My Idea of a Nice Evening: Pleasant Sunset and Delicious Chicken
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.
Pale and Layered  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 420mm — 1/2000 sec, f/11, ISO 1800 — map & image datanearby photos
Pale and Layered
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Went up again to Kyoto's Shogunzuka overlook (京都将軍塚) for the sunset, as I often do. Wasn't too bad... a bit better than two days ago.

Like in that post the other day, I'm dusting off the Sigma 50-500mm “Bigma” lens. As a challenge, I practiced hand-held manual-focus tracking on birds, at 500mm. For those who've never tried it, this is ridiculously difficult; the point was general practice, not to get good shots (because there's little hope to get a good shot under these conditions without about 100 years of experience under your belt).

Silhouette practicing manual-focus tracking at 500mm  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/2000 sec, f/11, ISO 8000 — map & image datanearby photos
Silhouette
practicing manual-focus tracking at 500mm
desktop background image of a colorful sunset over Kyoto  --  A Bit Dynamic  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/11, ISO 320 — map & image datanearby photos
A Bit Dynamic
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Relaxing can you find the guy sitting outside, taking a break from work?  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/50 sec, f/9, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos
Relaxing
can you find the guy sitting outside, taking a break from work?
More Manual-Focus Practice didn't hit focus, but the result still has some appeal  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/2000 sec, f/11, ISO 1250 — map & image datanearby photos
More Manual-Focus Practice
didn't hit focus, but the result still has some appeal
desktop background image of a colorful sunset over Kyoto  --  More Ridgeline Shots  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/2000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1800 — map & image datanearby photos
More Ridgeline Shots
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desktop background image of a colorful sunset over Kyoto  --  Looks Like a Bridge power-line tower is 14.3km (9mi) away  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500mm — 1/2000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000 — map & image datanearby photos
Looks Like a Bridge
power-line tower is 14.3km (9mi) away
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Pasty Salmon Pink view toward Osaka was decidedly drab, though the odd color was.... interesting  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 116mm — 1/160 sec, f/13, ISO 10000 — map & image datanearby photos
Pasty Salmon Pink
view toward Osaka was decidedly drab, though the odd color was.... interesting

The air was more clear for the 19,000-pixel-wide Osaka-skyline panorama that I posted on Monday, but the color here was definitely more odd.

Starting To Look Promising but sadly, this was as good as it got  --  Shogunzuka (将軍塚)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 78mm — 1/320 sec, f/5, ISO 1100 — map & image datanearby photos
Starting To Look Promising
but sadly, this was as good as it got

The sunset didn't get better, but my evening did... I packed up, went home, threw the computer into a satchel and walked to Uroko and processed these photos while enjoying my favorite dinner: their unbelievably savory “蛇の目焼き” chicken and a draft beer. Yum!


All 4 comments so far, oldest first...

Great shots! Out of curiosity, is it practice with or without tripod or monopod? (Couldn’t figure out if I should add commas or not, so I didn’t. 😉
And yes, for those of you wondering about the mysterious “guy taking a break outside”, there is someone sitting there!

Handheld; no tripod or monopod. That’d make it harder to track, I think, unless I used a Wimberley or the like, I imagine. —Jeffrey

— comment by Nicolas on August 22nd, 2012 at 5:39pm JST (12 years, 2 months ago) comment permalink

Good evening, as a follower of your blog, I saw this on the B.B.C. website and thought it might interest you!

http://www.bbc.com/travel/slideshow/20120821-meet-the-artists-of-kyoto

Regards

James

Cool, thanks! —Jeffrey

— comment by James Arendell on August 23rd, 2012 at 4:31am JST (12 years, 2 months ago) comment permalink

can you find the guy sitting outside, taking a break from work?
Yeah.I find him,on the top of the tower.

Don’t think I see anyone there. He’s on the roof of the post office (just to the left of the base of the tower). I’ve increased the size of the big version, so reloading should make it easier to see. —Jeffrey

— comment by shilong on August 29th, 2012 at 12:47am JST (12 years, 2 months ago) comment permalink

Nice! 🙂

— comment by Crystal on September 5th, 2012 at 5:34am JST (12 years, 1 month ago) comment permalink
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