Kuto, Isle of Pines

It’s been a little hectic since I’ve come back from my trip to Isle of Pines. So I apologies for the lack of content but I was finally able to edit this photo. Though we had Uesi Cyclone approaching from the north, it didn’t really affect us apart from some light showers in the middle of the night and on our last day. As you can see, beautiful sunny days during our stay. Very hot too but we were lucky to have constant, cool wind at Atchu Camping, where we were staying.

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Isle of Pines is right down the southern tip of New Caledonia and part of the Province Sud (Southern Province). You can get there by plane (through Air Caledonie) or by boat (through Betico 2), we chose the latter. It's cheaper and though you leave early in the morning, there's a snack bar for breakfast or other things. The trip takes two and half hours along the south-west coast of the mainland and is absolutely beautiful. The boat moors in Kuto Bay at the end of the beach with the same name, located south south-west of the Isle of Pines. Kuto Beach and this one, Kanumera Beach, are world renowned for their white and very fine, powder-like sand. Feels likes your walking on flour, no joke, that's how fine this sand is.

Our trip here was purely for relaxation. And relax we did. We spent most of our time on this beach and Kuto's as well. We did hire a car at Kou-Bugny Hotel for a day, just to visit the Grotte de la Reine Hortense (Queen Hortense’s Cave). That took most of the morning then we drove to Gadji for a look. We had lunch at the Meridien Hotel (expensive but nice) before heading to Vao for a swim at St. Joseph Bay. Then we slowly made our through Vao village before heading back to Kuto. A nice and easy day round the island.

As with most of the beaches in Isle of Pines, Kanumera beach is paradise. It’s split in two by a huge rock formation where snorkelling, all around it, is magnificent. If snorkelling isn’t your thing, you can enjoy the fine, white sand and turquoise water with a cocktail in your hand from the Banian bar & restaurant, of the Ouré Lodge, situated at the far end of the beach in this photo.

And talking about the photo, the one difficulty I had, was getting the exposure right in camera. The sand is so white and bright, as with snow, the camera under-exposes to balance the overall exposure. So I had to over-expose the shot by about a 1 stop to get the correct exposure for this scene. Not sure of myself, I did take two other exposures just in case. Better too many than regretting. Also had a little trouble with the White Balance. At first I based it on the boat but it gave me a too warm of an image so in the end I used the eyedropper on the sand and warmed it ever so slightly. Oh and if your colours don’t look right sometimes, play around with Calibration (in Lightroom), you’ll be surprised how effective it can be.

OK, well, I’ll get myself into gear and try to post more photos from the Isle of Pines for the next couple of weeks. Hope to see you back here soon. Cheers.

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SONY a7 III

full-frame mirrorless camera (body only)

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TAMRON E 28-75 MM ƒ/2.8 Di III RXD

E-mount standard zoom lens for Sony cameras

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LEE FILTER HOLDER

LEE 100 mm filter holter

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LEE ADAPTER RING

LEE 67 mm thread adapter ring for 100 mm filter holder

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LEE POLARISER FILTER

LEE polariser filter for LEE 100 mm filter holder

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SANDISK MEMORY CARD

SANDISK Extreme Pro 128GB SDXC memory card

I was lucky the rain had stopped so that I could photograph sunrise and if you look back at my last post, I think I captured a nice image. Overhead though the rain had come back and I quickly packed up my gear, as it’s not weather sealed, and took cover under a nearby tree. I was hoping the rain would stop long enough for me to head back to the camp site for hot coffee and breakfast. I was starting to get very hungry. The rain had almost stopped and I was about to make a run for it when this beautiful rainbow appeared. With the dark clouds and the sun hitting the top of them it made for quite a dramatic scene.

I had to try to capture it. I hurried back to the water and quickly setup my gear in fear the rainbow would disappear. With the top of the image and the foreground very bright, and the bottom of the clouds and background quite dark, I thought the contrast might be too much for a single exposure. I told myself to just take the shot so I at least have something and if I have the time, to capture two different exposures. One for the bright areas, the other for the dark areas so that I can blend them together later. I timed the shots to capture movement in the water as it was retreating over the coral/rock. I only caught the end of the rainbow as it was already fading by the time I had setup. Everything happened quickly but I’m glad I was able to get my three exposures.

So this photo is the result of blending the highlight and shadow exposures. The blending and edits were very quick and the photo is fairly accurate to what I saw. I did edit the single exposure as well but I wasn’t able to reproduce the same results. Well not in the same time frame anyway.

 Anyway, another souvenir of Poe Beach (Bourail, New Caledonia) captured and a unique one at that.

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1/16th @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

Even though my tent was only fifty metres away from Poe Beach (Bourail, New Caledonia) I set my alarm to wake an hour before sunrise. Hoping to capture an image during blue hour. Unfortunately the alarm woke me to rain. Now I’m not an early morning kind of person and going to bed late the night before didn’t help but rain?! Nooo!!! I was determined to capture images of Poé though so I stayed awake, hoping the rain would stop. And forty-five minutes later, it did. About ten minutes after that the clouds opened up. Time to shoot! Blue hour was gone and golden hour was in full swing so I had to hurry to find a composition.

I had to walk up the beach a little before finding this dead coral, I think it’s coral, rock? Anyway, it would make for an interesting foreground. All I had to do now was to wait for the water to wash over the coral/rock and snap a shot. The line of the water would lead the eye towards the surveillance cabin and then the sky. And it worked quite well. I’m very happy with the photo.

I wanted to take a few more shots but the rain came back and my gear isn’t weather sealed so I packed up and took cover under a tree. And guess what I saw?… Check out my next post.

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1/60th sec @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100