Hello All, my wife an I recently did a quick vacation to Kauai. We have been to the island previously and were pretty focused on what we wanted to do this trip. A helicopter tour was right near the top and we booked a "doors off" tour in advance. It turned out to be a beautiful, thrilling experience. I had to keep gear simple, no loose items, lens or body changes. I decided to use my Gfx100S with 20-35 zoom. I feel like that was a good choice although I ended up wishing I had included a polarizer. The light, shadows, and color are extreme on Kauai and we were airborne around 11a. The main downside of that timing was in some cases, my shots ended up with square shadows from the helicopter rotor blades passing over. I couldn't see them at the time so sometimes are in the shot, some not. Anyway, a great experience, I would recommend to anyone traveling to Kauai. Here's some samples.
Wonderful!
Kauai is my favorite island! My family and I go there quite often. We have probably been there 10 times in the last 12 years.
I haven’t done a helicopter ride there, but I did one on the big island over the volcano.
Thanks for sharing!
A lot of Kauai is extremely difficult to acccess because of the rugged terrain.
I had planned to hire a boat to see the beautiful Napali coast.
There’s of course the Waimea canyon state park which is spectacular and accessible by car. I always go there.
It’s Hawaii’s “Grand Canyon “
You can also get great views if you hike the “sleeping giant” mountain which is considered a moderate to strenuous hike.
I did both the canyon and the hike with my family, but carried my Sony equipment instead of the GFX to keep it light.
SGinNorcal wrote:
Hello All, my wife an I recently did a quick vacation to Kauai. We have been to the island previously and were pretty focused on what we wanted to do this trip. A helicopter tour was right near the top and we booked a "doors off" tour in advance. It turned out to be a beautiful, thrilling experience. I had to keep gear simple, no loose items, lens or body changes. I decided to use my Gfx100S with 20-35 zoom. I feel like that was a good choice although I ended up wishing I had included a polarizer. The light, shadows, and color are extreme on Kauai and we were airborne around 11a. The main downside of that timing was in some cases, my shots ended up with square shadows from the helicopter rotor blades passing over. I couldn't see them at the time so sometimes are in the shot, some not. Anyway, a great experience, I would recommend to anyone traveling to Kauai. Here's some samples....Show more →
Those are a cool perspective. I have never been on a helicopter tour there. I hike Waimea Canyon regularly so I always have the opposite perspective. Great shots!
Thanks all! It was tons of funs shooting from the helicopter. I actually have mixed feeling about the helicopter rides in general as when you are hiking some of this terrain (which I also did) you are aware of helicopters passing over often. So I lost my right to complain about it. Kauai by land is coming soon.
Good stuff, Kauai is awesome and these brought back some memories. We did this many years ago but not the open door one. I only took 1 lens and it's the Nikon 16mm fisheye. All my shots had one piece of the rotor blade on the top
Years ago we sat through an agonizing sales pitch to get "free" helo rides over Kauai. Fantastic. I enjoyed it more than my wife and had the big open window. Iirc I was using a 70-300 and K64. The pilot mades sure we got some great views and shot angles.
