Gray View of Kyoto from Mt. Otowayama
Not Much of a Sunset Mt. Otowyama (音羽山), Kyoto Japan -- Otowyama (音羽山) -- Copyright 2015 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/ -- This photo is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (non-commercial use is freely allowed if proper attribution is given, including a link back to this page on http://regex.info/ when used online)
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2500 — map & image datanearby photos
Not Much of a Sunset
Mt. Otowyama (音羽山), Kyoto Japan

I've found a new place to try to get nice sunset photos of Kyoto from. Sort of.

For years my go-to place has been the Shogunzuka, which I first posted about almost eight years ago, but have posted about many times since. It's a 5-minute drive from my place on a high hill (small mountain?) over eastern Kyoto.

The small mountain it's on is the little bump going across the center of the shot above... the mountain I'm on for the shot, Mt. Otowayama, is 593m (1,950') high and 6½ km farther away. It took me about an hour fifteen minutes to ride my bike there this evening. I went in hopes of a nice sunset, but there were only gray skies in anticipation for a typhoon passing by in a day or two.

Maybe next time.

[Update: unfortunately not]

My Ride -- Otowyama (音羽山) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2015 Jeffrey Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/ -- This photo is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (non-commercial use is freely allowed if proper attribution is given, including a link back to this page on http://regex.info/ when used online)
Nikon D4 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50mm — 1/200 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2800 — map & image datanearby photos
My Ride

I'd not known about the place until yesterday when a friend posted a photo from the top on Facebook. So today I gave it a try.

One really needs a mountain bike to get there. A closed mostly-paved road gets you close, but the last little bit is a mountain trail. I had to push the bike on a few sections of extremely steep trail, but otherwise could ride most of the way.

I was gratified to break my record on a few of the smaller hills on the way there and back. Getting the PR (personal record) on a ride is sort of addictive, but also a diminishing resource. I made one today by just one second, so further records will actually require some effort on my part....


One comment so far...

Hi Jeffrey,
Do you transport your camera in the sort of bag on the back of your bicycle?
If so what kind of protection do you use on them bumpy roads?
I always use my big think tank back pack but i’m looking for something more comfortable when I’ m on my way with the bicycle.
Kind regards,
Erik

I have a small layer of foam at the bottom of the bag. I don’t know whether it actually helps, but I hope it’s sufficient. —Jeffrey

— comment by Erik on May 12th, 2015 at 3:15am JST (9 years, 7 months ago) comment permalink
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