Maui Fire

by Douglas Hoffman on June 9, 2010

On June 8th, a brush fire broke out in the West Maui Mountains. Strong winds caused the fire to spread, and the ensuing smoke impeded driving and forced the closure of the highway.

After the sun set, the sky had an eerie glow so I grabbed my camera and went to Sugar Beach. After evaluating the scene I decided a slow shutter was needed to show the glow in the night sky. A high depth of field was also needed as the fire was so far away.  I set the camera at 1000 ISO, and at -1.7 stops. By underexposing the image this much I was able to capture the intensity of the fire.  I then created a number of images using shutter speeds of 15 – 20 seconds and  f-stops of F8 – F11.