Fukushima city panorama sunset

Fukushima city panorama sunset
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

There has been a surprising amount of nice coloured sunsets in the past couple of months here in Fukushima. Im sure any landscape photographer will be loving it right now. Usually most of the time Im still working at 7pm which seems to be the "golden time" but I snuck away early to photograph quite a nice sunset from the top of Shinobuyama (our mountain in the middle of Fukushima city).
Please click here to view it big like its supposed to be viewed.

Heres one more panorama photo from earlier that same day.

Twilight Time (More Canon G9 test shots)

Twilight Time (Canon G9 test shots)
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

I was riding home from work and saw a great sunset on the way. So I rode my 50cc scooter (free bike from Harunas grandma) up Bentenyama which is just next to my place. It has a great lookout and view of Fukushima city. This was a 15 second exposure. And with a point & shoot camera! who'd of thunk it!

My first time to see Fireflies!

My first time to see Fireflies!
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

About 30mins drive from my place is a creek with 1000's of Fireflies I didnt even know were there. This was my first time to see them. They are very difficult to shoot and focus as its pretty much pitch black. This was about 8pm at nite. 190sec exposure

Selling my Canon 30D on Ebay. Buying a G9

Im selling my fantastic Canon 30D on Ebay now. Its one super DSLR great for professionals or amateurs. The body is in great condition free of any scratches and its just been in at Canon getting a check up and tune up. Come check out the auction here .

Seen as how Im selling one of my DSLR's I thought I better replace it with something so today I just bought myself a new toy! Its the Canon powershot G9! Its a great little (well not that little) compact camera but with many of the features of their DSLR cousins. It has the ability to shoot RAW, fully manual exposures, has a hot shoe external and off camera flash and can take some pretty nice movies as well.

Heres some more specs:

* 12.1 Megapixels (1/1.7” sensor) with RAW mode for maximum image control
* 6x optical zoom lens with optical Image Stabilizer and SR coating*
* DIGIC III and iSAPS for lightning fast response, superb image quality and advanced Noise Reduction*
* Face Detection AF/AE/FE and Red-Eye Correction in playback
* 3.0” high-resolution, PureColor LCD II with extra wide viewing angle
* ISO 1600 and Auto ISO Shift
* Compact body with dedicated ISO and Multi Control dials
* 25 shooting modes including full manual control and 2 custom settings
* Extra telephoto reach with Digital Tele-Converter and Safety Zoom*

* Hot shoe support for Canon Speedlite flashes and optional lens accessories

Now I have to go spend some time reading the manual for it. So many functions squeezed into such a small body and menu its more confusing than my Canon EOS pro camera bodies lol.

Canon 5D mkII 4gb USB drive! Now thats geeky cool!

How cool is that!!

Just found out today that Canon have released a miniature 5D mark II 4gb USB drive! Looks really cool but the price doesn't. You wont get much change back from $200us. If you want one they have apparently one left on eBay from Hong Kong.

Shooting water drops

Recently got inspired to shoot some water drops again thanks to http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/ 

I set up a little black baking tray with water, made a background to bounce light off in Photoshop then printed it out. Strapped on the 50mm with some extension tubes to allow me to get in close for some macro capability and set up my new wireless flash triggers. Ended up with some pretty cool shots but still need lots of practice. Here are just a few shots from the experiment. 

This shot obviously was not water dropping but a still life macro shot of a couple of tiny water drops on a CD. 

And this is my set up for shooting the water drops. 

This shot kind of takes away the magic and mystery of the water drops but still interesting I think. Click for a larger shot with descriptions. 

As usual come see more water drop shots I did on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteleongphotography/sets/72157619057919061/

Boso Hanto camping trip

Was able to get 3 days off work and wanted to go camping somewhere different for a change and for a chance to do some seascape photography. So we decided to head down south to the Boso Hanto south of Chiba near Tokyo.  After about a 6 hour drive we arrived and were shocked to find there were no camping areas. None that were open anyway. I was on the look out for ocean with some interesting shaped rocks with some waves crashing on them so I could hopefully shoot some long exposures and make some cool shots. Found lots of rock but not much in the way of waves unfortunately. On the plus side I did get a little peak at Mount Fuji far in the distance across the water. 

 As the first day went on we were beginning to stress a little about where we were going to stay as everyone we asked said there were no camping ground around that were open until summer kicks in. But eventually we were able to find a nice quiet camp ground nestled up high on some hills around some fruit farms. It turned out to be a great spot and we had the whole place to ourselves. The next morning we were up at the crack of 3:30am! Wanted to head back down to the beach in hopes of shooting some nice light on the rocks and if I was really lucky with Mt Fuji in the background. The morning light although not amazing was still pretty nice and made for nice soft lighting on the rocks and water so I was able to get a few alright shots. 

After we were done playing around the water we headed off to see some interesting temple kinda sticking out of the side of a cliff. Then onto see the famous giant Daibutsu Buddha stone carvings at Nihon-ji. These things are pretty damn impressive and huge to say the least!

After wandering around here for a few hours we took our time making our way back up to Fukushima. Overall I think I could have gotten some better shots but theres always next time. 

Japans largest stone Buddha!

You talkin about me?

Got an interesting surprise the other day while driving back to work from a wedding shoot on location. I was listening to Photogeek.tv on my iPod Touch, one of my favorite regular photography podcasts I subscribe and listen to when all of a sudden they mentioned a photo from a guy living in Japan called Pete Leong had placed quite high in a national competition. Although they did butcher by last name a bit and made it sound as though it was pronounced in a french accent. They were actually talking about one of my HDR (High Dynamic Range) shots that I entered in a a popular photography magazine photo contest and ended up placing in the top 10 for all of Japan. It made for an otherwise normal day at the office interesting! 8) Although I didnt win thousands of dollars for the placing I did receive some photo editing software called Digital Darkroom and is apparently worth 180 bucks or so. Not that Id ever use it because I already have Photoshop and Lightroom anyway and plus its in Japanese which doesn't help either. It was nice anyway. Click here to see the shot.

To see my mention click the link and scroll down to near the bottom of the show notes for #84 

http://photogeek.tv/Pages/category/audio-podcasts/page/2/

And if your interested in any geeky tech toys, camera or video etc. related download and listen to their shows. Tons of interesting and funny stuff on there!

If your reading, thanks for the mention Phil! 

Some of my more interesting photos according to Flickr River

Testing out some new camera toys

Hey everyone! Sorry its been a while since if updated the blog. Been crazy busy shooting tons of weddings and other shoots because Japan is on the Golden week holidays right now. 

Recently bought a fair bit of camera accessories from Link-Delight.

As they are super cheap! Ended up getting some radio slaves to fire my flashes off the camera anywhere up to 30m away, macro extension tubes, reflectors, light stand mount for flash andumbrella. Also finally bought a Giottos Rocket blower after hearing many raves about them from the various photography pod casts I listen to and The Hot Shoe Diaries, new book by Joe McNally. About off camera flash technique. Still waiting on those though.

Had the day off today. And although the weather was crap I decided to get out and give the new macro tubes and wireless flash triggers a test run. Here's a few sample shots from today on Smugmug.

And here are just a couple of my fav shots from today.

Haruna and Jet chillin on at park bench at Fukushima 4 seasons park with a sea of flowers behind them. Had my flash on a tripod to the left of the shot. 

It had been raining so there were little droplets of water everywhere. 

Had the flash on a dedicated ettl cord held out to the side. Im manual exposure to make the background go black. 

This took quite a few attempts to get right. I was holding the pink flower in the background to try and shoot it through the rain drops. Very tricky to get focus right!

Lots of rain drops lit from beneath.