We stayed in Lahaina the first half of our trip to Maui and then moved to Wailea (~40 minutes south of Lahaina) for the last few days of our trip. Grand Wailea has just become our favorite hotel in Maui!
It’s luxurious and has a chapel – perfect for weddings and honeymoons. It has an amazing maze of swimming pools – perfect for families and kids. It also houses one of the top 10 spas in the United States – perfect for a relaxing stay for couples!
It is a splurge but was the perfect ending to our stay in Maui!
Hawaii has beautiful sunsets and evening “colors”. We tried capturing the beauty of it while at Grand Wailea. Here are some of our favorite photos in HDR!
Enjoy…
Fountain at Grand Wailea
The Chapel at Grand Wailea. We saw a wedding take place in the chapel on our last day here.
Grand Wailea has amazing swimming pools and whirlpools. Kids love it! For adults, there’s always the “adults only” pool to enjoy if you don’t want to be disturbed by kids. This is a shot taken at the adults pool.
My favorite were the whirlpools scattered all around the pools area. The pools close at 10pm – loved chilling by the whirlpool after dinner till 10pm!
PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: To capture these photos, we used the “auto-bracketing” feature on our camera (which captures the same shot multiple times with different exposures) and then generated the image using HDR processing software, Photomatix Pro (it takes the best details from all the shots and combines them into one photo).
To capture all the colors, your camera will need to take in as much light as possible and will require some time to capture even just one shot. Make sure you prop your camera up on a tripod because you need your camera to be as steady as it can be while taking these photos. This will avoid blurring/ghosting when the software combines all the pictures together.
REMEMBER:
- Grand Wailea is perfect for both couples and families with kids!
- It is a splurge, so we recommend it for special occasions or towards the end of your trip to Maui.
- Capture beautiful evening colors through HDR photos.
- Use HDR processing software such as Photomatix Pro and Lightroom to process your photos.
- Use a tripod to get steady shots.
What is your favorite hotel in Maui? Do you like taking HDR pictures too? Do share your tips!
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82 Comments
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Great photos. I’ve been to that hotel a few times, but didn’t stay there (just crashed their beach). I would agree its terrific. A wonderful spot. Again, terrific photos.
Kris Koeller recently posted..On the Beach at Parrot Cay, Turks & Caicos
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Thank you Kris! Glad you like the photos 🙂 Maui is indeed a beautiful place and heaven for photographers!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Surfing with Goofy Foot Surf School in Maui
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it is really very very very beautiful
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Wow, this looks amazing! Hawaii is a very exotic location for me, being from Europe. Looks like a fab hotel to stay in. Thanks also for explaining how you took these pictures!
Christina (Jandal Road) recently posted..Discovering Vancouver: Dr Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden-
Thank you for the kind compliments, Christina! Hawaii is definitely an exotic location. Perfect for a relaxing vacation!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Surfing with Goofy Foot Surfing School in Maui
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Aloha! We love the Grand Wailea and your photos captured the beauty of the resort perfectly. They are stunning! Next time you are on Maui and looking for another splurge (if you haven’t done this already) The breakfast buffet at the Four Season next door is fantastic and Lunch or Dinner at Mama’s Fish House in Paia is worth every hard earned dollar! A hui hou!
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Thank you Karen & John for the kind compliment! We did not get a chance to try the breakfast buffet at Four Seasons nor the food at Mama’s Fish House this time. We’ll definitely give that a go the next time we’re there. Thanks for the tips!!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Surfing with Goofy Foot Surfing School in Maui
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I’ve been by here a few times but never stayed. Maui is so beautiful and this is a fantastic hotel. Love your photos!
Jeremy Branham recently posted..Weekend travel reading – travel and technology, relationships, airlines, and more-
Glad you like the photos, Jeremy! Maui is definitely beautiful. Hawaii is the one place that we keep going back to for vacations!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Surfing with Goofy Foot Surfing School in Maui
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I’m so glad you included a photography tip on this one because I was about to beg, plead, and weep until you told me how you managed to capture such vivid colors, haha.
Amazing shots.
Aussie on the Road recently posted..Guest Post: Vintage Sydney-
LOL! Glad you like the shots and thank you so much Chris for the compliment! Now that we’ve told you how to take these shots, we look forward to seeing you give it a go!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Surfing with Goofy Foot Surfing School in Maui
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These are some stunning HDR shots! I have to admit I’m not always a fan with this technique but you’ve really edited them well 🙂
Nomadic Samuel recently posted..Machu Picchu | Peru | Part 18 | Travel Video-
Thank you for the kind compliment! It was too tempting to not do HDR in Maui due to the colors and the details that were present!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{India} Thiksey Monastery is a “Must Visit” in Leh
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Very striking pics. I’ll have to see if my camera has same feature. Probably but I wouldn’t have known what it was for.LOL.
Jim recently posted..YouTube Tuesday: Oct 11, Ray Wylie Hubbard.-
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment! You should definitely look into your camera’s capabilities. If not, there’s always pseudo HDR where you use only one shot and generate different exposure photos using editing software 🙂 let me know if you need additional information.
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{Thoughts} I got a postcard postmarked North Pole!
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I’ve been to Oahu and Kauai, but never to Maui. These photos are more than breathtaking – extremely well done. I would love to start experimenting more with HDR!
Mark Wiens recently posted..Hidden Treasures at the Local Market in Sanjiang City, Guangxi Province, China-
Thanks Mark! We really appreciate the kind compliment! We look forward to seeing your experiments with HDR 🙂
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{India} Thiksey Monastery is a “Must Visit” in Leh
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I’d love to try this effect on some of our photos! Really cool shots
Jade recently posted..The Perfect Costa Rica Honeymoon-
Thanks Jade! You definitely should give it a shot!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Whale Watching at San Juan Islands
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Wow! The pictures are just amazing!
Sailor recently posted..Mississippi River Cruises Return in Spring-
Thanks for the compliment! Glad you love the pictures!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{Thoughts} I got a postcard postmarked North Pole!
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Glad you like the photos and tips Laurel! Thanks for the compliment. We too were curious when we first saw HDR photos on some photographers’ sites and took time to learn and play with it. We’re still learning so definitely appreciate every feedback we get!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Whale Watching at San Juan Islands -
Gorgeous photos. Thanks for explaining how you got them. I’m always curious how people get such great photos like these.
Laurel recently posted..Photo Journey to the Munich Residenz-
Glad you like the photos and tips Laurel! Thanks for the compliment. We too were curious when we first saw HDR photos on some photographers’ sites and took time to learn and play with it. We’re still learning so definitely appreciate every feedback we get!
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{USA} Whale Watching at San Juan Islands
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Looking really good! I’ve been playing around with HDR a lot lately. How do you decide how many f-stops to braket each photo? Does it depend on the range of light in the photo? Or other factors?
Matt Gibson recently posted..Making Waves in Jamaica-
Hi Matt,
Short answer – yeah, I vary it based on available light and the details I want to capture in the scene/photo.
Long answer…
If there’s a lot of light, I’ll use 1/3 EV (or anything less than 1 EV) instead of 1 EV (my default f-stop interval) . This will ensure the higher exposure shots are not all overly exposed. In low light, I will tend to use 1 EV or higher in order to increase the exposure of the higher end shots. Also when light is really low, I tend to take more shots with a mid point of higher exposure (e.g 0, +1, +2 instead of -1, 0, +1).In certain scenarios when there are moving objects in the photo (e.g. people), I either photoshop out the moving object from the shots, live with the slight ghosting or do pseudo HDR aka single shot HDR (e.g. take one picture then manually increase and decrease the exposure in editing software and save them as separate photos).
I usually set it to 5 bracketing intervals and in a few instances 9 intervals. Unless you are running low on space or time, then the more intervals the better (this will ensure you capture the full dynamic range of the scene). I’ve heard other photographers taking up to 11 shots.
Hope this helps!
-Jeremy
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{Malaysia} Snorkel, Dive and Chill at Redang Island-
That makes very good sense. I’ve been fooling around a bit, but without a solid idea of how to adjust the bracketing for different scenes.
Thanks very much. You just saved me a trip to Stuck in Customs!
Cheers,
Matt
Matt Gibson recently posted..Making Waves in Jamaica-
No problem! Trey is definitely an inspiration. He has some great tutorials on how to process your auto bracketed shots – we learnt some photoshop tricks from his tutorials, so definitely check it out.
Idelish (Jeremy & Shirlene) recently posted..{Tips} If nothing else, take these 3 photographs on your travels
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