Destination: Grand WaileaMichael Gilbert shoots vibrant gardens and high-end art at a high-end Maui resort with the Tamron 18-200mm Di III VC. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by Michael Gilbert |
When Michael Gilbert purchased a pocket-sized mirrorless camera system a couple of years ago, he was intrigued by the photographic possibilities that came in such a compact package. Gilbert, who has studios in both Hawaii and Paris, says, "You can't travel with a big camera around your neck anymore. Not only do you become a target, but try walking around for a couple of hours with it." |
Unfortunately, Gilbert wasn't thrilled with the lens on his new camera. "The camera itself was really good, but I never really used it except for some nighttime personal shooting, because the lens wasn't giving me what I needed," he says. |
Two years later, the Tamron 18-200mm Di III VC lens (a high-power zoom designed specifically to work with Sony's mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera series) showed up on his doorstep, allowing Gilbert to finally dust off the mostly unused camera for more high-end work. "That lens took what had essentially become a camera I never used other than for hobby and brought it back to the professional realm," he says. "As soon as I took the lens out of the package, I saw it was finely made and well machined. Frankly, if you own a Sony, you need to have this lens." |
Gilbert test-drove the 18-200 at WPPI in February, but his first real job with the lens was shooting at the Grand Wailea, a Waldorf Astoria Collection hotel right down the road from him in Maui. "The resort has a large collection of flowers and plants, and they wanted to put together a brochure," he says. "I took the lens, put it on my camera, and headed over there. I shot all of these images handheld and achieved incredible sharpness when shooting wide open." |
Photographing the Grand Wailea’s Natural Beauty |
The 18-200's focal length is ideal for strolls around the luxury resort. "You have so many vantage points you can shoot from, such as from a balcony overlooking one of the koi ponds," Gilbert explains. "I know all the koi and even have names for my favorites, Edna and Lucy. For the shot I show here, I knew I wanted to get there at 11am. At that time of day, the sky was all blue, so I had a cup of coffee until a few clouds came that way a few minutes later. I wanted clouds so they would add white reflection to the water along with the reflection of the blue sky." |
When the light hit the water, the reflections from the sky and hotel allowed Gilbert to create a photograph that looked like an abstract painting. "I hung out for a few minutes on the balcony and waited for one of the koi to swim into the frame," he says. "Each time the fin on the koi moved, I got a little eddy or current, which produced those ripple effects." |
Gilbert also shot a slideshow for his Passport to the Arts program, which he teaches once a week in the hotel's NaPua Gallery. He shot the resort's botanical beauties and set them to music. "There are probably 30 different types of plants and flowers I shot with this lens, all of them at wide open, fully zoomed," he says. "I shot them purposely this way so that when you dissolve one picture into another during the slideshow, it really flows." |
One of the more interesting plants on Gilbert's agenda: the tea trees on the hotel's premises. "When you look at them in regular light, they're nice, but when they're backlit, they light up like Christmas trees," he says. "They're almost luminescent. Some people look at my images of the tea trees and see how saturated they are and think I Photoshopped them or that it's an HDR image. That's exactly how they look when the light's coming up from behind them."
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A black-and-white shot of a leaf highlighted the 18-200's sharpness. "One of the great things about this lens is how sharp it is," Gilbert says. "For this leaf image, which was part of a black-and-white series I did, I shot at full zoom. If you use the full extension, your depth-of-field is extremely shallow, but whatever it's focused on is perfect. Because the leaf is backlit and everything in the background falls off, the leaf really pops out at you." |
When Gilbert spied a flowerbox filled with orchids in front of a pair of two white concrete pillars, he knew he could isolate the flowers and get a studio-like shot. "If I had had a shorter focal-length lens, I wouldn't have been able to get the picture, because you'd see not only the columns in the background, but also the hotel," he explains. "Being able to zoom in so close with the 18-200, I was able to get a high-key-type shot of white on white and press those flowers right into the pillar. People see that shot and think maybe I took it in the studio or with a lightbox."
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Gilbert, who was able to take advantage of the Vibration Compensation (VC) on the 18-200 for his handheld images, especially saw the benefit of the feature during a stroll through the NaPua Gallery. "Esther Shimazu is an artist who does these incredible stone and ceramic sculptures," he says. "I saw one of her dog sculptures in the back of the gallery, a spot where normally you'd need to use flash - except flash would ruin the picture. I wondered how good the VC would be if I zoomed in all the way. My exposure was around 1/15th of a second, and you can see the image is tack-sharp. The nose and the eyes are in focus, and then it falls off after that, which is exactly the type of image you want." |