Digital ProTalk

"Edge Of Purgatory"
© David A. Ziser
I made this image while in Hawaii earlier this year. Yes, this is lava flowing. LaDawn and I made the trek into the lava fields on the Big Island - 3.5 miles in and 3.5 miles out - like being 7 miles on a StairMaster machine. The hike was absolutely beautiful though - black barren landscape everywhere - the scope of the cool hardened lava formations was truly exquisite in so many instances. After trekking in for a few hours, we saw the lava start to flow from the rocks - again, utterly fascinating. the sun was nearly set when I made this image. The challenge was to hold detail in the surrounding cool black lava and the 2000 degree molten rock was heading towards us. Not to worry too much though - I was using my Canon 70-300 DO IS lens racked out to 180mm on my 30D. In effect that gave me a almost a 300mm optic with the APS sensor on the 30D. A little work in Photoshop restored some of the detail in the black surrounding lava. Exposure was F5.0 at 1/80 second at ISO 800 - Jpeg. Enjoy! --David