Thanks for all the great comments and advice on what to take to Hawaii. Here are some of the pictures I took:
flickr
Here are a few comments on how it went:
1. Shutter lag was a major problem with getting face pictures of the two year old. The lag was particularly bad if I was using flash. It seems that shutter lag is something like 0.17 sec after prefocus, and perhaps twice that if flash is enabled due to an additional 0.17 lag for preflash. The combination of shutter lag plus pre-flash lag was a huge problem, and I ended up abandoning flash. It may be that using an older thyristor flash without TTL preflash could be a solution, but none of the dozen or so units I have would work in the new non-standard Sony hotshoe. I'm still looking for a solution to this. Without flash, the shutter lag was more usable.
2. The leica rangefinder lenses are great, except that it is not alway possible to focus, particularly when bright sunlight makes it difficult to see the screen, and my darkened glassed make it difficult to see through the viewfinder. In the end, I abandoned the leica lenses, and used only the LA-EA4 adapter with Minolta lenses. The LA-EA4 gets the focus immediately in most lighting and so focus is not a problem. I ended up using the Minolta 24-105mm lens a lot due to the convenience of zoom lenses. The "Beercan" 70-210mm lens was excellent for portraits, and focussed quickly, and had great resolution.
3. My Minolta mount Tamron 17-35mm zoom lens which works great on the A900 for some reason would not work with the LA-EA4, and therefore I was stuck with no wide lens.
4. In the end, the system I carried on hikes was not significantly smaller or lighter than a DSLR, and I could see no particular advantage over the D800e system. Only in cases where I knew I could use the small leica rangefinder lenses is there an advantage.
5. MISSED SHOTS. I missed many shots due to focus, and to shutter lag as already mentioned. I would not have missed those shots with a DSLR. My attempts at star shots were disappointing for two reasons, no wide angle lens and my tripod was too light.
Star shots in Hawaii would be best with a 14mm lens and the Trade Winds require a heavy tripod to not vibrate during 15 sec exposures. My star and surf pictures were all slightly blurred even though I did my best to hold the tripod steady.
==Doug