Shenanigans in Japan (Pete's PhotoBlog)

Shooting Military air craft with the Canon 600mm f4L

2012-01-14T16:03:00.001+09:00

Got a chance to play around with fellow photographer in Okinawa Jim Blankemeier's big Canon L glass the other day. We headed out to the lookout tower over looking the flight line at Kadena Air Force base.

Unfortunately we got there a bit late and missed most of the fighters taking off. When one F15 Eagle did fly by eventually I couldn't get it in my view finder with the1344mm focal length I was shooting with 8(.. Need more practice!

I was mostly shooting with the Canon 600mm F4L with Canon 7D and 1.4x extender attached to really get up nice and close on the air craft. Also played around with the super rare Canon 200mm f1.8L.

Having not shot with my Canon gear for a while (use Nikon most days for work) I was having trouble making the quick adjustments necessary for exposure etc.. as the planes whizzed by but I still managed to get a few I was pretty happy with. Especially with my panning efforts.

For those who are not familiar with the technique panning it involves using a relativity slow shutter speed to emphasize speed by having the background all blurred by the motion of the lens while at the same time keeping the subject crisp and sharp. This can be quick a difficult effect to pull off, especially when your working with 1000+mm of focal length and shutter speeds in the vicinity of 1/30th of a second!

Here are a few of the results I came away with.

Photo by Jim Blankemeier

This is my dream to try

2012-01-12T23:19:00.000+09:00

Ever since I can remember, it's been my dream to fly in a fighter jet. And to be able to shoot while doing it would just be epic. Here's a cool vid I came across of a lucky chap doing just that. Sign me up!

L39 Formation Team air to air photoshoot over Cape Town from Justin de Reuck on Vimeo.

Great Nikon D4 preview video by Fro Knows Photo

2012-01-07T13:05:00.000+09:00

Nikon just released the new D4 and it looks like a fantastic upgrade from the previous D3, D3S and D3X. Jared polin of Fro Knows Photo posted this great preview of the new Nikon D4.

36 Inch metal print arrived!

2012-01-07T11:31:00.000+09:00

Have finally be making a bit more of an effort to get some of my shots printed and up on the walls recently as most images only stay hidden in the pc and a few get uploaded to Flickr, Facebook and the like. I ordered a 36 inch canvas print a few months back as you can see in an earlier post but have been wanting to try a metal print for ages now.
My first metal print arrived at last from ImageWizards in the US (who are apparently the innovators of metal printing). The box it came in was huge, packaged very well to prevent any damage during its long trip from the US to Okinawa. The 36 inch print looks very impressive printed straight on to this lightly brushed super high gloss aluminium. It gives a saturation and depth to the image which can't be replicated on a paper or canvas. The placement of the print needs a good amount of planning as any foreground lights and windows etc.. will be very visible in the reflections on the print as you can see here.

The print itself with the high gloss lightly brushed aluminium finish set me back about $150US which is pretty good. But because of the size, weight and distance it needs to travel to get here the shipping was initially going to cost me $330! But I was luckily able to get the shipping down to $130 by having it shipped to a friends military APO address.

Overall very happy with the print and will be trying more in the future. Hoping to try a longer panorama for my next one as I love the format. The staff at Imagewizards were very friendly and helpful and it was a breeze to upload my image for printing. I highly recommend you give them a try and get some of your favorite shots out of your pc and on the wall!

Off Camera Flash Workshop

2012-01-01T18:02:00.000+09:00

Chris Willson and I will be holding an off camera flash workshop on the weekend of January 28th and 29th, 2PM to 6PM.

The lesson fee is US$150 and class size is restricted to a maximum of 10 students. The course will take place at Chris's house in Ishikawa, Okinawa and in the surrounding area.

Students should have their own SLR digital camera that they are reasonably comfortable using in manual mode. This is an intermediate level workshop. If you are not sure about things like aperture & shutter speed and how to control them then I’d recommend taking Chris's Photography 101 class first. (The next one will be held January 14th and 15th) If you already have your own flash, sync cords, or triggers please bring them along, but Chris and I will have plenty for people to share and experiment with.

The course will start with an introduction to the types of flashes we will be using, the different methods to sync them to your camera, and ways to both mount the flash and modify the light it produces. If you think PocketWizards and snoots are characters from Harry Potter then this is going to be an eyeopener.

We are going to practice our new skills in various situations, so you’ll have the knowledge and skills to go out and try them yourself.
I will be showing you how to balance flash with a blazing Okinawan sun. Also feel free to hit me up about any wedding photography questions you may have as I have shot hundreds during my time here in Japan and happen to know a thing or two about the subject.

We’ll also work on ways to control the flash so that your subjects are lit rather than simply blasted with light.
To book a place on the course please email me at petesphotography@gmail.com or Chris at chris@travel67.com We will send you a Paypal request for the course fee.

Hope to see you there!

Photoshop isn't the only tool used to make models look hot.

2011-12-30T20:42:00.003+09:00

We photographers need to utilize any methods possible to get the best look from our models.

The New Place

2011-12-23T11:03:00.000+09:00

All set up and moved in now to my new place in Yomitan, Okinawa. Loving it here as its very close to my work, close to friends and I have a pretty sweet view looking over the ocean straight to the sunsets everyday (providing weather is good). Its also much quieter here apart from the Fighter Jets from the local US Air base, but I love to watch them anyway. Internet is also set up and running now with a pretty sweet 200mb/s hikari line.
Looking forward to getting out and shooting more landscapes and seascapes now as there are a ton of great spots to shoot around here. Stay tuned!

Moved house No Internet

2011-12-07T23:07:00.001+09:00

Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting. Recently moved out to a great location in Yomitan. Nice view of the ocean and close to friends and work.

So I'll be getting hooked up with Internet hopefully from the 12th of this month. This time with a faster 200kb/s line for even faster downloading (⌒▽⌒).

Also got a chance to tag along on a US and Japanese Air Force training exercise thanks to a good friend. I'll be posting about that and uploading photos as soon as possible. In the mean time here's a shot of me from the exercise shooting from on of the Pararescue boats with on of the Helo's hovering in the background.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wedding photography blog COMING SOON!

2011-11-20T23:02:00.000+09:00

Hey everyone! Pushing on through the crazy wedding season once again, with no less then 20 weddings to shoot just this month. That adds up to a lot of editing time!

Our company Watabe Wedding will soon be starting up a new web site so that couples from Hong Kong and Taiwan will be able to request particular photographers for their wedding day. Until now it has just been luck of the draw for them.

Couples will also be able to request us to shoot in other countries as well as here in Okinawa.

I will also be starting up a Facebook Pete Leong wedding photography page in the next month or so. Probably once all the craziness of the wedding season is over.
Heres a sneak peak at some recent weddings and engagement shoots I've done.

Jesus don't want me for a sunbeam

2011-11-20T22:15:00.001+09:00

Jesus don't want me for a sunbeam, a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

Took a quick break from editing wedding photos to enjoy some amazing sunbeams cranking through the clouds in the late afternoon from atop our office roof.

This shot was made with my workhorse Nikon D3 and 17-35mm f2.8.

5 exposures in continuous burst mode and AEB (auto exposure bracketing) hand held.

All put together in Photomatix Pro and Lightroom.

First metal print ordered with Image wizards

2011-11-05T20:04:00.001+09:00

Hey everyone! Its that time of the year again. The busy wedding season has been keeping me from being very social online. With 20+ weddings just this month plus all the editing that goes along with that, there is not a lot of time left for keeping up appearances on the blog, FB, Flickr etc..

After hearing a lot of commotion about metal printing from various photography podcasts I finally gave in and decided I needed to have one done for myself.
I went with a 22 x 36 inch Ultra gloss metal print from Imagewizards.net after hearing good things about them.
I first got them to send me out a few samples of the various type of metal prints and finishes they have on offer and must say they do look quite stunning!

When viewed in the right light they take on an almost 3D like effect that has not been seen before on any kind of paper or canvas print. Colours are very saturated and contrasty. The prints can even be displayed outdoors and protected with regular car wax.

The 36 inch print with a float mount cost me about $160 US which was to be expected but I was a bit shocked when I was quoted over $300 to have the print sent here to Okinawa, Japan from the US, almost double the cost of the print and that's was with the cheapest shipping method! Luckily good mate and fellow photographer here Robert Mellon let me use his military APO address so I could have the print shipped to him which acts the same as US postal address cutting down shipping costs dramatically.

Once the print arrives I'll be sure to take a photo of it hanging on the wall.

Here's the image I'm having printed on metal

Stuck in Time by Pete Leong

I decided on this one as I think the pallet of colours in this image should really be complemented on metal ultra gloss and also as I just dig this image and want to have it big on my wall.
This will be the 2nd in the start of my large print collection.

Motion time lapse video

2011-10-15T23:55:00.000+09:00

I'm fascinated every time I watch a motion time lapse video. They way they seem to combine slow panning movements with super high speed action all at the same time is just an incredible sight to behold. I'm thinking to fork out and buy one of these rigs for myself to play around with.

Here's a good example of some stunning footage captured with a DSLR mounted on a motion time lapse rig.

And here`s another video showing the rig that's used to make such time lapse videos possible.
This particular type is called the Dynamic Perception Time lapse dolly Stage Zero. The starting price is around $1000US for one of these. Of course on top of that you still need a DSLR, lens, tripod and plenty of time. The latter of which seems to be the hardest to come by recently due to the crazy wedding season.

500px

2011-09-18T23:13:00.001+09:00

Just a quick one to let you know I joined up with 500px.com. This looks to be a great social photography site kind of like Flickr but generally much higher quality of images which makes the viewing experience much more interesting.

As I've only just joined I only have a few images up so far, but drop by and check it out. There are some seriously amazing photographs on there.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://500px.com/Petesphotography"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Petesphotography&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; on &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://500px.com"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;500px&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Favorite photography podcasts

2011-09-18T09:40:00.001+09:00

Thought I would give a quick mention to a few of my favorite photography related podcasts.
These are a great way to learn about photography and keep up with the latest news, issues, tips and just general geeking out about photography. The great thing is you can listen while your on the go. I'm always listening during the drive to and from work, during editing and even in bed before going to sleep.

For those who don't know, podcasts are like free radio programs (many also have video) available from iTunes or directly from the various photographers web sites etc..

Just download and sync with your iPhone or what ever mp3 player you may have, or just listen/watch on your pc. You can also subscribe to the shows so that every time you sync your iPhone etc.. with iTunes the new shows will automatically be downloaded and copied to your phone ready to listen to anytime.

Ok so here's the list starting with video podcasts or "Vodcasts"

Adorama TV:
Great for gear reviews and tips etc..

D Town TV: Probably "the go to" for photography shows. Always entertaining and educational. Hosted by Rafael "RC" Concepcion and Larry Becker..

Chase Jarvis Photography:
Such a creative and awesome photographer. Chase shows his gear, technique and talks to fellow artists.

Critique & Technique for photographers:
Never have I learnt so much about critiquing photos than from this show. Very educational and pretty damn funny at times. Unfortunately I think not in production anymore. But theres quite a few there to watch anyway.

The Grid: A little like D Town TV but mostly just discussing whats going on in the world of photography. Hosted by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski

Lightroom Killer Tips:
So much great free info and tips about using Lightroom with Matt Kloskowski.
There is a separate show of course for Photoshop but as I don't need to use that program as much as Lightroom I don't bother watching it.

TWIT Photo:
Run by Leo Leporte. There is already a TWIP (This week in Photo) which has been around for ages so I don't know why TWIT (This week in Tech) decided to make a video version but its pretty good anyway.

Audio Podcasts

Tips from the top floor:
The longest running photography podcast (I'm pretty sure) now up to 500+ episodes and hosted by Chris Marquardt. Lots of great tips, pholosiphy and general geekery. Great!

TWIP (This week in Photo)
Probably the 2nd oldest photography podcast after Chris Marquardt's show. TWIP is hosted by Fredrick Van Johnson and 3 or 4 other hosts. Great for photography news but recently they go on too much with advertising and sponsors talk.

The Pro Photo Show:
Gavin Seim hosts this all pro photography talk show. Not for beginners and just chatting and rants about all things pro photography. Great show!

Photo Focus:
Scott Bourne runs this all beginners ~ advanced photography Q & A podcast. Love this show and learn something new pretty much every episode.

Martin Bailey Photography podcast:
Hosted by my mate Martin from here in Japan. He talks about his landscape and nature photography. Also covers tips and techniques. His podcast is also an "enhanced podcast" meaning he you can see the images he's talking about as the show is running even though its an audio podcast. Visit Martin's site here.

The Photo Mojo Show:
Run by a couple of my friends Mitch and Willis in Brisbane, Australia. They talk all things photography, new gear and the like. I was a guest on a few of their earlier episodes.

So that rounds up just a few of the photography podcasts I frequently listen to everyday. There are lots of other great ones more on just specific areas of photography but these are for the most part general all around photography talk.

If you have others you think are worth a mention please tell us in the comments section below.

Fun with color contacts

2011-09-14T22:42:00.001+09:00

I had always wanted to try some freaky looking contact lenses so finally decided to just do it and ordered a pair from youknowit.com in the UK.

Having never used contacts before I was a bit freaked out myself at the thought of sticking something in my eyes. After watching several YouTube videos on how to put them in I was feeling somewhat confident at it could do it without any troubles. Oh boy was I wrong.
It took me a good 15 minutes of trying to get the things in. But eventually with blood shot eyes and lots of frustration I managed.

They took some getting used to at first but were comfortable enough after a few minutes.

Here's some shots I took with my iPhone and from at good friend Chris Wilson's studio.

Other photography by Chris Wilson and Michael Taylor.
Thanks chaps!

By me with iPhone and Hipstermatic.

By Michael Taylor. Playing around with a few props I got for the shoot.

Another one I came up with on the iPhone 4.

By Chris Wilson. Fun to try being on the other side of the camera for a change!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Shooting Star trails and night photography

2011-09-11T00:20:00.002+09:00

I often get questions about shooting night photography of stars and startrails and I recently came across this guy who does some amazing work with just that. His name is Ben Canales and here's a getting started tutorial for star photography.

Landscape Astrophotography Tutorial - First Night Out from Ben Canales on Vimeo.

Here's a sample of his amazing photography.

Crater Lake Under the Stars from Ben Canales on Vimeo.

Check out more of his work at Thestartrail.com
Hope you enjoyed and got some inspiration to get out and try star photography yourself.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Linkdelight review (Canon 5DmkII 4gb USB drives)

2011-09-08T23:44:00.000+09:00

I have been using Linkdelight.com for several years now. They are a Chinese company based near Hong Kong and sell all sorts of photographic goods from studio lighting right down to camera toys, and usually for prices almost too good to be true.
Unfortunately the service from this company ranges from bad to horrible. Firstly the packages I order from them in China often take a month to arrive (I am living in Okinawa, Japan which is pretty close!) to me, where as packages I order from the U.S and the U.K etc.. usually arrive within one business week. How can this be?

I recently ordered a good size package of photo related items for my fellow photographers at my company and was very disappointed to see that all the items were pretty dirty looking. They were covered in some kind of dust, boxes appeared to be in used condition and some items did not even work. Such as the Canon 5D mkII 4gb USB drive I made a video review of above. They asked me to send them images of the items which I did and they lost. So I sent them again along with this video which they also asked me to make.

I will not be recommending Linkdelight to my fellow photographers in the future unfortunately unless they can improve their horrible business skills and service.

Camping on the wrong island

2011-08-22T20:03:00.001+09:00

Recently took another trip over to the Kerama island chain to camp on Zamami island again. Its a beautiful little island with some of the clearest ocean waters in the world and quite famous for snorkeling and diving. However our trip saw us not on Zamami island but on its neighbour island Tokashiki. Why I hear you ask? Well while I was waiting in the car someone said they would go get the tickets for the boat. So we got on the boat and arrived at Tokashiki. We just waited as everyone else disembarked from the large ferry until eventually one of the boats staff asked us "why aren't you getting off?" I replied " No we are going to the next island, Zamami. He looked at me puzzled and said "No this boat only goes to this island, Tokashiki! And so we ended up camping there for the night.

Tokashiki Island belongs to the Kerama Island group which are known for the world's most transparent emerald green waters (50-60m transparency). Those islands are also known as one of the world's best diving destinations, having a number of coral species and marine lives as large as those in the Great Barrier Reef. (Over 400 types of corals, 5 types of sea turtles, manta rays, whale sharks and all kinds of tropical fish species all live around Okinawa.)

We found a pretty nice camping area by the beach and made our camp there before making a bee line straight for the beach and snorkeling. The beaches here make even the beautiful beaches of Okinawa main island look like mud. They are just on another level altogether.

I had fun playing around with the Canon S95 and Canon underwater housing for it. Although I was experiencing difficulty with the lens section of the housing continuously fogging up due to the extreme changes in temperature I expect.

yours truly swimming with the fish.

As night fell there was not a cloud to be seen in the sky which made for a beautiful star filled sky with the Milky Way also perfectly visible. So I set off to some various locations on the beach to try some star trail photography.

Made from about 100 or so 30 second exposures then combined using the free
StarTrails software availible from Startrails.de

I was shooting with both the Canon 7D and 5DmkII so as I could capture different angles and also experiment to see which is a better technique for capturing the stars, one single long exposure or many 30 second exposures combined in software afterwards.

It turned out that the single exposures were too prone to noise issues. The 30 second stacks had almost zero noise but still suffered from some "hot pixels", a phenomenon that causes certain pixel sites on the cameras sensor to heat up creating little red dots in the image.

I was then up early to shoot sunrise photos the next day before doing some more snorkeling at a different beach with turtles, a better variety of fish and crystal clear waters.

One of my favorite kind of underwater images is the half above half below shot. But this is quite tricky unless you have a nice big front element on the front of the underwater housing. I found this pretty difficult though with the smaller front elements on the housings designed for small compact cameras like the S95. I did manage to pull off a few I was pretty happy with though so I was happy. Here are a few more images and a short video I made with the Canon S95 while snorkeling.

At the entrance to one of the beaches. Inviting isn't it?

I made this image from within a hidden cave I happened across.

As the sun sets

Jenna just enjoying bobbing around in the calm clear waters.

This is a single exposure star trail. The exposure time was probably close to 1 hour. But even with the built in auto noise reduction the image still suffers from sever noise issues before using noise reduction in Lightroom.

My trusty assistants

2011-08-20T08:36:00.001+09:00

My trusty assistants, a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

I have a couple of internship girls (Chinami & Mina) coming along with me on wedding shoots for the next couple of weeks. They study design and photography at a local school wanted to see what its like to shoot and assist for a wedding photographer.

Actually I didn't make them carry all my heavy stuff the whole time. This was just at the end of a hot location shoot at the famous Manzamo Cliffs and I asked them to hold everything just for a funny shot. Thanks girls!

Always so much easier to get the job done with assistants!

The Zombie Killa shoot

2011-08-15T23:31:00.000+09:00

Recently did a really fun shoot at one of my favorite "haikyo" (Urban exploring) places on the island. It's an old abandoned hotel that was never finished and is now left in ruin. You can find more images of the hotel itself in an earlier blog post. For more info on the hotels history do read on...

Basically the story of the place is that when they were building this hotel the workers were warned continually buy the nearby temple that there were bad spirits in the area and that they should not build on this sacred site.
The owner ignored the warnings however and several workers died during the construction. As workers continued to die off the owner eventually ran out of money and ended up in a mental institution, where he still resides to this day.

This was my first time shooting with the lovely Kim Denman. She was such a brave girl the whole time. Enduring endless amounts of fake blood and Ikasumi (real black squid ink) all over her clothes and body.

Good mate Adam Lewis also came along for the shoot to help out, study a bit and to shoot some of his own images.

For lighting I used max 3 speedlites triggered wireless via cheap radio triggers from Hong Kong. They were either fired into umbrellas or directly for a more harsh look which I think kind of suited this shoot. We also used reflectors and smoke bombs to give a nice eerie mood to the already fitting backdrops of the hotel.

Post processing was mostly done in Lightroom with a trip to Photoshop here and there for added effects such as the textures etc..

Had a ton of fun on this one and can't wait to do some more like it.

I even bought some white contact lenses and an old military gas mask to try out as props for next time.

Thanks for dropping by!

Typhoon studio shenanigans

2011-08-08T00:30:00.000+09:00

What better way to kill time during a 3 day typhoon than to get together with photographer buddies in a studio to play around shooting each other. Michael Taylor and I went over to Chris Willson's place to try out a bit of a boxing theme just for a laugh. For all the shots we used the wobbly head technique which involves one shaking their head vigorously from side to side to create a punched in the face look when captured as a still image.

We all took turns shooting and being the boxer and the "boxee". Here's one of my favorite shots of Chris taking a very powerful looking right jab to the head by Michael. I used Lightroom 3, a preset called 300 and some personal adjustments to achieve this look.

To give the effect of sweat flying off we used a water spray bottle before each shoot to allow it to splatter off when we shook out heads.

Michael Taylor one the other side of the glass, totally looking the part.

We found it to be super tricky to get the timing right and have the face looking as though it was being punched in the correct direction. There were so many great facial expressions but most of them were not in the right orientation from the punch.

Here's a couple Michael shot of me that I think are pretty funny.

These were lit with 3 studio lights, 2 strip boxes and a gridded beauty dish.

Just goes to show, being stuck indoors for extended periods with nothing to do can really force you to bring out some creativity.

Thanks for dropping by!

Stuck in the house during Typhoon Muifa

2011-08-06T22:19:00.000+09:00

Typhoon Muifa has finally passed over the island after keeping everyone stuck in there houses for the last 3 days. A lot of the time without electricity. So with my weddings and work canceled there is not a lot to do so I decided to try shooting some water drops again.

Here's one of the results.

In the past I have tried with some coloured backgrounds and various lighting setups but this time I thought I would try something different.
This time I only used an old DVD with the purple metallic surface as background to bounce light into.
I also remembered a trick from years back we used to do to create funky colours with clear plastic things. The trick is to use only polarized light and then a polarizer on the lens also.

Another variation. Only adjustments in post were a curves adjustment,

saturation slightly bumped up and cropping.

I did it by duct taping a PL filter to my Canon 580exII flash and putting another PL filter on my 100mm macro. It took a fair bit of trial and error to get the polarizers rotated in an orientation that produced good colors. But the hardest part is getting the tiny drop in sharp focus.

Here's a really crappy set up shot taken with my iPhone in the dark.

I have my Canon 5D mkII with 100mm macro lens aimed at a baking tray full of water. 580exII on the side with a Rouge flash bender and PL filter attached to it. The light hitting the DVD in the back bounces on the water creating all those crazy colors.
A Ziploc back was taped to the top of the step ladder so it could drip water down into the tray.

Here's how the flash looks like with the polarizer attached.

If anyone has any questions on the set up feel free to hit me up via the comments or at petesphotography @ gmail . com

First WHCC canvas gallery wrap

2011-08-06T21:56:00.002+09:00

First WHCC canvas gallery wrap, a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

With so many thousands of images and zero prints on my wall, I figured it was time to fork out and get a big canvas done. I had hear about WHCC from Scott Borne on his PhotoFocus podcast and tried out their 5 free prints a couple of years back. Great print quality and tons of various paper types to choose from. They also offer free shipping even to here in Japan. They are not super cheap at $170US for this size but they look pretty damn amazing I think. Will be getting more in the not too distant future for sure!

Heres the original image

Amazing photography Rube Goldberg machine

2011-07-17T11:34:00.002+09:00

Very well done!

Quick appearance in Taiwan TV drama

2011-07-09T12:36:00.000+09:00

Hey Everyone! Sorry its been ages since I've posted anything. Had a fun road trip in Taiwan and back to a busy shooting schedule. Also picked up the new Fujifilm X100 and have been enjoying playing with that. But I will talk about that more in a later post.

Just got sent a link to a Taiwanese tv drama that was filmed here on Okinawa. I was an extra on the show playing a photographer (who woulda thunk it!?) Anyway check out the clip on YouTube here

Skip to 15:09 and look for me behind the two main actors.

http://youtu.be/Irt7Rb5RRj8

Now for a break from photography for a little Indian pole dancing!

2011-06-24T12:08:00.000+09:00

Just got in from a great road trip around Taiwan. But more on that in a coming post once I have some photos edited ready to show. In the mean time sit back, relax and lets enjoy some Indian pole dancing skills!

Photography workshops

2011-06-11T10:33:00.000+09:00

Now that the rain season has finished here I've been teaching a few more flash (strobist) workshops with fellow photographers from Watabe Wedding.
We have all the camera equipment already but most of them are not confident to try much off camera lighting during their wedding shoots.
So with the help of model Mimi we went out to try out some various techniques and how to deal with less than cooperative lighting conditions. For example shooting in the midday sun etc..

I like to show that you don't need all the best most expensive brands and equipment to get nice results when using off camera flash. Most of my gear I get from online stores in Hong Kong and China. 99% of the time it works just fine. Actually I have more problems with my brand name equipment malfuntioning.
One of the sites I use quite often to buy from is linkdelight.com

Everyone had fun and learnt a few new tricks to try at their next shoot. Here's some behind the scenes shots and students samples from the workshops.

Sensei mucking around with a 3 light setup (4 if you include the sun)

Showing you don't need to have all the expensive brands.

This is all super cheap stuff bought from Hong Kong.

Lets get LOW!

Just before the rain came at Toguchi beach.

A students sample after learning with my patented teaching methods 8)

Goofing around at Toyosaki beach.

Another shot from on of my students. Getting better!

Typhoon Songda aftermath

2011-06-02T08:45:00.002+09:00

Typhoon Songda aftermath, a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

In the following days after the crazy awesome typhoon that ripped though the island there were plenty of casualties to be found.

I was teaching another strobist flash workshop on the beach when we noticed a really bad smell and noticed dead fish over the entire beach. 1000's and 1000's of them!

In the shot above made with the Sigma EX 15mm fisheye and Nikon D3 someone had already lined these fish up in this pattern.

Here are some other images of damage around the island.

Enjoying Typhoon Songda

2011-05-29T15:16:00.000+09:00

We had our first major typhoon for this year and the typhoon season has not even started yet.
All the other typhoons I had experienced since moving to the island had been way over hyped and turned out to be not much more than a windy day with lots of rain. But Typhoon Songda did not dissapoint!

She started to kick off about 10pm last night. The winds and the resulting noise gradually picked up over a couple of hours, followed by black outs over most of the island and lots of kaos. Being the crazy adventuerer that I am, I decided to go for a walk and see what was actually going on out on the main street and to see if I could find any shops open. What ensured was on of the most scary but fun advenures of my life!

I managed to make it about 1 killometer up the main road. There was broken street lights smashed and flying up the road along with a Mcdonalds sign and lots of other junk.

I almost got blown over several times and had to duck for cover behind a wall every minute or so. I found no shops open but had a very interesting experience all the same.

Here`s a video clip I made of myself with my iPhone as I get ready to head out and get as far as the narrow road outside my place. Hopefully this will give you an idea of the sound of the wind and how difficult it is to walk in winds reaching 52 meters per second!

Don't try this at home! 8)

Awesome photo battle!

2011-05-20T18:38:00.000+09:00

This is too funny. Great ad for The Camera Store!

Video review of the Spider Holster (duel camera system)

2011-05-10T23:40:00.000+09:00

Here's a quick little video review I tried to record myself of the new Spider Holster duel camera system. I was using my Canon 5D mkII with a 50mm prime wide open at f1.4 after having a few beers. Needless to say it was not an easy task to keep things looking nice and sharp. Sorry about that!
But the main thing is the info right!? The show must go on!

Well I hope you can get some info from this.

My favorite photography apps for iPhone and iPad

2011-05-04T23:05:00.001+09:00

There's a popular saying going around made famous by Chase Jarvis
"The best camera is the one you have with you"

Since I got my iPhone4 several months back I have also realized the potential of having a camera (even a phone camera) with me at all times. So I thought I would just put a quick list out there for anyone wanting to know what I use to create some of my iPhone images up on Flickr or just to give you something new to play with.

Ok so without any further ado, here's a few of my must have apps.

Camera+ For $2 bucks you cant go wrong with this one. This is my main go to app for shooting and editing on the iPhone. Some great features include tilt/shift and depth of field effects as well as heaps of other filters, cool frames and borders, cropping etc..

Pro HDR Does a great job of rendering HDR images of a scene with two separate images. The HDR images are quite natural looking and not that garish HDR you often see on Flickr and the like. $2

AutoStitch Panorama is a nice easy way to capture huge panoramas with your iPhone. It manages to stitch images surprisingly well even when you have not lined up the separate images perfectly. Also allows you to shoot several rows and columns. Also $2

Slit-Scan is sooo much fun! I was stuck playing with this for hours before deciding to buy the pro version. Allows you to take photos one row of pixels at a time. Thus creating very interesting images that have moving objects in them. Best used with your device mounted to a tripod or sitting very still. Slit Scan is free but there is also a pro version with more pixels and functions for $2.

Slow Shutter Cam allows you to do what the name implies. So great for capturing light trails and things like that. I believe the iPhone is not really actually capable of long exposures but it uses the video mode to make the same kind of effect. Either way its pretty damn cool. There are several options in there for different exposures modes but the coolest must be the real time exposure view where you can actually see the image exposing while your shooting it. Something I wish was available on DSLR bodies. For this app I strongly recommend using a tripod mount of some sort also like the Slit-Scan app. I use a little Joby Gorillapod which works quite well. $1

Tiny Planet Photos is another fun app that you will have you stuck playing with for hours. Either making tiny planets from your existing images or by taking specific images for it. Basically it does a polar coordinates warping filter like in Photoshop. Very easy to use and interesting to see the resulting images. You can also make tiny tubes as well. Best of all its FREE!!

That's about it for the main photography apps I'm playing with now.

A few others I use or have used include the following.

Some of these are also really good and some not so. Some are not photography apps per se but have something to do with photography.

I'll comment more on them at a later date.

Hipstamatic

PhotoMagic

Easy Release

SynthCam

Photoshop Express

Photo Goo

Colors Mosaic

Diptic

Holo Paint

Instagram

Simple DOF

VelaClock

So that's about it. Hope this gives you some ideas for a new app to play with. If you know of a really good one I didn't mention please let me know in the comments below so I can try it out!

Happy iPhone/iPad shooting!

My newest Canon 80-200 2.8L is MINT!

2011-04-30T08:43:00.000+09:00

Just found another Canon 80-200mm f2.8L here in Japan. This time in pretty much perfect condition all round. This one also comes with the tripod collar and other regular included accesories.

I will be putting this one up on Ebay in a week or so after I've had enough time to have a quick play with this beautiful bit of rare Canon history.

Here by request is a little video review of the Canon 80-200mm f2.8L. Also known as the Magic Drainpipe.
I will apologize in advance for the bumping sounds from the lenses near the mic. This is a new mic set up I'm trying also. With the Audio Technica condenser mic I bought to use for podcast recording and videos etc.. plugged into the iPad. Also just got Power Director 9 to edit video with and I'm still a total beginner when it comes to anything video. But its kinda fun and something new to play around with.

After all I have both the Canon 5D mkII and Canon 7D here which are both capable of amazing video recording (in skilled hands of course). Anyway without any further ado...

Spider Holster on the way!

2011-04-28T21:21:00.001+09:00

I was recently introduced to the Spider Holster from fellow photographer and long time mate back in Australia Dale Travers (check out his blog here). I was surprised I had never heard about this new camera carrying system, considering the amount of podcasts about photography I listen to. I guess I just missed it somewhere.
Anyway so what is the Spider Holster? Its a new way of carrying your camera body or bodies on a belt system without the need for any pesky neck straps that are forever getting in the way.

I have tried various solutions from the R-strap/Q-strap, dynamic and static slings but I have not been 100% happy with anything so far. Bring in the Spider camera holster.
Now this is something totally different. Shifts all the weight from my two Nikon D3 bodies or Canon 5DmkII and 7D bodies off my neck and on to the padded belt.

I already use the Think Tank pro speed belt so I was very reluctant to fork out the $280 odd American dollars this thing has cost me in total for the shipping to Okinawa, Japan and the Dual camera system itself. But if it works as well as they are saying it should, well it will be money well spent.

For someone like me who shoots an insane amount of weddings per year its always important to find the best way to carry our gear around and to make life/our jobs easier for ourselves. (By ourselves I mean me and maybe the 2 others in the world who can handle shooting 300+ weddings and bridal fashion shoots per year lol)

So really looking forward trying out the new Spider Holster hopefully in a few days. I will do a more thorough review then. Maybe a video review also. We'll see how it goes.

Photo Mojo podcast episode 47

2011-04-24T22:36:00.001+09:00

Dropped in for a quick chat with Mitch and Willis on the Photo Mojo Show podcast again a few days ago. Still getting used to talking on podcasts but having good fun talking shop with the boys.

This week we talk a bit more about wedding photography and Willis is psyched to get a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 EX in his hands to play with.

Heres links to some other topics covered on the show.

Download the full show here

Or subscribe on iTunes here

Day in the life of a Wedding Photographer

2011-04-22T20:02:00.000+09:00

This is so funny and true!

Long live Mortal Kombat!!

2011-04-22T18:22:00.000+09:00

The classic fighting game Mortal Kombat has been revisited and revamped for our latest generation of HD consoles and I must say it looks EPIC!

I've been a big fan of the game since I was a little kid playing on the Sega Master System if I remember correctly.

Anyway the latest game goes back to its roots and looks to be just as gory and fun as ever!

Here's a review of the new Mortal Kombat. But be warned, this is not for the kiddies, faint of heart or weak of bowel!

Video Review: Mortal Kombat. Watch more top selected videos about: NetherRealm Studios, Video Review: Mortal Kombat

Needless to say, I'll be picking up this one for PS3 very shortly!

Teaching a flash workshop on Kedena Air Force base

2011-04-21T23:19:00.001+09:00

I was recently asked by my good friend Denise at Rising Sun Memories if I would teach a small flash and strobist type workshop on the U.S Kedena Air Base the other day so I happily obliged. A few more than expected turned out for the workshop including some of my other good photographer friends on the island.

I had only taught one other Speedlite workshop before and that was all in Japanese so I was looking forward to teaching this time in my native English. There ended up being 6 participants and of all different skill levels. Trying to cater to the varying skill levels proved to be quite tricky as I knew I would be easily going over some peoples heads while probably talking about stuff that might be too easy for others. So I tried to keep it on a middle ground for the most part.

We covered everything from the basics of bouncing on camera flash right through to off camera flash fired via radio triggers and using various defusing techniques. Everyone got to ask a lot of questions and all seemed to gain a better understanding and enthusiasm in using flash and to go out and try some off camera lighting techniques.

Next time we will do a beach location flash/strobist workshop with a model also so everyone can practice employing the techniques I'm teaching.
Looking forward to putting together more workshops on Okinawa in the near future!

Hand holding slow shutters

2011-04-19T21:50:00.003+09:00

Washed up, a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

Why is it I never have my tripod with me when I need it??
Shot an American and Taiwanese couples wedding today at the Coral Vita chapel at Manza's ANA intercontinental resort.

After I was done shooting that I had the perfect chance to shoot my fav kind of photography for my hobby which is seascapes with slow shutters. I was lucky to have a nice sunset and also found this barnacle riddled bottle washed up on the shore so decided to try some hand held slow shutter shots of around 10th/second ~25th/second as I didn't bring my tripod with me. It was very hit and miss but I did manage to get quite a few keepers out of the 250 or so I shot in about 10 minutes on the beach.

The trick to shooting slow shutters hand held is to brace yourself as much as you can to stabilize the camera. Here I was down in the wet sand on me knees and elbows getting wet. I was also shooting in continual burst mode to increase my chanced of a steady shot.

Another one from a bit further along the beach. Ended up getting my shoes totally soaked from this but it was still fun.

I finished the shots with editing in Lightroom 3 and Nik's color efex pro.

Rogue Flash Benders mini review

2011-04-18T00:10:00.000+09:00

Recently its hard to listen to a photography podcast without them mentioning the new Rogue Flash Benders from Expo Imaging. So I thought I better find out what all the fuss is about.
The idea behind them being that they are a bounce card with bendable rods running through them so they can be shaped into all sorts of positions to "bend the light" from your flash.

They come in 3 sizes so I ordered a couple of the largest ones as I wanted to see if they would soften the light up and be quick enough to set up and use for my fast pace wedding shoots.
The first thing I noticed about them was the excellent build quality. They are not going to fall apart anytime soon even after some heavy use on the beaches and in rain.
They do mount to my larger speedlights (Nikon SB900 and Canon 580 EXII) perfectly via the attached Velcro. But I did find on smaller flashes like the Nikon SB600 and SB800 that the fit was not quite as good. Also you will feel like a bit of a twit at first if you have your flash gun attached to the hot shoe on your camera with this large bounce card sitting high above that as you walk around nuking peoples eyes. It really does spread the light out over the entire white side making the small harsh light from the flash much softer as the size of the light has increased.

I found it particularly useful to use just as a little bit of fill and to give a nice catch light in the subjects eyes. Even possible with group shots outside the chapel etc..

The only other downside to using this large Flashbender that I noticed was that if move about quickly the flash head will just flop down at its tilting section from the weight of the attachment. Its not a major problem though and only happens if I'm rushing about too much.

All in all I really love these things. They are great for when you need to work quickly. If I have more time I would probably just go with my shoot through umbrella or small softbox set up as they can of course spread the light out even more to make it softer but when time is of the essence I will throw on a Flash Bender every time. Oh by the way I almost forgot, they can also be rolled to make a snoot for throwing a very narrow beam of light just in one spot!

The best place I found to buy these were on Amazon.com. I first checked on Amazon.co.jp which is my local Japan Amazon where the prices were a crazy 7,800yen (about $94US) for one large FlashBender. Then I checked Amazon.com in the States where they were only $39.95US plus $10 for shipping all the way to here on Okinawa, Japan. And whats more they arrived just a few short days after I ordered. Faster than I have received things from mainland Japan before!
What the hell is that all about??? Amazon Japan should be ashamed of themselves. But anyway I'm getting off topic now.

So in conclusion I give them 2 thumbs up! I will post some actual test shots maybe on my next day off so you can see the difference of the bare flash vs. with the large FlashBender.
To find out more about the product check them out at ExpoImaging here
That's it for today. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Blogpress iPhone app test

2011-04-13T09:56:00.003+09:00

I had been looking for a little app that would allow me to blog easily from my iPhone or iPad when out and about. After a quick search on the app store I came across blogpress which seemed to be about the best according to all the reviews so here we are.

All the menus and the actual writing is simple and well thought out. It's even quite easy to enter HTML code as well.

Ok let's try an image then. Hmm

Here's a cute shot of my daughter Jenna asleep at the wheel of her shopping cart. Ah guess it had been a long day.

Ok now for another random image.

My toy box

If you want to keep your cameras and lenses in good working condition and not get mold growing in them like the lens in my former post, get yourself a clean dry cabinet. This will keep the humidity at a controlled level thus keeping all that expensive glass in prime condition for years to come. You'll notice it says 53% on the LCD panel in the shot but I usually have it at around 30%. Not sure if there's any magic number it should be set at.

One last thing I'll mention is that I'm up to day 3 now of zero smoking! Not feeling too bad as far as cravings go as I have had a steady supply of patches to help me. It will sure be a welcome change to get past that nasty habit!

Ok that's it for now. Time to go shoot a wedding now. Have a great day!

In case you are wondering whats inside, from top left:

Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS, 24-105mm f4L IS, 80-200 f2.8L,

100mm macro, 50mm f1.4 , Powershot G9, Sigma EX 15-30mm f3.5,

Speedlites 430exII,550ex, 580exII, 5D MKII, 7D.

Theres some other stuff in there also but thats the bulk of it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Canon 80-200mm f2.8L test shots

2011-04-11T15:37:00.001+09:00

Thought I would do a couple of test shots with the most recent Canon 80-200mm f2.8L Magic Drainpipe I have for sale. Unfortunatly when I bought this lens it did come with some small imperfections on a few of the inner elements. I think it is some kind of fungas or mold perhaps. But it resembles a tiny spiders cobweb for lack of a better description.

Here is a macro close up shot of one of the problem areas. Click on the image to view larger.

Luckily this does not effect the quality. Here are a few test shots and 100% crops.
Click on the images to view larger.

Shot at 200mm @f2.8

100% crop

Stopped down to f16 @ 200mm

100% crop

Here are a couple of examples of the front and rear elements in nice scratch free condition.

The lens is currently for sale on Ebay. Follow this link if you would like to bid on it.

Four Years of Flickr Fav's

2011-04-11T09:45:00.001+09:00

Thought I would share with you all one of my best places for photographic inspiration. They say if you want to get better at photography you should look at as many photos as you can and Flickr is just the place to do that.

Here are just a few of my fellow Flickr friends images that I have marked as Favorites over the past 4 years. Some of the images in there are just AMAZING!

So make sure you have some free time and have a pursue through my....

Four Years of Flickr Fav's

Click here to view as large thumbnail gallery

Click here to view as a slideshow

190 Mega Pixels of Okinawa

2011-04-09T10:15:00.002+09:00

190 Mega Pixels of Okinawa, a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

Beautiful weather yesterday so before my wedding shoot I stopped off at one of my favorite spots, Beach 51 to try and improve on past free hand pano attempts.
This time I didn't use a wide angle but a prime 50mm f1.4 on Nikon D3. This image was made up of 3 rows totaling 61 images for a total of 190mp.
Rendered in Autopano Giga and finished in Lightroom 3.

Autopano did a fantastic job at stitching and keeping everything straight.

To view this image a little larger please follow the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteleongphotography/5602028884/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Long exposures with an iPhone

2011-04-06T20:21:00.001+09:00

30 seconds on an iPhone sensor, a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

I had always wondered if it was possible to make long exposure photography with an iPhone and as it turns out, you can!

A quick search in iTunes returned a few apps aimed at the task so I decided to give Slow Shutter a go.

The app seemed to work pretty good but the problem was how to keep the iPhone steady for the long exposure. Then I remembered I still had a spare mini Joby Gorillapod around that I had won in a photo contest for Joby last year. This combined with a shutter delay timer was perfect to eliminate any motion blur on the camera. The app allows up to 30 second exposures in a shutter priority and manual mode. There is also a dedicated "light trail" mode where you can actually see whats being recorded on the iPhone's sensor in real time. Very cool!

So this is my first test using the app in its "Automatic" shutter priority mode with shutter speed set to 30 seconds and a 3 second shutter delay timer. The image was finished in the Camera+ app also for iPhone where it had the border added and saturation increased slightly.

Looking forward to playing with it more on car trails and water etc..
This app has lots of potential and only costs 99c from the US app store on iTunes.

Highly recommended!

Back on The PhotoMojo Show again

2011-04-03T19:28:00.000+09:00

Sat down and recorded another show with the lads at the Photo Mojo show photography podcast again. This time we discus the Fujifilm X100, 40gigapixel images, an iPhone Leica M9 skin, Digital Rev.TV, answer a few more questions and much much more.

Download the show at these links.

iTunes link

Direct Download in mp3 format

Canon L Magic DrainPipe (80-200mm f2.8L)

2011-04-02T17:22:00.001+09:00

Canon L Magic DrainPipe (80-200mm f2.8L), a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.

This rare Canon 80-200mm f2.8L just arrived today. Nice to hold one again as its been a while. Anyway this one won't be here long either as its for sale.

Feel free to message me or leave a comment if you want one!

Get your camera geek on with Lens Bracelets!

2011-03-30T22:52:00.000+09:00

While recording another podcast tonight with my good friends at The Photo Mojo Show, I stumbled across a link to this awesomely geeky Lens Bracelets. Only the true photo geek need apply!
They come in both Canon and Nikon lens types and 50% of the sales of they're limited edition "Pro Japan" bracelet go to the Japan Red Cross to help ease the pain for my friends and family up in Tohoku that have been effected by the quakes and tsunami.

They are a bit steep at $10 a piece. But hey that didn't stop me from ordering 2 of them already.

Click the image or here to visit their site.

100% Photo geek and proud of it!

Haikyo (Exploration of urban decay)

2011-03-29T21:58:00.000+09:00

Haikyo in Japanese literally translates to "abandoned place". These fasinating places are all around Okinawa and of course mainland Japan.

I recently had a meeting with a couple who want to have their family portaits done. The husband, a nice French guy who has been living on the island for 10 years noticed some of my older Haikyo images and asked me if I had heard of some of the places like this on Okinawa.
I had heard of a couple but had not known their locations so he was kind enough to mark several for me on my iPad's GPS.

On the following day off I took a trip to the closest one which happened to be only about 15mins from my place by motorbike in Kitanakagusuku. It is also connected to some old castle ruins which makes the visit all the more interesting. Although there is a 300yen entry fee to enter the castle ruins.

The above image is of the building in question which I intended to explore and to make some images off. It used to be a hotel named The Royal Hotel apparently.
I always enjoy visiting these kinds of places and imaging what they were like when they were a running business and what happened to them. Its quiet an interesting feeling to be wandering around in these huge deserted structures totally alone.

The old hotel walls are now covered with graffiti. Some of it is quite amazing you can see a lot of effort has gone into it, making some beautiful colourful art.

My favorite image of the day came after exiting from one of the side exits to explore some of the surrounds of the building. I noticed it was like nature was trying to reclaim its land as half of the walls were covered in green vines as if they were given enough time going to swallow the entire hotel up.

To visit more images from the day and some other Haikyo images I've made here in Japan visit my Haikyo album on Flickr here.

Also if you know of any other interesting places like this worth a visit here in Okinawa please leave me a note in the comments below! Thanks

My 200th blog post! Used lenses from Japan

2011-03-23T21:26:00.000+09:00

Well welcome to my super 200th blog post everyone!!

Been getting more emails lately again asking if I still sell the Canon 80-200mm f2.8L lens. A.K.A The Magic Drainpipe.
This is a very rare Canon pro series lens well known for its beautiful sharp images. Anyway I've recently found a few more I should be able to get my hands on. I have a list of names already of people waiting for one of these lenses but I should be able to get them on a semi continual basis now.

Also feel free to drop by my Used lenses from Japan Flickr group here.

Something I just came across which I found interesting for sale is this Canon 50mm f1.0L
That's right f1.0! I had only heard of the 1.2 version before I saw this one for sale.
If you would like it let me know.

Its only about $5000. Go on! You know you want it!

My Podcast Debut

2011-03-21T00:24:00.000+09:00

Did my first photography podcast a couple of nights back with the nice fellas at The Photo Mojo Show.
Answered a bunch of photo related questions and geeked out about camera and photography gear for a good hour or so. Good fun.

Click here to download the podcast on iTunes.

Click here to download the podcast directly.

LightCraft Workshop Fader ND filter review

2011-03-13T17:39:00.003+09:00

Shisa the guardian of Okinawa a photo by Shenanigans in Japan on Flickr.
Just ordered myself the LightCraft Workshop Fader ND filter from Hong Kong as I have always wanted to try this sort of filter and love shooting long exposures. I have been using gel ND filters and cheap ones from China but I was always fascinated with the idea of being able to change the density with one filter as working with a very dark gel ND is a pain in the bottom big time.

I have to first compose and focus the shot, remove the lens and slip in the gel filter into the rear of the lens. Put lens back on being careful not to touch the focusing ring. Then I have to guess the exposure as the cameras internal meter will not work at such extremes. Or I can also use a little iPhone app called ND calc which also does a good job.

Singh Ray probably makes the most well known variable ND filter known as the Veri ND. But it retails for about $400 I believe. They can also be found at places online such as Linkdelight.com for about $30 but the quality of the filter would have to be absolute rubbish Im guessing at this price. I had read quite a few good reviews about this LCW Fader ND so thought I would give this one a try.
Set me back about $150 for the 77mm version and I'm happy to report Im quite happy with the image sharpness and faithful colour representation so far.

One problem it states in the user manual is to not use the ND filter at the maximum setting as you will see black lines in the image, especially with full frame sensors such as my Canon 5D mkII. I tested for this and found that yes at around the 9 (maybe 10) stop mark the image becomes unusable. Heres an example of the black lines appearing at the maximum density setting.

All in all I'm quite happy with the filter. I'm sure it will come in very handy in future long exposure shoots and also for video where I will be able to shoot as say an aperture of f1.4 in bright daylight for shallow depth of field if I wish. Recommended!

Sendai Airport

2011-03-12T21:11:00.000+09:00

This is the airport I use whenever I fly to and from Fukushima. Some crazy footage of the tsunami washing away cars there!

My blog got a mention on The Photo Mojo Show podcast

2011-03-07T21:15:00.000+09:00

Just a quick shout out to Mitch and Willis from The Photo Mojo Show podcast in Australia for mentioning my blog and having a look at some of my photos on they're latest (episode 40) show!

You can find the link to the show and all the other episodes from this link.
http://photomojoshow.tumblr.com/

I may be making a guest appearance on there show in the coming weeks talking shop and answering photo related questions so be sure to subscribe to them on iTunes. They run a great photo show reviewing new tech that comes out and discussing all aspects of photography.

Thanks a lot guys and keep up the great show!

Family visits Japan

2011-02-26T10:20:00.002+09:00

Okinawa sunny day
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

My Mum and neice Lauren are over in Japan visiting us at the moment. So have been taking some time off work and playing tour guide visiting various spots around the island. Luckily the weather has been cooperating nicely giving them some nice days at the beach etc.. More pics to follow.

Beach 51 (click to view large)

A pano shot with the Canon 5D mkII at one of our favorite little secluded beaches on the island. I forgot to take the PL filter off though so was left with a dark part of the sky and some strange tilting on the left side of the panorama. Guess I need to buy a pano head for my tripod.

Whats in my camera bag? (For Weddings)

2011-02-11T18:12:00.000+09:00

I get a few questions from people asking me what kind of gear I use to shoot weddings with. So thought I would try making a little "Whats in my camera bag" video.

Dropping stuff in water

2011-02-08T20:45:00.000+09:00

I had been wanting to try taking photos of thing dropping in water for quite some time so I bit the bullet and forked out a whole 1500yen on a fish tank and some fruit to get me started on my photo project. I had a basic idea of how I was going to set things up for the shoot.

I kept it pretty simple and just used one Canon speedlite with a small reflector on the other side of the tank and some light absorbing black background material.

Here's a few of the results from my first test.

What am I doing dropping a camera, right? Actually Its a money box that looks like the Canon EOS 550D. I bought it just to try this.

Dropping some Capsicums then flipped the image 180 degrees.

Its amazing the detail that can be captured with the Canon EF100mm 2.8 macro.

Dropping ice. Black & While conversion done in Nik Silver Efex Pro

Tandem droppage flipped sideways (yes I made up that word)

Here's a behind the scenes shot of how I shot it. I used the Canon 5D mkII with 100mm macro f2.8 attached. To fire the flash I used cheap radio triggers I bought from Linkdelight.com in Hong Kong.

Usually someone always wants to know about exposure so I shot at iso200 50th/sec at f8 if I remember correctly. How did I manage to freeze the water splash at a 50th/second? The flash was in manual power set to about 64th/1 power. It was pretty dark so the flash acts as the shutter speed freezing the action at a crazy high speed.

I think it worked out alright for a first attempt. Its pretty good fun also but just have a few towels handy to clean up all the water that will get splashed on the floor if you try this for yourself. Happy Shooting!!

Put new exhaust on my Ninja

2011-01-25T09:55:00.000+09:00

Heres a little before and after video I made of my 2011 Kawasaki Ninja 250r before and after the new exhaust. Just shot on iPhone so probably not going to win any Grammy's.

Bridal shoot with Mimi

2011-01-22T09:58:00.000+09:00

My work asked me to get a girl to model a wedding dress in new locations we have found around the island. So I asked my good friend Mimi who also lives here and she was happy to lens a hand.

As usual on the shooting day the weather was not cooperating and was super windy, raining and cold. Although you may not be able to tell from the following images it was really cold and raining.

All lighting was done with a couple of Nikon speedlights. SB800 and SB900 with shoot through umbrellas held by my assistants. But because of the windy conditions a lot of the time it was just not practical to use lights so opted for natural.

Beach 51 at Maeda. Beautiful location but was crazy windy and cold. Mimi was very brave here and luckily didn't get blown away. Although she did almost get washed away shortly after this when a freak wave came in on the beach got her and the dress pretty soaked.

Same location as last shoot with Mimi. An old WWII bunker cave.

In the jungle at Bios botanical gardens

Photo bombed by Goat! Still at Bios. Hes even smiling at the camera!

Big thanks to Mimi and Tracy and my assistants Yoshida, Matsuo and Yukari for all your help!

How 3D without glasses works. Very Funny!

2011-01-22T09:30:00.002+09:00

Super High Slacklining

2011-01-15T18:43:00.000+09:00

This is awesome! Makes me want to get out climbing and playing in the mountains again soon.

Handheld HDR shooting

2011-01-15T14:17:00.002+09:00

Our AquaGrace chapel
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

I get quite a few questions about hand holding the camera for HDR images. And how is it possible to shoot more than 3 exposures while hand holding etc.. The trick is using a high end professional camera like the Nikon D3 or Canon 1D mark III or IV. These cameras are capable of very high frame per second rates and are also capable of bracketing 5, 7 or 9 exposures etc.. unlike the cheaper entry level or pro-sumer bodies. Combine a very fast 10 frames per second with 5 auto bracketed exposures and you can get some very nice dynamic range which you otherwise might not be able to get unless mounted on a tripod.

This shot of our companies Aquagrace chapel at Zanpa was shot with the Nikon D3 and 5 auto bracket exposures. Camera was set to Aperture model and f4 at ISO 400 and high speed continuous shooting mode.
Another trick that helps is to stabilize yourself by squatting down and resting your elbows on your knees to keep the camera as still as possible for the duration of the 5 exposures.

Post processing was done in Photomatix Pro and finished in Lightroom 3 with the Nik Color Efex Pro plug-in suit.

My job is to party!

2011-01-15T14:05:00.000+09:00

Since toward the end of last year its been pretty much none stop end of year drinking parties and events that I am expected to attend with my company Watabe Wedding. Not that I'm complaining but that can add up to a lot of hang overs if one is not careful.

Most recently was a huge conference held here in my home town Nishihara. It was a good 5 hours or so of listening to sales stats and stuff that could put even an insomniac to sleep. But after all that is where things got interesting.
They had a huge buffet and of course all you can drink. Below you can some of the variety of food available around the hall.

Unfortunately though after getting home I ended up getting pretty sick. I'm guessing from either mixing too many cocktails and beer or because of eating crab and lobster from which I have been hospitalized for before here in Japan. Ahh when will I learn....

Anyway below are a few scenes from the banquet. Please excuse the low image quality. It was pretty dark and I was shooting these with iPhone.

A fruit platter on an ice sculpture.

More ice sculptures.

Carrot sculpture. Awesome!

Also recently had a boat cruise party for staff that were over from Hong Kong, Taiwan and main land China, but it was pretty freezing cold and thought I was going to get seasick from the rocking boat but it was all good once I had a few beers. Next party is tomorrow night after a model shoot with good friend Mimi.

Homemade iPhone 4 Leica skin

2010-12-30T11:32:00.000+09:00

I was just in Hong Kong on a business trip when I came across some old style camera skin/cases for the iPhone 4 but unfortunately they cost around $35. So as much as my inner geek wanted to get one I just couldn't justify the high price. So when I got back home I found this DIY skin that you can just print and make for yourself, FREE!

I originally found this through a link on Gizmodo.com

Here is the skin you can print. Needs to be printed at 2.282 x 4.528 and they recommend 600dpi!

The tricky part is cutting it out nicely especially the opening for the iPhone's lens and flash. Anyway I think its pretty cool and it turns a few heads when shooting with it. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Vivi magazine shoot

2010-12-09T10:19:00.001+09:00

Reflection
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

My good photographer buddy Ohashi and I did a (long) one day bridal fashion shoot for Taiwan's fashion magazine Vivi. They had a small crew come over from Taiwan for the day including a couple of models. The shoot took us to various parts of the island including beaches, chapels, American Village and Murasaki Mura which is like a reproduction of vintage Okinawa. We often shoot couples here after their wedding ceremonies etc..
Heres a little sample with our great model at Murasaki Mura. The shot was lit with a reflector my assistant was holding outside the window.
Shot with a Nikon D3 and 50mm f1.4.

The magazine will be out in January 2011 and should be a four page spread. So when I get a copy I will post some scans.

Testing out Auto Stitch for iPhone

2010-12-09T10:06:00.001+09:00

Manza Beach iPhone pano
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

I'm a big fan of the panorama format of photography and have always wanted to get my hands on a Hasselblad Xpan to play with. However I would probably be made to sleep outside for a month or so if I bought one. But I heard about this cheap little iPhone app from a local Okinawa magazine about Auto Stitch which basically allows you to shoot multiple images of a scene then have this app stitch it altogether for you. Allowing you to make up to an 18 mega pixel image from the iPhone!

I gave it a quick try while I was shooting on location before shooting a job there. This was just a real quick and dirty 26 images and Auto Stitch managed pretty well to piece them all together pretty damn well considering my relaxed shooting technique.
The most fun you can have with a couple of bucks for sure!
I'm looking forward to playing with it more on my business trip to Hong Kong tomorrow. (If I get any free time)

My new Ninja shot with new iPhone

2010-12-04T21:05:00.004+09:00

My new Ninja shot with new iPhone
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

My brand spanking new 2011 Kawasaki Ninja 250r has arrived! Currently I'm trying to wear in the new engine, clutch etc.. for the first 1000klm which is killing me as I have to keep the RPM's under 5000. Which even in 6th gear only gets me to about 70kph. The bike sure is fun though but I would love to get a meaner sounding exhaust for it as the stock one thats on it now sounds a bit wimpy in my opinion.

Anyway this shot to the right was taken with my new iPhone 4 (which Im also loving!) just after the rain stopped and cleared up for a beautiful sunset over Naha city port. If the weather is good tomorrow for my day off I will get out and take some more photos.

Photo Q&A: Which entry level DSLR?

2010-12-04T21:05:00.002+09:00

I am thinking of getting a new camera and was wondering what you think about the following.

Canon EOS Kiss X4

Nikon D3100

I think these are the current entry level DSLR cameras that are the best?

Anyway, your thoughts would be appreciated!

I actually have no idea about entry level DSLR's. But i do know they they would both be great cameras no doubt. I would suggest just buying the camera brand that your friends have. That way you can borrow lenses! Both Nikon and Canon are great, I use them both currently and neither is really better than the other, they both have good and bad points. Just get which ever feels more natural in your hands or one that friends have the same brand of. One thing I will recommend for getting a new entry level DSLR or starting out in photography is to get yourself a 50mm prime lens. So one that does not zoom. They are cheap and you can get great shots with them as they have "fast" apertures so you can shoot in low light and also allow you to make the background behind your subject go really out of focus which is a good thing for portraits and making the subject stand out etc... The kit lenses are pretty much rubbish, good "glass" is the most expensive but most important part of any camera system! Oh one more thought, a great place to research and compare cameras or lenses is http://dpreview.com/ So be sure to check that site out and research before you decide.

Hope this helps.

Where do I shop for camera gear??

2010-11-18T22:05:00.000+09:00

I get a lot of questions about where I buy my "cheap" camera accessories from. I recently posted on Facebook but I will go into a little more detail on here for my loyal readers (if any...lol)

Ok so most of the time I use LinkDelight.com out of Hong Kong. They have quite a variety of interesting aftermarket stuff on there. And often times interesting little bits that you may have never seen before.
The main attraction being the price! In a lot of cases you get what you pay for of course but then there are things like the 5 in 1 80cm reflector which sells for like $9! The same thing here at one of the major camera stores would set you back at least 10X that price.

So in the shot above you can see my latest order that just came in. I'm still waiting on a couple of carbon fiber tripods and some other bits and pieces also.

The latest package brought me the Canon 70-200 f4 and 24-105 f4 lens coffee Thermos's or mugs. These work great and only cost about $10~$15 or so. I've collected the whole set now for Canon and Nikon. What a geek! haha.
Under the mugs is a 850nm IR filter I ordered for a friend. Looks totally opaque to the naked eye. Should be interesting to try some inferred photography with it ($20). Then theres an LCD timer remote cable for time lapse photography and all sorts of stuff. Just like Canon's expensive one but again $30. Next is probably my favorite little toy from the bunch. Its an old school split screen focusing screen like in the old manual cameras, but this ones for my Canon 5D mkII. I just put it in and it works like a charm. I always missed having this kind of focusing screen and now its possible again for about $20.

And lastly just to use as maybe stocking suffers for any Canon geeks this Christmas I got a few Canon 7D notepads. They are only like 3 or 4 bucks each and look pretty cool and original.

On the downside Linkdelight does take generally 2 to 3 weeks to deliver the goods and some of the things like the really cheap ball heads can be pretty much useless as they just don't work well enough or don't have the strength to hold up much.

One last item I highly recommend from them are the radio triggers for getting your "Strobist" on and firing those speedlites wirelessly to a range of about 30m. They are way cheaper than Pocket Wizards and I have had very little problems with them so far. So there you go, that's where I do most of my online shopping. But do be warned! It can be addictive! So if you visit you may find that shopping cart filling up pretty damn quickly! If you have any more questions feel free to ask in the comments below or shoot me a mail.

Just bought the new 2011 Kawasaki Ninja 250R

2010-11-18T10:50:00.000+09:00

So here's my new ride! woohoo!! In the last year I've been enjoying bikes more again. I grew up riding trail bikes for years but then there was a big gap where I didn't have a bike but was having fun with other motor sports, Drifting, racing etc.. When I moved to Okinawa back in may I got my bike license and bought myself the Suzuki `Skywave 250 scooter which you can see in earlier blog entries. But recently decided to get a sport bike. Had a bit of a look around at various models but decided on the new 250R Ninja. So I traded in my Skywave and got a pretty good price for it as I kept it in good condition. Forked out a little more money and ordered my 2011 black Ninja which should be arriving to the island from the mainland in a week or so. Anyway I will of course be posting photos and maybe a video or 2 once it arrives.

Photo Q&A: Which camera? Canon 1DmkIII or 5DmkII?

2010-11-12T07:59:00.000+09:00

Hello Pete, you've been an huge inspiration to me in my photography. In fact your one of two of my favorite Flickr photographers. Now, im in need of your advice in choosing a new DSLR and since you've experience with 2 of my choices i'd like to ask you which you think i would need more. I'm currently torn between 2 cameras: 5dmkII and 1dMKIII. I know someone who is selling their 1dmkIII at a relatively cheap price. In fact, its way cheaper than what a brand new 5dmkII is selling for here. What i'm looking for is a walk around cam that can do almost anything with stunning IQ/Detail. Now lets say both cameras are equally priced and assuming the used 1dMkIII is in great condition, which should you get? I am not a pro, i shoot anything from portraits, events, sports, concepts just as a hobby.

Thanks very much! Always happy to inspire. I would probably recommend the 5D2. Although the mkIII is a fantastic camera its probably getting a bit long in the tooth now. But I do still love the grip and feel of the mkIII. Plus its built like a tank! The mkII would probably be your best bet for a walk around camera. The auto focus may be a little slow for some sports photography though. Nothing wrong with the mkII's build quality either. Its also very strong but not as good in the rain as the mkIII. I think both are built better than the Nikon's Im using right now actually, so yeah i would say go with the 5D. You get full frame, video, better LCD, more resolution, higher iso performance and more. Thats what i did, sold my mkIII and kept the 5D and am very happy with my decision. I hope this helps!

Rick Sammon HDR presentation at Google HQ

2010-11-06T22:01:00.000+09:00

The craziest month and catching up with an old friend

2010-11-03T19:50:00.000+09:00

So October has just finished and I've completed the craziest busiest month in my photography career so far. Not sure exactly how many weddings I shot but its about 30 give or take a couple. Right now I still have about 10 weddings sitting on my work PC waiting to be edited.

Ended up doing 60 hours of overtime work so really looking forward to seeing my paycheck next month!
I had a business trip planned to Hong Kong for the 5th of November but as its still crazy busy we have to postpone until December now.

On another topic I got to catch up with my long time friend and fellow photographer Masaru, who made a trip down to the island for a few days. I first met Masaru over 12 years ago back in Australia when we used to live and work together shooting for CT Tour company back on the Gold Coast.

Had a short but fun time catching up over some beers at Naha's Kokusai dori then shooting most of the next day around the island. Weather and light were pretty average so no amazing shots. But plenty of fun shooting together again.

Photo Q&A: What compact point & shoot should I buy?

2010-10-25T20:17:00.003+09:00

Hi Pete.. I want to purchase a new camera soon.. but i am sooo not sure what to buy... after a great pocket digital that can handle low light shots really well.. I want something I can capture the beauty of the city at night and day.. Hopefully you may be able to help

Sure! Well first of all no" point & shoots" are that great in low light. They tend to suffer from noise due to their small sensors. Having said that there is always noise reduction software that can fix that up pretty darn good. But your best bet for cameras IMHO would be probably something like the new Canon G12, Canon S90 or Nikon's P7000. These are what I would go for if I was getting a compact camera. Although the G12 would be a little heavy in the pocket it is still a great camera and not that heavy to carry around, especially compared to a DSLR. The main thing to remember if you want to shoot in low light is you will need a tripod. Even a small one will be better than nothing. You might like to look into Joby Gorillapods. And for night shooting the camera must be capable of taking long exposures. So something with manual or shutter priority mode would work for you. Hope this helps!

My next gen 3D TV!

2010-10-14T08:59:00.001+09:00

Zero Life
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

Nah not really but looks like it could be right! This is actually my first attempt at this new kind of light painting which involves dragging my iPad through the long exposure while it is creating these 3D words. It takes some practice to get it right. So I'll be experimenting more with it when I get time.

If you have an iPad and a camera that shoots long exposures and would like to give this a try, you can download Holo Paint from the Apps store for about 100yen or a buck from the U.S store. Also works on iPhone but just a lot smaller.

Wedding photography sample

2010-10-13T13:38:00.000+09:00

Heres a very quick little teaser of the kind of work I do here in Okinawa. I Don't have any of these photos posted online so this is the only place you'll see them. Hope you enjoy!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Shenanigans at Rocktoberfest (Torii Station)

2010-10-11T23:51:00.000+09:00

Had a rare weekend off work for a change so took the oppertunity to catch up with our good friends Kris and Denise out at Kadena air base. Kris was nice enough to give me a guided tour of where he works as a Para rescue Jumper.

We also dropped in to Torii Station, another U.S base as they were having they're annual Rocktober festival with a bunch of Rock, Ska, Metal bands playing over 2 days. Unfortunatly the day we went did not have much interesting music going on (IMHO) But the kids were happy playing in jumping castles and I had some fun watching the burnout comp and other demo cars. Heres a little video of one of the cars smoking it up. Shot on my new iPhone 4 which I am loving to bits!

Model shoot with Mimi

2010-10-10T11:48:00.000+09:00

Did a little model shoot the other day with the Miriam Galarza from New York. We decided to shoot up one of the beautiful quiet little beaches near Maeda (A famous diving/snorkeling spot). We planned to use some of the shots for my good friend Adam Lewis's iSurf magazine for the iPad.
The weather cooperated with us for the day which is rare here on the island. Anyway heres a little video shot by Adam on his iPhone 4.

And heres a few shots from the day.

Big thanks to Mimi, Adam and Tracy for all your help and for the video.

Canon and Nikon lens coffee mugs arrived

2010-10-05T12:30:00.001+09:00

Canon and Nikon lens coffee mugs arrived
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

Thought I would try a little iPhone 4 test shot of my new Canon and Nikon coffee mugs/thermos's that just arrived from Linkdelight.com in Hong Kong. They were pretty cheap. Well the Canon one was anyway. I have 4 more coming today as my boss and some other photogs at work want one also now haha. I know there are probably much better quality ones around but as long as they hold liquid its all good.

Jenna starts walking

2010-10-04T21:53:00.000+09:00

I came home from work tonight and found Jenna just wandering around the apartment walking like a pro haha. So thought it might be a good chance to try out the video camera abilities of my new iPhone 4.

Follow this video to You Tube to watch in HD

Worlds biggest Canon sign?

2010-10-02T08:16:00.001+09:00

Worlds biggest Canon sign?
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

While out on a photowalk in Taipei city I came across this insanely massive Canon billboard advertising the Canon 1DmkIV and I think the 600mm f4L. Whats funny is this guy just ever so casually hiking up in the alps with this beast. Notice he is also wearing a harness with a bunch of cams etc.. suggesting he actually did some trad climbing up rock carrying that also! What a man!!

How did you take that?

2010-10-01T08:06:00.000+09:00

I get a lot of questions asking about various photography stuff, techniques etc.. So I thought rather than re answering the same questions over and over I would just post them here on my blog so others can perhaps learn from it also.
Ok so heres a question I recently got asking how I took this shot.

How I did it was mount a camera on the end of a monopod via a ball head. In this case at the time i had a Canon 40D with a 15mm fisheye attached to it. Point the camera back at myself from the ball head mount then run a shutter release cable from the camera body to my hand.
Set a slow enough shutter speed to be able to get some blur when moving like 50th/sec etc.. I would suggest shutter priority mode and a low ISO. Then the next part is just a numbers game. Start spinning around while taking LOTS of photos. They won't all be sharp so take lots. Thats it! You will need to delete probably about 99% of them but there should be at least one really good sharp one in the bunch to keep. Or you could keep them all and put them into a stop motion video. Have fun with it! And try not to throw up on your camera gear once your done! 8)

The Busiest Wedding season + Taiwan trip

2010-09-30T11:20:00.002+09:00

Hey Everyone! Have not had much free time at all recently as Im into the busiest wedding season of my life right now. I guess I'll be shooting 30 or so weddings in October plus all the editing that naturally goes along with that.

Having lots of fun though and have not regretted changing to my new wedding company (Watabe Wedding) once since I've started there. Its also been a great chance to improve my photography and off camera lighting as I have a lot more freedom now.
Have also just returned from a couple of quick business trips to Taiwan and Tokyo. Although very hectic I always enjoy traveling and getting paid for it.

Taipei is a fun city! I made some great friends there who have already been over here to Okinawa to shoot with and to model for me. Taipei has the most amazing night market I've ever seen. Possibly the biggest in the world?
One thing I was disappointed about however was the lack of cold drinks! Yeah weird right. Just something we take for granted. But after a really hot day I don't want to sit down in a bar to a room temperature beer! 8( They did at least bring me a glass with some ice but its just not the same is it.

. A little strobist fun during a photowalk out front of the Taipei 101 building

Just after returning from Taiwan had to make a quick trip up to Watabe HQ in Tokyo to sit through an 8 hour seminar/meeting. Hard not to fall asleep!

Anyway in the coming months I think I have a few more trips lined up including (maybe) Hong Kong, Hokkaido, China, Bali. Not sure exactly yet as they like to tell me at the last minute. "Pete we are leaving for China in a couple of days! Get that visa (that takes at least a week or so to organize) done before we leave ok!"

Does a $35,000 tiara and a little crab make me hot?

2010-08-17T21:09:00.001+09:00

Does a $35,000 tiara and a little crab make me hot?
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

A shot from a model/jewelry shoot today. Most expensive tiara was $100,000!! This one was just a cheap $35,000 one so... But we also found this little hermit crab (i think thats what they are called) it wandered into the chapel from the beach and was very friendly.

Camping on Zamami Island (Kerama island chain)

2010-08-16T08:20:00.000+09:00

Decided to take a little solo camping trip over to the Kerama islands to check for myself the apparently amazing stars at night and some of the worlds clearest waters with 50-60m visibility.

All odds seemed against me as I was trying to make my way to the boat dock on my 250cc Suzuki Skywave scooter loaded up with camera gear, tent and backpack etc... First getting lost, then getting rained on.. Then more very heavy rain during the 2 hour ferry ride from Naha's Tomari port out to the islands themselves. Once we arrived though the weather turned beautiful and stayed that way for the 2 days I was there luckily!

The island is pretty tiny with only one set of traffic lights which no one used anyway. "Its only there to teach the school kids how to use them" the local store owner told me.

Sure enough the beaches were beautiful with amazing blue water and so many types of tropical fish swimming around.

At another much less crowded beach I was able to spend hours swimming around with Sea Turtles which was good fun trying to shoot them with my Canon G9 and underwater housing.

At night sure enough the stars were pretty amazing. But a fellow traveler I met up with told me it was way clearer the night before DOH!!

Anyway Kerama is a highly recommended place to visit. Especially for anyone into diving, snorkeling or just looking to get away from the main island for a quick holiday.

Camping is really cheap! only 200yen a night. But I found it too hot to get much sleep. There are cabins etc.. also available.

Need to change your Japanese Windows PC to English?

2010-08-13T20:41:00.000+09:00

Work was nice enough to get me a new PC today. Complete with Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3.
Its a pretty beasty machine sporting an Intel i7 cpu, 8gb ram, 24 inch monitor, 1.5tb internal hdd and 4tb external raid. All that wedding photography has to go somewhere ey!

Anyway although my Japanese is pretty good for speaking, I'm not that great at reading all the kanji (I really should make the effort to study more!). And as the PC came equipted with Windows 7 Professional version which does not support English for the machines here in Japan, I remembered a cool little program I used on one of my machines at home a while back to change the Windows OS into English without having to reinstall everything. The program is called Vistalizator and it can override your Japanese Windows machine be it Win Vista or 7 with lovely easy to understand English! Plus is free and very easy to setup.

So in case any of you find yourself with a Japanese PC you would like to run in English just visit this link and give it a try. Worked great for me! http://www.froggie.sk/index.html

Fun with a suction cap mount and my Canon 5D mkII

2010-08-10T20:13:00.002+09:00

I recently borrowed from my good photography mate Chris Willson of http://www.travel67.com/ his suction mount as I had always wanted to play around with mounting my camera on a car or bike to try some longish exposures. I've had some fun experimenting with my Joby Gorillapod mounted to car windows etc.. with results like this one

But the Gorillapod needs something to wrap it self around where as the suction mount just needs a nice flat surface.
So after knocking off work a couple of days ago and before getting stuck into the beers I decided to head out and give it a go. I soon realized there were several obstacles to get around and that this was not going to be as easy as I first expected. As it was really dark it was super hard to get the focusing and composition spot on. Then there were problems with the rig shaking around too much due to the fact that it was mounted on my bikes plastic wind shield. Which was pretty much impossible to do the long exposures that I had in mind like 1~5 seconds etc.. So I thought in order to keep my chances of getting some sharp shots I had better stick to 10th/second exposures and even then I was sure 99% of them would not be sharp. And I was right.

On top of all that I was freaking out the whole time that my 5D mkII equipped with the Sigma EX 15m fisheye lens could quite possibly go crashing to the ground and then I would probably run over it at any given second.

It did manage to hold on to the wind screen perfectly however and I was able to get maybe 10 good sharp images out of about 200. Better than none I guess. I thought it was a bit of a waste to throw away all of the blurred shots so instead I whipped up this cheap and nasty little stop motion video with Windows Movie Maker. Now I'm by no means a video editor but its fun to put it together anyway as all my work consists of only still imagery. Anyway take a look and let me know what you think.

Heres one of the still images from this series.

Home Alone

2010-08-10T00:41:00.010+09:00

Hey Gang! So the family is away for a month back up in Fukukshima visiting the family up there. So I'm home all by my lonesome for a month and am really lazy when it comes to looking after the place, and myself for that matter!

Anyway its summer here right now and the air fares to Okinawa are super expensive, work is pretty quiet with only 5 confirmed weddings that I'm shooting this month. So I thought it would be a good time to explore a bit more of this amazing island.

I recently took a trip right up to the very northen tip of the island to Cape Hedo with a quick stop along the way to check out Hiji waterfalls.

Half way between Nago and Cape Hedo, this beautiful waterfall is about a 30 minute hike from the car park up and down numerous steps. Once arriving though the water just begs to be swam in even though there are signs posted all over the place stating that swiming is not allowed.

Moving right along to the Cape it self. There are some pretty amazing cliffs all around the area. And some really interesting rock formations.

Heres a couple of shots of the area.

Getting a closer look down this gaping V in the cliffs.

These pinnacles of sharp rock were crazy difficult and very dangerous to walk on. One slip or a wrong step and you would probably be bleeding profusely before you knew what happened.

Trying to get something a little different for a self portrait.

On the drive back down the coast and pretty much in the middle of nowhere I came across something or someone which may just have been the single most interesting aspect of the day.

Behold the crazy Okinawa Dude in all his funky awesomeness!

As I approched him from behind I was not sure what it actually was moving along the road at such a slow speed. Once I realized I sped ahead about a kilometer or so, pulled over and got my camera set up and waited...

Sure enough after a couple of minutes I see him coming around the bend with all his collected goodies mounted on his tiny bike wobbling all over the place from the weight. He gave me a little nod and a smile and went on with his seemingly endless journey.

Several other people I've spoken to have mentioned they also have seen the same guy riding around the island with all this stuff. Makes me wonder if the cops ever pull him over and also just what it is hes doing anyway. Ok so thats a short summery of my little road trip to the very top of Okinawa's main island.

Coming up next is my report on my solo overnight camping trip to the beautiful Kerama islands. Stay tuned!

Worlds biggest skateboard!

2010-07-08T11:53:00.003+09:00

Nothing at all to do with photography except that it would make for some amazing photos. But none the less this video can't be missed!

The Day of Unfortunate Events (and one fortunate event)

2010-07-03T08:57:00.003+09:00

It started off in the morning with me at my pc checking comments and photos etc. thinking I had plenty of time still get make my 1hr ride to work. The clock on my PC said 7:50 when Haruna got home from dropping Jet at preschool and said "what are you still doing here?" It was actually 8:30 which put me straight into panic mode. You know how it is.

Then later in the day just as there was an awesome thunder storm brewing and I was getting ready to shoot some lightning which I had been waiting to do for months and months. I decided I would quickly pop down to the ground floor and get myself a coffee as work was just about done for the day.
As I pressed 1 for the ground level in the elevator it suddenly started flashing P with up and down arrows. P for Pete?? Then I realized I had only moved about half a meter down before the elevator came to a stop. I tried all the buttons and the call for help button a few times with no answer. After a while a girl answered who seemed very uninterested in my situation. "Can you get me out of here!? Im stuck in a tiny, hot and stuffy elevator!" She said ok just hang on and I'll get back to you. After 20mins or so with no reply from the girl I could hear a coworker outside calling, Pete?? So I got them to call the elevator company to come rescue me. Anyway because of the crazy rain and lightning causing traffic problems they said it was going to take about 40minutes to get someone out to me.
So after 1 hour of sitting around sweating like crazy the guy finally came and reset everything and I was able to get out. Don't think I'll be using the lift again anytime soon.

Next on the ride home in the pissing down rain and lightning flashing all around, I decided I should stop at American Village to try and shoot the big Farris wheel with hopefully some nice lightning behind it. So I set up my camera and waited for about 30mins just taking random exposures but not getting anything worth keeping. The vary second after I decided to give up and switched the camera off there was a HUGE multiple strike exactly next to the big wheel which would have made for a perfect composition and a great shot. I swore very loud.
After another 15 or so minutes of waiting I gave up and went home.

I did however manage to get a shot I was quite happy with from work as the storm was just forming. So it wasn't all bad 8)

Shot with Nikon D700. Possessed with Silver Efex Pro, Lightroom and Photomatix

Heres another cloud shot from a couple of days before also shot just near work at Cape Zampa in Yomitan.

Shot with Nikon D700 and 24mm tilt/shift lens

Heres one of a storm a few days ago rolling over our chapel at work.

Shot with Canon 1D MKIII

And one last one of a huge one also shot from work.

Shot with Canon G9

Goodbye rainy season!

2010-06-29T09:27:00.001+09:00

Goodbye rainy season!
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

The rainy season is officially over here in Okinawa now. At last! So every chance we have we get down to our local beach to cool down as its now 32 degrees here and really humid. On the plus side Im getting a sweet tan again now and the weather has been fantastic for shooting!

Heres a recent shot at the local beach. 2 separate exposures used to make this. First the water was shot at 40th/sec then the sky at 30 seconds.

Looking out the window at work

2010-06-09T21:12:00.001+09:00

Looking out the window at work
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

So officially working for Watabe Weddings now and loving it. This is the view from my office window.

A random slide show of some of my recentish shots

2010-05-29T09:30:00.002+09:00

My first wedding in Okinawa

2010-05-29T09:21:00.001+09:00

My first wedding in Okinawa
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

Heres an ad that was printed in an Okinawan military magazine with my first couple I shot when I first moved to Okinawa. Since then I shot 16 weddings in my first month as a freelance wedding photographer but will be making the shift from the 1st of June back to full time wedding photography for one company which is Watabe Weddings, one of the biggest wedding companies in the world.

The only thing Im worried about though is they give me Nikon cameras to shoot with which I have never used before. So its going to take a lot of getting used to before I feel confident using them Im sure. Anyway the money isn't too bad at all and there are some beautiful locations I'll be shooting in so looking forward to it.

Got some new wheels!

2010-05-26T00:20:00.002+09:00

Living in Okinawa, especially around the Naha area you soon realize your better off getting around on a motor bike. So I decided to get my licence and after 17hrs of practice classes and a test which I just passed a couple of days ago, oh and part with about 1000 bucks I finally have my 400cc bike licence.

Just bought a Suzuki Skywave 250cc scooter and picked it up today. Way too much fun!

Heres a pic.

All the best!

From Freezing to Sweating

2010-05-22T22:18:00.003+09:00

Hey Everyone. Back online at last since the big move down from Fukushima to Okinawa. We got a nice place east of Naha city over right near a beautiful beach.

When I get time I will write in more detail but basically I've been freelancing for the past month and already shot 16 weddings in that time! So I have a ton of editing to catch up on in a hurry.

So having fun in Okinawa. Its plenty different to the main land. Although it is a lovely place it takes forever to get anything done around here. For example my internet just got hooked up yesterday after about a month of waiting. It is a nice and quick fiber optic 100mbit connection though so cant complain too much.

Also just my new home theater speakers in today again after over a month of waiting.

I will post some pix of the new home theater room in the next few days.

I have also been doing my motor bike licence (400cc class) and have just bought a new Suzuki Skywave 250cc. I'll be picking it up on Monday (if I pass my test that is)

I got an offer from Watabe weddings to shoot for them as a full time photographer and although I planned to just do freelance shooting here they offered me a nice bit of cash every month plus a few other benefits. One thing is though they give all their photographers Nikon cameras and lenses to use and don't want me using my own Canon gear. So this means I'm going to have to learn how to use a camera all over again as I've never shot with a Nikon before. This also means I won't get much time to play with my cameras so I've decided to sell my Canon 1D Mark III next month and just keep my 5D Mark II for playing with when I get time.

Anyway Im sweating my ass off just typing this so Im going to have a cold beer and enjoy a movie in the new home theater. Laters!

Okinawa recon mission

2010-03-22T12:57:00.009+09:00

Recently took a quick trip down to our soon to be new home, the island of Okinawa. It was basically just a reconnaissance trip to look for a new apartment and to meet with various resorts and wedding companies about future work together. Just after arriving in the airport I saw about 4 F15 eagle fighter jets fly past me reminding me there is a big military presence on the island.

I was based in Naha city for the trip and was surprised to see it was quite a bustling little city. You'll have no problem finding yourself stuck in traffic at any time of day around here.

For my first night I headed out to the famous Kokusai dori (International street) for some dinner and a wander around. Its a really fun place to walk around with tons of great restaurants, street performers and lots of interesting characters to see. The streets were also lined with palm trees so even in the middle of the city it still has a strong tropical island feeling.

Habu snake sake

About $450 a bottle!

As there is pretty much no public transport to get around the island apart from the Naha's monorail and local buses so I decided the best way to get around would be to hire a rent a car for the trip.

Luckily my car was equipped with GPS navigation which made the tricky task of map reading much easier (although still all in Japanese).

I visited a few resorts around the place which all have resort style weddings and plenty of work for a wedding photographer. There is also a big market with the U.S military stationed on the island who get married here. With about 50,000 of them at any one time on the island there should be no shortage of weddings to photograph. Then there are the Japanese couples that come down from the main land to have their destination weddings down here.

So I ended up finding an apartment that I was happy with on the last day just before heading back to the airport. It is situated in a place called Nishiharamachi over to the East of Naha city by the ocean and a nice beach. It looks to be a pretty nice area for the kids plus I can work on my tan 8) and its not far to the express way for my travels around the island for my photography work.

So now back in Fukushima city in the snow and cold getting the old apartment packed up, organizing moving company, selling tons of stuff and getting a new GPS navigation system installed in the car right now.

Unfortunately this trip I didn't have any time for putting effort into any nice photos, just a few quick random snap shots around the place. Can always do that later once I get back down there and have more time to explore and meet up with some new photographer friends I've made thanks to Flickr and Facebook.

Finally before we set off for our long drive down to Kyushiyu then on a ship for a few days I still have one more photography job in Tochigi prefecture. Again for Outdoor Japan magazine, this time shooting a jungle/tree top adventure park for an upcoming story which should be interesting and will also give me a chance to test out the new GPS.

Ok well time to get back to more packing now.

Quick update

2010-03-11T08:58:00.003+09:00

Hey Everyone. Sorry its been a while since Ive done a proper update. The reason is because we are getting ready to move house. Not to Chiba, Canada or several other places as originally thought but to the island of Okinawa!! woohooo

So I will be finishing my full time wedding photography gig here in Fukushima on the 15th then heading down to Okinawa to stay in Naha on the 17th for a few days.

I will be looking at apartments and meeting with some wedding companies while Im down there. And hopefully if I get time check out on of the famous beautiful beaches they have down there.

Also recently we took a short family holiday down to Osaka. This was our first bigish trip all together as a family.

The main reason for the trip was to meet with the wedding company La Vie Factory to discuss shooting together in the future. So I will be doing some work for them once down in Okinawa.

Anyway I will leave you with a couple of shots from the Osaka trip.

The view from the top of the Umeda Sky Building.

Osaka Castle

Walking around "The Floating Garden" (Umeda Sky Biru)

Mummy, Jet & Jenna enjoying the crazy views of city from the HEP5 Ferris wheel.

Canon L lens thermos NOW AVAILABLE!

2010-03-11T08:53:00.003+09:00

The ultra geeky Canon L thermos I mentioned in the previous post (originally thought to only have been given away at the Olympics) is now being sold via Vistek for pre order for only $30CAD. Unfortunately when I went to order mine they were already all sold out. Hopefully more on the way 8)

Canon L lens THERMOS!

2010-03-06T01:34:00.002+09:00

Canon L lens THERMOS!
Originally uploaded by Shenanigans in Japan

Ive got to have one of these!

How cool is this. Apparently Canon were handing these out at the Olympics to photogs and a lucky Microsoft employee for some reason. Wonder how long before one of these will pop up on ebay for some crazy price. This pic courtesy of Gizmodo.