Make Security a Surety
Outside resort areas, security is poor. Your camcorder case had might as well bear a flashing neon sign "Take me; easy pickin's." Disguise the case or use a small tough old suitcase. Lock your valuables in the hotel safe. When hiking, bring a backpack and keep your camcorder and other valuables in it. Never leave anything in a parked car, even a locked car. In some areas, travel in groups at night.
So much for defense against people, to protect against Mother Nature: In volcanic regions like Hawaii, wear sneakers or tough shoes, never sandals. The unweathered igneous rock is sharp and will shred exposed toes and heels with each misstep. Hawaii is 20 degrees from the equator and sunburn is a serious threat. Get a minimal natural tan before you go, wear a sunscreen (SPF 25 or better) when you get there, and bring a hat to protect your nose, ears, face, and (ahem) baldpate if you are so blessed. Wear sunglasses with UV protection. Half of the Hawaiian islands is desert and half a tropical rain forest which is sometimes buggy. Carry insect spray with DEET as the active ingredient. Avon Skin-So-Soft seems to repel bugs without making you smell like an oil refinery (but you do smell a bit perfumy
Shooting from a Helicopter
If shooting from a scenic helicopter ride, insist on sitting in the front seat; your view will be much better. Also, when the chopper travels forward, its nose dips down so the back seat riders can only look down (or at the ceiling). If possible, book a helicopter with clean windows. Some pilots polish the bubble every morning; others have windows foggier than waxed paper. Chartered helicopters, where you are the only passenger, are much more expensive than the shared scenic rides, but allow you far more flexibility on what you can shoot. Some pilots will allow you to remove a door and seat so that you have an unobstructed view out the side of the chopper. Regulations insist that you be strapped in and it's wise that your camera also be tethered. If you have a lens cap at the end of a string, you'll want to remove it so that it doesn't flap in the wind.
Some pilots won't let you use a full-sized camcorder in the front seat; it blocks their view. This is one advantage of using a tiny, Hi 8 or SVHS-C or DV palmcorder rather than a giant Betacam or MII configuration. The lower picture quality is balanced nicely against the greater access to places and freedom of motion when shooting.
Take an early morning flight, if possible, especially at higher altitudes (2000 feet). The air is less hazy; there is more clear sky (better light for brighter colors) and shadows are more pronounced. Afternoon is often the worst time.
Try a polarizing lens attachment (about $25 to $50) to cut haze and window reflections. Watch out though, it may also pick up strange rainbow patterns in the plastic windows. Check it out. Since your viewfinder is probably monochrome, try holding the polarizer up to your eye and rotate the polarizer while watching for rainbow artifacts. Incidentally, polarizers only work when rotated to a certain position. Experiment with them to find a position that works most of the time. Mark it to indicate "this end up" so you don't have to diddle with your lens while flying.
Haze or UV (ultraviolet) filters (about $25) reduce haze a little, but don't reduce reflections from glass or water like polarizers do. Circular polarizers ($40) aren't necessary on video cameras, only single lens reflex 35mm cameras. Switch your camera to manual focus and focus on infinity. No sense taking a chance on a confused autofocus; everything is far away anyway.
Zoom out to deemphasize shakes and vibrations. Zoom half way in occasionally if you need to show something. If possible, detach your viewfinder from your camera so that you can hold your camera in a comfortable position without craning your neck. Although the viewfinder allows you to aim the camera with precision and also displays status messages from your camera, feel free to cheat a little, ungluing your eye from the 1" black-and-white viewfinder and enjoying some of your trip with your eyes in 3-D, high resolution color. Video work is supposed to be fun, isn't it?
Hold the camera level and steady close to an open window (best) or clear section of forward looking window (good), looking away from your viewfinder on occasion to enjoy the view and plan your next shot.
Don't brace the camera against part of the helicopter or touch the lens to the glass. Choppers vibrate like back massagers. Let your arms absorb the shake. Take a shot of the 'copter on the ground, disgorging your crew or friends, and taking off with others. This adds nice closure to a scene. Also sneak in a cabin shot showing the pilot or passengers. The pilot adds foreground dimension and authenticity
Special camera care
If using a large camcorder, seal it tightly in a plastic garbage bag using a twist tie or clamp. If using a tiny palmcorder, stow your camera in a ziplock plastic bag. This will seal out rain and mist (there's plenty of that on the windward side of every island), dust (there's plenty of that on the leeward, desert side of every island), sulfur/silica/steam spray near steam vents (fumeroles), volcanic ash and pumice, sticky beach sand, and salt spray downwind from waves. I know zipping and unzipping the bag is a pain in the wrist. At least use the bag when in doubt. Incidentally, the bag will wear out, so bring two. Bring three if you wish to collect sand or rocks. Air conditioned rooms, cars, and vans will chill your gear. When you step out into the humidity, your lens will fog up like a glass of iced tea in the summer. Ensconce your camcorder in a bag, away from the air conditioning vents. Or, keep it in a foam ice chest. If your camcorder does fog or the dew light comes on, you can:
a) Put the camera in the ziplock bag and set it in the sun for 15 minutes. The bag will seal out more moisture, while creating a greenhouse to warm the camera.
b) Put it in a dry sunny breeze or near the car vent with the heat on (possibly the air-conditioning and heat on to give you a dry heat).
c) Open the cassette door, remove the tape, and blow your hairdryer in the hole. Use medium heat. Don't melt anything!
On mountaintops where the air is cold, batteries loose their oomph. Keep the camcorder under your coat or keep a battery warm in your pocket.
Don't attempt to blow dust off a cold lens; your breath will fog it. The above is true for photo cameras too. Humidity in a lens provides a foothold for fungus to grow. The fine, spidery webs are hard to remove and can wreck a lens. So keep your lens dry.
Shooting tips
Too much bright sky makes the rest of your shot dark. Either limit the sky in your shot, hit your camera's backlight control, or manually expose for the ground.
Pan vistas s-l-o-w-l-y. While marching in a line down a trail or through the Thurston Lava Tube on the Big Island, try holding your camcorder above your head as you stroll; it shows people (action and dimension) plus the unobstructed view. Expect the picture to bob a bit. Camcorders with electronic image stabilization (EIS) do a nice job of reducing this unwanted movement.
Similarly, reach out with your camcorder to shoot over cliffs (rather than risking your life hanging over the edge), or slip the camcorder into small lava tubes or tree molds (holes in lava where trees used to be). These shots often don't work, but when they do, they're dazzling.
If you have a forest ranger, tour leader, or "expert" who narrates what you are seeing, record the lecture first, then go shoot the things lectured about. To ease editing, record the lecture on one cassette, then swap to the "scenery" cassette. This way you can later dub the voice from one onto the picture from the other, making a very classy final product. It also helps you prepare for a A/B rolls in post.
The wind blows everywhere in Hawaii, adding rumble and roar to your sound track. Cover your mike with a foam boot (make your own, if necessary) to cut down on the thunder. If dust or rain are likely to infiltrate your microphone, try stretching a condom tightly over the mike, tying it off at the XLR end. This method will assure "safe sound". It's okay to shove the windscreen over the top of this combination.
Geohistory of Hawaii
The earth's surface, like a giant puzzle, consists of interlocking plates. The plates are often the size of continents, floating like a skin over old pudding, lubricated by a layer of molten rock (magma). The plates slowly move, spreading apart in the Atlantic (explaining the higher air fares to Europe), crunching together to make mountain ranges, and sliding over one another in the northwest coast of America, triggering volcanoes like Mount St. Helens. Although the plates move about the same rate as your fingernails grow, these distances add up over millions or years, explaining why tropical fossils are found in Alaska, and South American rock formations continue in Africa.
Although most geologic action (earthquakes, volcanoes) occurs at the edges of the plates (Los Angeles, Anchorage, Iceland), Hawaii gets its volcanic action in the middle of a plate. The plate slides over a hot upwelling of magma ("hot spot" is the technical term) that bursts out every so often creating an island and/or a volcano. Like passing a credit card over a lit match, the surface will swell, blister, and erupt in a dotted path over the flame. Thus the islands Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii were formed, in that order, as the Pacific Plate slid northwest. The big island of Hawaii has the active volcanoes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa. Million year old Haleakala volcano on East Maui sputtered its last in 1790. Kauai burst through the ocean 5 million years ago, but has been dormant for a half million years. Sixteen miles southeast of Hawaii and 1/2 mile below the ocean surface is the Loihi Seamount, an active volcano and embryonic island-in-the-making.
Visiting Kauai first and working our way southeast to the Big Island allows us to study volcanic history from past to present. The solidified lavas (primarily basalts) tell us much about the interior of the earth. Lava layers chronicle repeated eruptions separated by years of quiescence.
The volcanoes follow a pattern, stages they go through as they mature. Early shield building stages created 90% of the mass of the islands (in the domed shape of a shield). After this, the volcano may become dormant for a million years or so. During this time, water and vegetation erode the rocks which turn into soil, transforming the shield into cliffs and valleys. Huge landslides like the 1000 foot Nuuanu Pali Slump toss miles of mountain into the sea, creating huge tidal waves which wash coral debris high onto neighboring islands. Towering waterfalls now cascade down the steep, verdant cliffs.
Shield-building lavas typically flow from the domes of the main volcanos. The center of the dome may then contract forming a bowl-shaped depression (caldera). Later stages of a volcano's development create chemically different lavas, and these often refill the caldera to overflowing while oozing out from cracks (rifts and faults) along the flanks of the original volcano. These lavas cover the soil and forests often running along stream beds. New streams follow the same course, leaving silt and boulders, perhaps followed by another layer of lava. This creates rather unique falls and pools as water runs along the hard lava surface, finds a crack and gouges out a falls, or dams up in shallow pools which once were pools of lava. This, in fact, is how Oheo gulch was created at Haleakala National Park in Maui.
Depending upon the viscosity, flow rate, and temperature of lava, it can flow as smooth river-like pahoehoe, leaving a wrinkled, ropy, intestine-like surface. The ground layer and the surface layer cools quickly and hardens, while the protected interior may continue flowing, like a river under ice. Sometimes the lava flows out of the river faster than new lava comes in, leaving caves called lava tubes. Most are maybe a foot across, but a few, like the Thurston Lava Tube on the Big Island, are large enough to walk through.
On steeper slopes, we usually find the slower moving, cooler and more viscous aa lava, which looks like huge lit charcoal briquettes being pushed by a bulldozer. It creates a rough, jagged, crusty, clinker-like surface with hummocks (hills). Fall on it (everyone does) and you're cut to shreds. Deep eruptions may be rich in olivine which can erode into ephemeral green sand beaches. Lava pouring directly into the ocean can splinter into tiny crystals that collect briefly into black sand beaches. Seashore cinder cones may contain chunks of coral, proving they burst through the seashore long after the original lavas made a home for sea life.
Lava-filled cracks in the earth (dikes and sills) show weak spots in the rock cliffs, which, pounded by the relentless seas, wear into caves. As ice glaciers formed at the poles, withholding water from the ocean, the sea level dropped, leaving the sea caves high, dry, and mysterious. Water soaks through the porous lava rock dissolving calcium and other minerals which it deposits as it evaporates on the ceilings of the sea caves, leaving patches of colors and crystals.
Thus the history of an island, its volcanic activity, its climate, and its changes are recorded in the colors, shapes, textures, and minerals of the rock. Riverbeds, forests, even the footprints of man are mummified and preserved for us to study and interpret.
Video geography is especially appealing in the Hawaiian Islands because it is so colorful and it moves. Volcanoes smoke and heave glowing rivers of lava, steam spurts from fissures in the earth, ocean waves crash against towering walls of rock, cotton clouds silently flow around lush green glistening mountaintops, and frothy waterfalls leap into shimmering pools leaving a rainbow mist behind. Unlike the frozen study in time of ordinary geology, Hawaii affords the chance to see, and record the fiery creation of land and beaches, as well as its erosion and eventual dispersal. Mother Nature in motion.
Geology Tours to the Hawiian Islands
If shooting Hawaiian geology happens to be your caldera of
tea, you might try contacting Dr. and Mrs. Lee Meyerson at
74-7196 Kanai Place, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740. Dr. Meyerson
taught geology at Kean College in New Jersey and knows all the
places to look for phenocrysts, xenoliths, aa, pahoehoe, tree
molds, lava tubes, pumice, Pele's tears, and more. The Meyersons
have run tours to Hawaii for fourteen years and take you to
places that tourists never see, some of on private property
(visited with permission). They are familiar with the history,
language, culture, plant and animal life, green and black sand
beaches, waterfalls, and with mountains of rocks on each of the
islands Oahu, Kauai, Maui, and the Big Island (Hawaii).
Kinds of Camcorders to use
If you are a professional, you are probably used to lugging
around Betacams or their digital brothers. This
equipment costs about $10,000, takes beautiful shots, but is
expensive and heavy, and gets heavier the farther you have to
carry it into the jungle. The next best option is to use a 3-chip
camera docked to a digital VCR or a DV (digital video) camcorder
with three chips. This guarantees the best picture for about $1500, or
$3500 for a HD version.
A step down from there would be a analog
S-VHS-C or Hi8 camcorder combo.
The first generation video quality is excellent, as is the hi fi sound.
The color quality and S/N ratio is a little weak. It is best to dub your
camera master to a higher level format when you get home, or perform
interformat edits staying in the Y/C realm, not using composite video. You
may also interformat edit through a transcoder which will change
the Y/C video to Y/R-Y/B-Y for your component decks.
Next down the list in quality are the single chip DV, Hi8 and
SVHS camcorders. The image quality is a notch below their
three-chip brothers but the low cost of these cameras make them
excellent choices if you are traveling in rough environments
where the camcorder might be dropped overboard, steamed in a
fumerole, stepped on by an elephant, or stolen. If for no other
reason, it may be wise to carry a cheap palmcorder for those
emergencies when your expensive deck poops out.
One neat attribute of palmcorders is that weighing under
two pounds, they fit easily into a fanny pack when hiking. This
leaves your arms and legs free to do other things like climb
slippery trails or swat mosquitoes.
Video vs. Photo
There's no question that 35mm slides and prints are sharper
and have more accurate color than video. Slides project well and
prints blow up into impressive posters. But there are some
things that the camcorder does that photography can't do, or does
poorly:
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