones though); you can mimic the effect with Photoshop even if you did not use the filter originally. If you are interested in how, see Scott Kelby's great "The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers", section "Neutral Density Gradient Filter" on page 341. Wonderful step by step instructions and a great final result.

fleurya said:

Great shots! The deep blue water looks very appealing. The sky looked a little too light next to it. Maybe a GND filter would have helped balance it out. I like the very last shot with the palm trees framing the scene of the water.

What's with the pink building? Is that the local Mary K branch? Between the fpig masks and guy with nothing but a cape on, it looks like you'll need to adapt the Las Vegas slogan: "what happens in Polynesia, stays in Polynesia"

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