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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/640 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Getting Late
from Okunoshima (“Rabbit Island”)
Seto Inland Sea, near Hiroshima, Japan
We spent the day at Okunoshima Island (大久野島), a small island in Japan's Seto Inland Sea with an unsavory history, now better known as “Rabbit Island” because of its large population of wild rabbits. The rabbits have domesticated humans, having them provide food in return for the rabbits looking cute. Anthony has been a couple of times with Fumie's folks, but today was the first time we took him.
We had to leave before sunset, but it was still a pleasant view.
After arriving back on the mainland, the ferry turned around for the next trip...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading Home
(It's not really heading home; it's just heading out on another run, but “heading home” makes for a better caption :-))
In the far background, you can just make out a large suspension bridge. It's one of the many on the shimanami kaido road that hops and skips islands for the 50km or so needed to connect the Japanese mainland to Shikoku, one of the big islands of Japan, as I mentioned earlier in the year in this post.
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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/11, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Above the Eikando Temple
Kyoto, Japan
As I mentioned the other day in “Kyoto Fall-Color Preview With Impact: Impressionism in Lightroom”, I stumbled across an artsy photo treatment in Lightroom that gives an interesting life to most any photo it's applied to. The more I played with it, the more I felt its gimmicky intensity is like the Auto Tune for images (Auto Tune is an audio-processing technique that can make most any singer sound in tune). I avoided it in the followup(“Kyoto's Eikando Temple Continues to Amaze”), but it's hard to leave it completely alone, so here are a few more...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wall of Fire
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Local Residence
( the original is here )
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Smile
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Opposite
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Canopy
Here's one that's darker and more monochrome than the others. I don't know whether it “works”, but is worth a try...
Finally, here's one for which I dialed the saturation way down, to give it a pastel-ish feeling...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pastel
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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 10 shots at 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Kyoto at 3%
23,692 × 2,267 pixel, 10-image pano of Kyoto, Japan, reduced to 3% its original width
from the Shogunzuka overlook in the eastern mountains
or click through to a somewhat larger version
Rummaging through my ever expanding archive of not-yet-inspected images, I found some from a December visit to Kyoto's Shogunzuka overlook, a short drive from my place. I've posted shots from up there many times, such as “Kyoto, From Shogunzuka, at Night” and “Today's Sunset in Kyoto: Ho-Hum & Yawn” and a dozen others that the nearby photos link bring up, but for every time a visit produces a post, nine others don't. I often pop up hoping to be there for a killer sunset only to leave empty handed, but I'll usually snap a few shots anyway out of habit, and that's what we have today.
I'm too lazy to do real panoramas, but surprisingly often I'll sweep the horizon as I fire off shots that might make for a nice panorama. But I'm too lazy to bring a tripod, much set it up and do the sweep properly, so the resulting images are not really useful for a good panorama, and I'm too lazy to spend much time dealing with that hassle in post, so 49 out of 50 times I do this, I never do more than glance at the shots and sigh. Hence I'm surprised I still bother... you'd think I'd learn by now not to waste my time.
And so it went with these shots, taken not long before sunset a few days before Christmas, sitting idle for 10 months ago until I happened upon them today. On a whim I selected them, invoked Lightroom's “Photo > Edit In > Merge to Panorama in Photoshop” command and let it chomp on them with all default settings. The result is actually pretty darn good for the lack of work and skill that went into it, so to speak. I cropped the fringes from the top and bottom, and here we are, 23,692×2,267 pixel (54 megapixel) panorama.
Kyoto Tower is near the center, of course. Toward the left, where the mountains end, you can see the buildings of downtown Osaka almost 30 miles to the southwest.
For reference, the last time I did a panorama was in January.
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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Relaxed Crowds
at the Eikando Temple (永観堂), Kyoto Japan
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pagoda at the Eikando Temple
After “discovering” yesterday that I'd not even looked at thousands of photos from last year's fall-foliage season, I thought I'd go through a bit more today to pick some from the first batch, an outing to the Eikando Temple (永観堂) in eastern Kyoto. Unlike yesterday's highly “artsy” shots, these are pretty straightforward.
I posted an almost identical pagoda photo a couple of years ago, though it was later in the season then, and the light wasn't as good. Many of the shots on today's post are similar to previous years', as any of the under-image “nearby photos” links will attest....
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Local Residence
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Splash of Sun
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Reflections of a Picturesque Bridge
The bridge is common target of photos, with folks near where I was standing jostling for good camera position. As with many endeavors, patience and courtesy are virtues. The bridge looks great at night as well (seen here), though photos would be better if you were allowed to use a tripod.
This next version of the bridge has some of Lightroom's “Funky Joy” negative clarity...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
The colors can be a bit overwhelming, let me interject a bit of calm for at least one photo...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/800 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lack of Urgency
And now back to the autumnal fireworks with the photo currently used on my iPad's lockscreen...
If you make the mild trek up to the pagoda, you'll be rewarded with a nice view of eastern Kyoto...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/22, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Finding Her Bearings
Looking out over Eastern Kyoto from the Pagoda of the Eikando Temple
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from the Pagoda
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
Balding Just a Bit
On the way down from the pagoda is one area with a particularly stunning view, where many people stop in the middle of the stairway for photos...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Photo Op
Number 72,747,274 of 837,294,729,248, or there abouts
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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Photo
with just a few tweaks in Lightroom
I can't believe it's been a week since I last posted... time has just evaporated as I've been working on a new Lightroom project. Taking a break from that, and realizing that Kyoto is just a few weeks from the start of its most glorious fall-foliage season, I thought I'd dip into my archives from last year for some “Fall Foliage Preview” shots for this year. I was dumbfounded to find several thousand photos from a bunch of outings that I'd not even looked at yet. Always just too busy.
Anyway, I was futzing with a throw-away photo in Lightroom, applying some extreme develop settings (definitely beyond “tweak” that I jokingly use above), and came up with some highly-affected photos with a vibe I like. It's difficult to see in the tiny version above (click through for a larger version, or try one of the desktop-background versions), but the various changes conspire to make it look more like an impressionist painting than a photograph. It's not quite like what one can get with Corel Painter Essentials (as described earlier this year in “Dabbling in Some Fine-Art Printing for My Office”) but it's fast, easy, and can be interesting.
For reference, here's the rather bland original:
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Original Photo
Prior to those few Lr tweaks
This was the second picture I took on a visit to the Eikando Temple on a cloudy day in mid November last year, a short walk from my house here in Kyoto. That temple is famous for its autumn colors (as evidenced in “Holy Cow, the Gardens at Kyoto's Eikando Temple are Gorgeous!” from a few years ago, and countless other posts over the years that present themselves when you click on the “nearby photos” link under any of these pictures.)
This kind of extreme processing can get old quickly, so I don't want to overdo it, but I had great fun using the settings as a base when playing with some other photos, so today's post are some of those results.
They all look much better when viewed full screen... I think it's the combination of fine detail you get with a large view with the overall vibe that makes them appealing.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
Deep
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ultra Crisp
I mentioned that I had thousands of photos from last fall that I hadn't even looked at yet; in rummaging through them to select the photos above, I got only about 2% into the batch before I felt I had enough for this post (like I said, I didn't want to overdo it). 98% remain uninspected, so I'd better get cracking if I want to get through them before this year's season starts.
I'll leave with one last example with processing along the same lines, but whose result has a more subdued vibe...
I like this as well, though it was only on a whim that I even bothered to try the processing, for I never would have thought it would actually lead anywhere.
For reference, here's the original.
