Woo-hoo, I just updated my iPhone to the new 2.1 firmware that Apple released on Friday, and the great iPhone unhappiness I had when I got it two days ago seems to have been assuaged. In my home office, I now generally get four or five signal-strength bars, out of five.

Experience will tell whether there's actually a good signal, or it's just telling me that there is, but it bodes well.

One warning to those installing the new firmware: it takes quite a while. iTunes displayed an “updating firmware” for so long (5+ minutes), I figured that something had gone wrong, and I was in the process of starting a web search for “iPhone firmware upgrade crash” when it finally finished.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hello!
Anthony and some kid

Earlier in the summer, near the start of my trip to Ohio, I posted some funky pictures of Anthony that were highly processed with some new features of Lightroom 2.

The shots were from a really nice playground in Ravenna, Ohio. It's been on my list to post a few more, so here they are.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 31 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Castle-Themed Entrance

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — ¹/60 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hidden Treasure

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/40 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
No Adults Allowed
It's not just perspective: the doorways actually do get progressively smaller

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — ¹/350 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/11, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — ¹/60 sec, f/5, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Just after I took the photo above, a boy of about seven or eight years old walked up to me and said “This place is awesome!!!”

Indeed.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sand Play with Cousin Josh

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — ¹/1500 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Spinning

As I mentioned on the funky-picture post, Anthony was spinning quite fast on a tire swing, but a fast shutter freezes the motion.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Here's one more processed with the same funky “Dave Hill look” treatment as before (more fully described here, and another example here)....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/6.3, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fun!

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — ¹/100 sec, f/4, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Thanks

I got an iPhone today, and I hate it.

I've been longing for an iPhone since they were announced. They finally became available in Japan this summer, just prior to my trip to The States. Now that I'm back, I've finally procured one.

I'll admit that the geek in me is interested in all the fun things one can do with an iPhone, but the overriding reason for wanting one is that I want a phone whose features I can actually use. Lots of cell phones have lots of features, but they're always hidden behind a user interface designed for aliens. The thought of actually being able to use the phone features, intuitively, made me giddy.

So, I went to a SoftBank store yesterday to get one (SoftBank is the iPhone carrier in Japan). The first thing the sales guy says is that the iPhone antenna is sort of weak, and that I can't return the phone even if there's no signal where I intend to use it. So that I can test things, he loans me a different SoftBank phone that I can take home and check. The phone signal strength indicator goes up to three bars, and if I can get at least two bars things will be fine. If only one bar, it could be iffy. If zero bars, the iPhone will certainly not get a signal.

Bringing it home, I get a solid two bars in the livingroom and in my office. Good enough. I return today and buy a black 16-gig 3G iPhone.

With the iPhone at home, I get “no service”. I don't even get service when I step outside the house (onto a busy street in Kyoto city proper).

I just want a phone that I can use, and all of Apple's masterful user interface means nothing if I can't get a $#@& signal!

Not happy. At all.

(Update: two days and one firmware upgrade later, I'm very happy.)

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/7.1, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cathay Pacific CX521
20 minutes out of Tokyo, on its way to Hong Kong

Portrait-Mode Desktop-Background Versions
1050×1680  ·  1200×1920  ·  1600×2560     

45 minutes before our arrival at Kansai International on our 13+ hour fight to Japan, my GPS unit told me that we were passing by Mt. Fuji. It was supposed to be 30 miles away, straight out the window on the right-hand side of the plane (port? starboard? I dunno, I speak English and use “right” and “left”. I also use “get off the plane” rather than “deplane”).

We were flying at seven and a half miles up (about 40,000 ft), and so if the weather had cooperated, the view of a 30-mile-away Mt. Fuji would have been a glorious. It's under the clouds somewhere in the picture above, but all I saw was a Cathay Pacific flight that we were overtaking at a rapid pace.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm (cropped) — ¹/350 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Airbus A340

Just based on the time, location, and direction, I'm guessing that it's Cathay Pacific flight 521 (Tokyo to Hong Kong), which, according to the Cathay Pacific schedule, uses an Airbus A330. UPDATE: but it's not an A330, as Shyam points out, it's a four-engine Airbus A340.

I would have rather seen Mt. Fuji, but it was sort of neat to see another plane like that. I've made the trans-Pacific flight 70+ times, and it's remarkably rare to see another plane like this.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
It's a Big World

I wonder whether anyone on that plane saw us? Took a picture? Is blogging about it today?

Here's the quintessential “shot from the plane window” showing the engines of our plane (a Boeing 747-400 of some form or other, I believe), taken over the North Pacific Ocean about 250 miles south of the eastern-most tip of Russia, as we plodded on toward Japan at 512mph...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/13, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos

It really was that blue.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1800 — full exif
Jetlagged
but finally home

My trip to Ohio for the summer has finally ended, and so it's time for the annual “Back in Kyoto” post (just like 2007, 2006, and 2005).

This year we took Northwest Airlines, which afforded us a mid-day departure from Akron-Canton airport for a short hop to Detroit, and then a Detroit-Kansai flight that cuts out the west coast. That makes for an overall savings of several hours compared the Cleveland/Chicago/San Francisco/Kansai flight I've done many times on United Airlines. The shorter trip is wonderful, but one unfortunate side effect is that the longest leg is now 14 hours instead of 12 hours, which is, well, long.

We actually arrived half an hour early, and to a wonderful sunset. To top it off, there was absolutely no waiting for immigration, luggage, or customs. Shockingly, my two bags were the fourth and fifth bags to emerge on the little conveyer, which started just as we walked up. How wonderful.

Like last year, Fumie and her mom met us and gave me a key to a room at the on-airport hotel. They took Anthony for the two-hour drive home, which allowed me to shower and sleep right away.

Except this year, I didn't sleep right away.

While I was in Ohio, Fumie had picked up the Nikon D700 and new lenses I'd ordered, and had left them in the hotel room for me. Even after a shower, I felt like a zombie, but I unboxed the camera and the new Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8, threw in one of my Nikon D200 batteries, and walked around the airport for 15 minutes.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 36 mm — ¹/60 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Edge of the Terminal
at ISO 6400

The terminal building at Kansai International is a curvy, graceful, cavernous four levels high.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cavernous
Four stories high, and four football fields long

The main building is like that for its 400-meter length, and so it's full of photographic opportunities. In my zombie state, though, the best I could come up with was this...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/80 sec, f/4.5, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos

I guess I like the escalators. They were also a photographic target when I first got my D200 (as seen in a post about my photo/blog workflow earlier this year).

I felt pathetic not being able to exploit the visual richness of the area, so I packed away the camera, exchanged some Canadian Dollars left over from our trip to Vancouver and Whistler, and went back to the room to sleep.

I woke up refreshed at 6am, ate a couple of bananas, packed up everything, and took the JR Haruka Express train to Kyoto. It was mostly empty, so I could spread out and relax, and I caught up on some photo work with Lightroom.

It was a hot, muggy, humid, hazy summer day, typical of summer in this part of Japan.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/11, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Typical
Hot/muggy/hazy view from the train

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/11, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Atypical
shot from the train showing area with a lot of power lines

Japan has a lot of power lines (and the associated ugly towers) all over the place, but there's one area between Kyoto and Osaka where they seem to be unusually prevalent. I see it from the train each time I go by, but I keep meaning to head down there on my scooter to see what it looks like. Will have to do that some day.

I got back home in Kyoto at about 10:30 this morning. The jetlag hasn't been too bad, but it's now 7pm and I'm starting to feel like a zombie again. Anthony had school today, and has been in good shape, although he did conked out for a short nap in the afternoon (the lead picture above).