Stretching My Legs

I went for a little stroll at lunchtime; in the winter months it's tempting to stay inside and not expose oneself to the elements. This would work, if Japanese buildings had any kind of insulation whatsoever. Unless heaters are blazing all day (and even if they are), the rooms will lose heat quicker than you can say "Jack Frost".

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This means that it can actually be warmer outside, in the direct sun, than inside. Nuts. Of course, the opposite is true in the summer - it's impossible to cool down.

 After stretching my legs, it was time to get back to the office and get back to work.

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 This way!

It's so humid even the trees appear to rust

I am always appreciative of trees being left alone in construction sites, or even in completed areas. This seems to happen more in Japan than back home in the UK. On a few occasions, I've seen walls, fences, and even roofs, with holes or recesses where an old tree's been left to its own devices. This particular tree caught my eye as it seems to have sympathy for the metal fence in the foreground, mimicking rust on its bark.

Constructive boredom

There's an awful lot of building work going on at the moment. So much so, that I am not sure if the cicadas or builders are making more noise. Under such conditions it's hard to have a moment's peace, though this construction worker's managed it. 

Fluttering by

I noticed the briefest moment of sunshine during my lunch break, and took the opportunity to get to know my camera a little more. I took a number of photos in the vicinity of my workplace, including the above butterfly photograph. As I baked in the sun like a komodo dragon waiting for prey, this little guy fluttered by. At no more than 2cm long, I thought I'd test the native macro capabilities of the RX1. Deftly turning the focussing element until the 0,2m - 0,35m (it's got German Zeiss markings, thus a comma represents a decimal), I held the camera out at arms length and took the above snapshot. Below are two 95% crops. I'm simple astounded by the performance of this camera. The difference from the NEX-7 and SEL24F18Z is night and day.

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I am not used to shooting at f/8 unless nearly blinded by the sun. Even in strong sunlight, I am not used to using ISO levels above ISO200. ISO800 used to be my own personal "upper limit". The above two photos were at ISO400. Two ~95% crops! I am still in awe of this sensor/lens combination. At f/2 it is pin-sharp. Bokeh is gorgeous, throughout the entire range. Sharpness and pixel-level performance do not make a good photo, but it certainly is nice to lose oneself in the creation of a photograph, rather than concerning oneself with technological limits. 

Coming out to play

Over 40% of my photolibrary this year was captured using the Zeiss 24/1.8 for Sony E-mount (which translates to a focal length of 35mm on a camera with a "full-frame" sensor). Personally, I felt that figure should have been more like 95% - but if I look back at "keepers" rather than total shots, the figure is closer to 80%.

I liked the Zeiss rendering. I liked the bokeh  afforded by f/1.8. I liked the 35mm (equivalent) field of view. There wasn't much not to like. In fact, I think it's the best lens for the NEX system. I'd recommend it in a heartbeat.

I sold the lens on Sunday afternoon. Why? Well, this post marks the start of photos taken with my new camera, the Sony RX1. The Sony DSC-RX1 is a camera with a "full frame" sensor, and a fixed length 35mm Zeiss lens, in an ultraportable package. It's far smaller than the NEX-7, and that's saying something. I'm learning all about the camera, but managed to get away at lunch time to the nearby lake, and saw this exuvia attached to a nearby tree. The cicadas are deafening now. Like me with my new camera, they're all coming out to play. 

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Heavily-cropped photo of a duck

Full-summer is just around the corner. Once these evening storms abide, temperatures won't fall below 30°C until September...

Haidian District

China

Day 2 - Haidian District

It certainly looks like the Environmental Sciences building

I'm currently here in China for work-related activities, and thus needed to crack on with work early this morning. A 2km walk from my hotel, is the Environmental Sciences building of Tsinghua University, in the heart of the large Haidian district. I always appreciate greenery, especially when said greenery apparently envelopes the man-made structure within.

Up the river

Visibility is as poor as yesterday, and here's why. There is a lot of water vapour in the air, which condenses onto the aerosol particles. The particles thus become a little larger, and scatter light even more. It's almost like being in a very fine cloud. If there were fewer particles, more water may condense onto a given particle and it would fall to the ground as a droplet. Even though we have actually had some rain, there are too many particles to remove in such processes. It's making every photo look as though I've completely messed up the in-camera settings. There is simply just too much scattering - all of these photos are even taken with a circular polariser fitted to the end of my lens! 

The largest lake on the campus

The poor visibility certainly gives the photos a certain "look" . I don't know if it's possible to get instagram in china (it's probably not), but it's not needed in Beijing. All my photos look retro here.

Some Chinese characters are the same in Japan

I can read quite a lot here in Beijing. What I can't read, I either guess or just ignore. The Chinese writing system has changed over the years, and the oldest scriptures are the easiest for me to read, as they are the same characters as used today in Japan. The Chinese have since moved onto simplified scripts, though not in Taiwan.

100 year old shrine

Unlike Japan, and Tokyo in particular, many buildings in Beijing are well over 50 years old. The reason is twofold. Firstly, there are far, far fewer earthquakes here in Beijing than in Japan. And secondly, Beijing wasn't mostly turned to rubble by firebombing from the Allied Forces in WWII.

The original Tsinghua University building

Tsinghua University was founded in 1911. There's an interesting mix of Chinese and American (Jeffersonian) architecture throughout the campus. 

For dinner I ventured into the centre of the Haidian district, in search of noodles.

TUS Park is called "China's Silicon Valley"

It rained again. 

Recharge your car here. Help reduce pollution!

I've not been here long, but I have noticed a few things about the Chinese people:

1. Extremely friendly
2. They don't drink cold water (it's served hot) 
3. They don't stare at foreigners, and will speak to you in Chinese first
4. Completely ignore traffic signals (observe below)

Notice the "red man" sign, and everyone ignoring it

As I was devouring my noodles, a very pleasant chap came and sat down opposite me. He started talking about the weather, probably. I wouldn't know, as he was speaking in Chinese. I only know how to say "hello" and "thank you", so I didn't get very far. It turns out that he studied French in school (as did I), and so we conversed in the best French we could muster. No doubt if an actual french person were nearby they'd cringe in horror, but it got the job done. Surreal. He asked me if I had "QQ". I said no. I said we use Facebook outside of China. He said he didn't know what it was. I'd finally found someone who doesn't know Facebook.

C'est la vie.