Another Look at a Dusky Orange Osaka Skyline from Kyoto
NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.
My First Picture This Evening it was all downhill from here  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/7.1, ISO 400 — map & image datanearby photos
My First Picture This Evening
it was all downhill from here

I made yet another quick trip up to eastern Kyoto's Shogunzuka overlook in hopes of a nice sunset. Half an hour before sunset it looked promising, and in particular Osaka 30 miles away was clear, and the skyline lit up in orange.

京都市東山区将軍塚からの47km遠い大阪市のスカイラインです。シウマの50mm-500mmレンで。

Today I was using my Sigma “Bigma” 50-500 OS, which I haven't used in ages. I wrote about it extensively back when I got it (starting here). I really liked it when I first got it, but after some electronic issues and having it replaced twice, the version I have now seems positively mushy and blah. But I've been giving it a try lately in hopes of finding a spark, so I was up at the overlook with it and it's massive 10× zoom to 500mm.

I made a quick hand-held seven-shot panorama of the Osaka Skyline at 500mm, ending up with a somewhat better result than a similar attempt two months ago:

Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/

Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/2000 sec, f/7.1, ISO 4500〜9000 — map & image datanearby photos
Osaka Skyline From 30 Miles Away
relpete with airliner on approach to Osaka Itami International
— scroll side-to-side — 水平にスクロールしてね —
or click through to a 19,000-pixel-wide version

The large wooded hill in the middle of the panorama (be sure to scroll) is only a third of the way to Osaka (about here), actually quite close to the Suntory Yamazaki whisky distillery that I posted about in the spring.

The tall building beind that hill is at Tenoji Station (天王寺駅), more than 29 miles (46.7km) away (here).

But that was the highlight of the evening, colorwise, and it went downhill to “blah” from there.

At least the feral kitties frolicking in the parking lot were cute...

One-Sided Hug  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000 — map & image datanearby photos
One-Sided Hug
Hey, Someone's Watching  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000 — map & image datanearby photos
Hey, Someone's Watching
Talk To the Paw  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/125 sec, f/6.3, ISO 10000 — map & image datanearby photos
Talk To the Paw

At sunset, there was nada...

Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 78mm — 1/320 sec, f/10, ISO 1000 — map & image datanearby photos

Not quite the nice sunset I was hoping for, despite many of the signs pointing toward one.

However, a passing plane made for a nice “500mm vs. 50mm” comparison...

Scene at 500mm  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/2000 sec, f/10, ISO 8000 — map & image datanearby photos
Scene at 500mm
Scene at 50mm  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 1000 — map & image datanearby photos
Scene at 50mm

All 5 comments so far, oldest first...

I can almost see home (Higashi-osaka) to the left of the photo 🙂

— comment by Richard (Osaka - Japan) on August 20th, 2012 at 3:54pm JST (11 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

Just stopping by to say Hi. I am Arthur Brigham’s brother. We met and I am sure that you remember. I live in Western North Carolina. (USA)

Your pictures are great.
Photography is a longtime hobby of mine. But only now do I have anything that could be called a serious digital camera. I have a Canon Rebel T3i. I am sure this is a toy compared to your regular equipment. But when I put my new wide angle Tokina 12-24mmF4DXII lens on it, I feel like a real photographer. I like the wide angle pics because they are more like what your eyes actually see. I have just started down the learning curve and am making steady progress. I mostly use it for videos and pretty much only learn more as I confront problems. (YouTube search [mrphysh] if you are interested.)
I set up a platform for Perl and Mysql for bioinformatics. I have gone down this path before so it was pretty easy the second time. I toyed with the idea of making and selling DNA sequences for quality control of bioinformatics software. (much easier software development problem than what the bioinformatics people face.)
I know you are an authority on both of these subjects.
I am so proud of Arthur! Thanks to our new interconnected world, we are in better touch than ever before. Later john Brigham

— comment by John Brigham on February 4th, 2013 at 8:26am JST (11 years, 3 months ago) comment permalink

John Brigham
North Carolina USA

Just stopped by to say ‘hi’. Amazing new world we live in.
I make educational videos….My latest aggravation is that my chromakey filter ( greenscreen) does not seem to be working. I mostly have this sort of aspect nailed down. I turn on the lights, let them warm up for maybe ten minutes and then shoot the video. I add the filter parameters numerically into the fields and go. easy breezy (that is what my kid says) (FinalCut on an IMAC)
I was having trouble this afternoon. I use a mixture of spiral fluorescent and halogen spots and floods (I do not really know what I am doing) I think that the trouble was that the lights had been on for forty five minutes and had warmed up to way hotter than usual.
I am going to let them cool down and do an experiment. Turn on the video (use a Logitech, not the Canon), turn on the lights and let it run for 40 minutes and check the chroma key parameters throughout the video.
The true challenge of making videos is the creativity and the content. That is the terrifying part.
I love your photos.
lol john

— comment by John Brigham on August 18th, 2013 at 9:05am JST (10 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

I found Arthur’s house on your photo locator map. Pretty cool. I should have known to just look for a picture icon…..

— comment by John Brigham on November 9th, 2014 at 4:55am JST (9 years, 5 months ago) comment permalink

Your photos are great, even the ones you describe as blah.. I still make videos. I use Final Cut Express on an IMAC. I can accomplish my objectives pretty confidently, but do not consider my very proficient.

I am tremendously proud of Arthur. Amazing story and amazing guy. It is painful that he and the three girls are so far away.

If you ever come to North Carolina consider visiting us. We have plenty of room. I know this might be a stretch, but maybe not. Charlotte is about 80 miles from here.

— comment by John Brigham on November 9th, 2014 at 5:20am JST (9 years, 5 months ago) comment permalink
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