The Man Comes Around

After a year of lust, I finally have a wide angle lens to play with, the Sigma 10-20mm. So far I am amazed at the varying perspective you can create by barely moving a couple of inches. Definitely a well-built, solid lens as well.

I can see this lens staying on my camera the majority of the time I use it; I have always been more of a landscape and architecture type of guy and this lens creates a whole new way to view the world through my viewfinder.

Perspective-

Fostering Wifey’s Addiction

When I upgraded my camera body I ended up having an extra D40 laying around. I kept trying to get Amber into photography because I figured you could force addictions on people as if this was heroin and you knew that if they had just a slight taste, they would be helplessly overtaken by it. I told her to give the D40 a try during our monkey outing before I sold it.

I set the D40 to shoot jpeg and affixed a lens between her and the monkeys. Well, the snow monkeys proved to be the figurative narcotic I was looking for. She forced me to buy a wide angle lens (against my will) and book a longer trip to Jigokudani Yeankoen for another photo session. She even learned how to use Lightroom! Overall she captured a ton of great shots, especially considering I hogged the telephoto lens most of the time. I promised to share on our next trip…

Here are some of her shots:

Off the Charts

I think next month when we head back up to the monkey park I am mostly going to follow the little baby monkeys around. How could you not when they are absolutely destroying the cute meter on my camera like in the shot below??? I think the one on the left might possibly fit in a coat pocket. I would just have to keep the tub at home filled up with warm water and keep some snowballs for him to play with nearby.

This guy was my little rock star. He kept holding his hand up like he was throwing high fives out to everyone. I think I might have to custom tailor a bigger pocket for him, but there is always room in my bathtub for a rock star monkey.

Macaca Fuscata

Well here are a few pictures that I have processed so far. I have never used a DSLR with snow in the background so I read up on how to get the best results. Most people recommended overexposing by 3 to 4 stops to make sure the snow is actually white. Maybe that is good advice when the entire frame is filled with snow, but I seem to need to do a lot of work to recover the blown highlights.

Seeing these Macaque monkeys was by far the coolest thing we have done in Japan so far. We are both enthralled by monkeys in the first place, and these little guys just are way too personable to only see once. The little babies definitely break the cute meter. We have already submitted reservations for a night in the ryokan located in the monkey park. I’ll be posting a lot more pictures in the next few days!

Well Wisher

Today we finally were able to make it up to the Jigokudani Yaenkoen monkey park which is full of Japan’s famous Macaque snow monkeys. Monkeys are the coolest little guys ever and they really helped out with Operation Get Wifey Interested in Photography. We will definitely be heading up there again this winter.

Along the way we stopped by this graveyard and took a few shots. We found a little well wisher that helped insure our trip would end without a gang of monkeys jumping me and stealing my stuff like they did in Thailand. These Macaques were more mild-mannered than most humans!

Golden Splinters

I think I burned sunspots into my eye as the sun pierced my ocular cavity as I peered into the viewfinder trying to quickly compose this shot before the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Without corrective lenses or contacts, I am legally blind. So either I shouldn’t worry about sunspots or maybe I should be more careful..

Vertorama

I came across Flickr member Erroba’s photostream and he happened to have a nice little tutorial on how to stitch together a vertorama. So here is my 1st attempt… Surprisingly easy to do in Photoshop, but I need to find a better foreground next time.

Lake Sayama

Boy was it cold today when me and Amber finally went out to get some pictures around Lake Sayama! So far I am very happy with the D80. I am still in the middle of my devious plan trying to get Amber into photography with the D40. Remember to put your DSLR on matrix metering before having someone not familiar with the minute details of photography take it out to have spot metering clip all the channels!

Soul

Cameras are not manufactured with a soul. No, they are added with every shutter click throughout its’ journey. Luckily there is a way to capture and transfer that soul into another camera. It happens during a DSLRs most vulnerable moment.. When the sensor is exposed and another camera without a soul takes a picture of it.

Here you can see the perspective of my brand new D80 as it was sneaking the soul out of my trusty D40. It may sound and look very barbaric, but really, the soul will be happier with a D80 in the long run.

No one tell the wifey what went down today, for I am hoping she gives the D40 a try and falls in love with photography like I did.

Anticipation

Materialism is supposed to be this evil thing right? Well I guess I have mixed feelings on that because I have so much excitement at the thought of a little piece of material arriving in my mail box, that I have actually lost a little bit of sleep over the past few days. I expected my material to be here by Monday, yet it still eludes me. I feel like my mind is over-cooked with anticipation that mounts with each subsequent day that it does not arrive. Is this rational behavior? My expectant material I eagerly await is after all a D80. Is that not a good exception to the evils of materialism?

Stumped

I am not really sure what kind of story I can write about with this photo. We were up at Itsukashi a little over a month ago and found this amazing leaf and it was swirling around in the sky in a harmonious dance with the wind. We both watched it until we started to cry because there is just too much beauty in the world; we just had to take a picture of it.. Well that story doesn’t quite work now does it?