After the nice sunset of the first evening on our trip to Ishigaki Island in the most southern reaches of Japan, in the East China Sea, we returned to the hotel for dinner, giving the Japanese-style restaurant a try. Ishigaki Island is known for its beef, so we wanted to try that.
Nikon D700 + Sigma 30mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.8, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
while Anthony plays with a small snap-together toy
Nikon D700 + Sigma 30mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
including a bazillion sauces of various kinds
Nikon D700 + Sigma 30mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
to be cooked over the hot coals
Nikon D700 + Sigma 30mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
one of the many side dishes
Nikon D700 + Sigma 30mm f/1.4, heavily cropped — 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
The steak was okay, but after the steak we had on our day trip to Awaji Island a month ago, everything else will forever fall short. I wanted to write about it at the time, but what can I say? Words are impossible. In your wildest dreamland fantasies you couldn't possibly imagine a steak even in the same universe as the one we had on Awaji. Dark-age peasants would be less surprised by Captain Kirk beaming down among them than you would trying a steak at this place on Awaji. The restaurant on Awaji was a total dump, but you can more easily imagine yourself sprouting wings and flying to the center of the earth than can even begin to contemplate the multiple stacked levels of heaven that is its steak's taste.
But I digress...
The food was good (but not great), but surprisingly, the price was eminently reasonable... a full dinner for three, with drinks, was just $80. Yum.
About the strong vignettes, I've got to admit a senior moment with my camera: I brought my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens on the trip totally forgetting that it was a DX lens (that is, designed for a camera body with a smaller sensor than that on the Nikon D700 I was using, and thus if used on my camera, would not fill the entire frame with an image). Knowing the restaurant would be dark, I put the Sigma on, and remembered the mismatch only when faced with it in the viewfinder.
Still, I like the effect here. I'm not a big fan of vignettes, though I do add them for effect occasionally, such as the first and last photos of the lighthouse/sunset post. In these restaurant photos, the vignette matches nicely with the warm tones. I lost the natural vingenette in the last photo when I cropped it, so that one was added back in Lightroom.
Nice pics, Jeffrey! Cooking at the table is fun, I was once at a place where the heat source was a big soapstone.
Interesting about the Sigma, I’m planning on getting a D700 someday and I’m wondering whether I can get away with my current f/2.8 lenses or if I need something faster. I’m pondering the Nikkor 35/1.8 DX which can be used in DX mode on the D700. Doesn’t the D700 go into DX mode automatically when you mount a crop lens?
By default the D700 does go crop mode automatically, at least with Nikon DX lenses. Dunno about the Sigma. In any case, I turned that option off first thing, because I knew from experience that even DX lenses can often cover most or all of the sensor… it’s just that you can’t count on it, or the quality of what coverage does extend. —Jeffrey
Discovered your blog yesterday while googling for geo-tagging solutions. I had been really keen for the last 2-3 months on the JOBO GPS unit, but I’ve been hearing a lot of bad stuff about it. First of all, it uses up your hot shoe – so kiss flash goodbye. Second, it fits really loosely on the shoe, so it’s always falling. Did some research and ended up thinking about the Garmin. Came to your blog when reading about teh Garmen eTrex HcX – just bought it last night.
For a while I was just thinking about the cool factor of having my photos geo-tagged on flickr, but seeing what you’ve done with the GPS for your blog has inspired me. I love how on your Hokaido post that you were able to calculate the speed of the boat.
For this post specifically, I love the vignetting on the first photo – I think it REALLY, REALLY works perfectly. It kinda falls flat on the rest of them, but, as you mentioned, you didn’t have a choice since you only brought that lens.
I’ve been blogging for quite a few years now, but I’ve recently been slowly getting into photoblogging. Your blog is definitely something to aspire to achieve.
Excellent shots.