It is no wonder Kilauea is called the world’s only active drive-in Volcano! You park your car, walk a 100 yards, take a seat by the stone retaining wall and lo – you see a sight like none other. Less than a mile away, on the hardened lava floor of the Halemaʻumaʻu crater , what looks like a gigantic blister that swallowed the sun, is a pit that has been burning since 1983. If ever one needs to a prototype for an “Entryway to Hell”, this is it.
It was past 10:00pm when I reached the lookout. The red glow can only be seen in the dark, during the days all you see is plumes of viscous smoke, There was a nip in the air and the caldera was cloaked in a shroud of silence. Big clumps of cumulus covered the full moon throwing an eerie shadow on the landscape.
I mounted my Nikon 300s on my tripod and took a few close up shots of the volcano using my Nikkor 18-200mm to zoom in. Since I wanted to capture a larger landscape, I mounted my Tokina 11-16mm, knowing well that the ultra wide 2.6 aperture will allow me to gather more light than my eyes could. With the lends wide open, I metered 8 seconds for shutter speed and recomposed my shots to gather more of the star studded sky and not to leave our the couple in the right bottom corner. A photographer standing next to me insisted on using his flash light, not aware that flash was futile at this distance, and I made sure I covered the eyepiece to prevent any additional, unwanted light tricking to the sensor.
The only post processing I did on this picture was to nudge the highlights slider in LightRoom to the right so that the sharp contours of the crater became apparent.
