Coffee Time

Suntory Coffee │ NEX-7 & Canon nFD 50mm F1.4 │ 50mm, ISO 800, f/2, 1/60, RAW

I love coffee. I'm drinking one right now! I can't get enough of the stuff. This wasn't always the case, however. Since I started writing my Postgraduate Thesis proper, I found that I rather enjoyed a hot cup of coffee by my side. It became part of my daily ritual.

When we moved to Japan, there were a few things I looked forward to in particular. Low down the list, was that one will rarely go thirsty in Japan. There are more vending machines in Tokyo than the whole UK, by quite a considerable margin. In the summer, they supply us with ice cold waters, green tea, and coke. In the winter, you can still get the aforementioned drinks, but the machines are physically swapped to those which heat half of their inventory; which is mostly coffee. Sometimes, there are teas, hot chocolates, and even soups.

I've scaled back on purchasing drinks from vending machines now. When I came here on holiday, it's how I bought most of my drinks. When I first moved here, too. However, they're a little expensive relative to either making your own, or buying elsewhere. Having said that, they aren't much (about £1/1 Euro), so if it's a little chilly when you're out taking photos, make it Suntory Time.

Sakura Season!

Cherry Blossom │ NEX-7 & SEL18200LE │ 179mm, ISO 1600, f/6.3, 1/200, RAW

It's started!

More blossoms

Cherry Blossom viewing, or hanami, is a popular pastime in Japan each spring. Though we were excited for our first, we're now on our third! Originally, we wondered why on earth the Japanese seem to treat each "sakura season" as if it were the first one. They never tire of it. Now we're starting our third, we know why.

White and Pink

The hanami (lit. flower see) season is characterised by the impressive blossom of the Japanese Cherry Blossom, sakura sakura. People gather underneath these fruitless cherry trees, and have drinking parties, always with cameras nearby.

This particular sakura season has snuck up on us. Only the other day, I was saying how the ume blossom were still not quite at their peak, yet here we are, scrambling to find a space in the park!

Sweeping down

Almost there...

High Contrast

This is only the beginning of what is hopefully going to be a fantastic sakura season. Stay tuned!

Cloudy

Asian Dust

Asian Dust │ NEX-7 & SEL24F18Z │ 24mm, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/250, RAW

Not really a pretty picture, but something I wanted to document. This last week, Japan's been sujected to a huge Asian Dust storm, which, quite unsurprisingly, has been plastered all over the news. Of course, Japan and China have such a great history, that the Japanese news is effectively blaming China, and trying to whip up yet more criticism of pollution from China.

Interestingly enough, my current job is to measure pollution. I have either personally installed, or am responsible for, no fewer than 10 different instruments throughout Asia, which measure Black Carbon (BC). It's a rather popular topic at the moment, and it's not hard to find someone with an opinion on the matter. If you're interested, the measurement sites are here:

As a research scientist, I [remotely] collect and [locally] analyse data from these sites, almost every day. That's one of the roles of my job. Anyway, with all this action in the news, and Japanese media blaming China for pollution in Japan, I wonder where their Japanese Toyota or Nissan car was made. China? How about their shiny MacBook Pro? Made in China? Their iPhone? Assembled in China? Hmm..

Anyway, this is the oojamaflip which measures BC. It's called COSMOS, which is quite cute. COSMOS stands for Continuous Soot Monitoring System, which is less cute.

If you want to know more about it, or see some data, I hope to be writing a paper on the subject very soon. No pretty pictures though :(

Happy White Day!

Happy White Day │ NEX-7 & SEL24F18Z │ 24mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/60, RAW

What girl doesn't like being woken up with a little card and box of chocs? Charlie certainly seemed pretty happy this morning! Though she'd forgotten that today was White Day, I certainly hadn't. I'd previously written that on the 14th Feb, girls are to give their loved ones a card (and maybe some chocolates), but that on the 14th of March, the boys reciprocate with a [larger] box of chocolates. Here, however, the men don't get the women a card. I guess cards are too girly? Well, after much searching, I found one, nevertheless.

The term sanbai gaeshi (三倍返し, "thrice the return") is used to describe this rule. Not returning the gift is perceived as the men placing himself in a position of superiority, even if excuses are given. Returning a present of equal value is considered as a way to say that you are ending the relationship.

I think Charlie knows the score ;)

Colour, contrast

Quite clearly Japan. The trees, the topography; this certainly isn't the UK. I don't usually take photos with multiple-exposure, as I don't usually take a tripod with me. The Zeiss performed well, and there is a huge amount of detail in the trees, and decent colour and micro-contrast. As always, taking the scene in, breathing the air, is much more impressive, but I hope this [heavily compressed JPEG] gives you an idea.

Quality, not quantity

Plum Blossom │ NEX-7 & Canon nFD 50mm │ 50mm, ISO 100, f/2, 1/800, RAW

It's been a while since I've found the time to update the blog. I've been busy with work and simply haven't had the time to categorise, edit, select, upload, and publish anything from the last week or two. I hope that I'll be able to step up my posting frequency again this month, however.

Yesterday, we visited Ōme on the western fringe of what is acceptable to call Tokyo. It's around 2 hours (70 miles, a few line changes) from our place in central Tokyo, with each station and surrounding area becoming more rural by the minute.

Ōme is a popular tourist destination, mostly for Japanese wanting to escape the hustle-bustle of the big city, but it's common to see a few foreigners with Lonely Planet guide books.

These two kids were visiting Ōme without parental guidance; not something you'd see outside of Japan (in my experience). I've become accustomed to seeing children under 10 years old taking trains by themselves, in convenience stores, and generally walking around. They really look just like "little people", rather than children, sometimes.

Most people are here for the "ume matsuri" or ume festival. Ume are often called plums, but that's not always the case! Either way, the blossom of the Japanese Apricot is why we were there, and that's why everyone else was there too.

The ume blossoms come a month or so before the much revered Japanese "sakura" cherry blossoms, famous the world-over.

In all honesty, when we arrived at the national park, we were a little disappointed. Nothing like the posters, the scenery was pretty arid. A few select blossoms surrounded by people with cameras was not what we had in mind. I think that as the weather warms over the next couple of weeks, a few more might pop up, so we're thinking of going again, as it's a nice day trip.

As such, quality, not quantity was very much the theme of the day! Good proving grounds for the Zeiss and NEX-7, at any rate.

We arrived in the early afternoon, and stayed at the park until around 4pm, when the light starts to get really golden, and the angle creates some interesting shadows.

The blossoms are white, purple, yellow, and some are even green. Looking hard, we were able to find some nice colours and contrasting scenes. There were a few retired hiking types, out with beers and snacks, making the most of the good weather and atmosphere.

They were having a good old chat, about how many times each of them had visited, but I didn't listen-in. I had spotted the scene they were taking in...

And, that concludes the latest update. We plan on heading back to Ōme in a couple of weeks, so I'll be sure to document the changes and experiment with the varying scenes. I hope you liked the collection! ^^

Typhoon visit

Typhoon visit │ NEX-7 & SEL18200LE │ 95mm, ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/25, RAW

In the past 5 days, I have covered over 4000 km, by plane and car. I've travelled from Tokyo to Naha, to Cape Hedo in the Northern tip of Okinawa's main island. Usually, I would say it's been a whirlwind visit, but being as the rainy season is on its way, and I am in Japan, typhoon should do the trick.

When my co-worker and I arrived in Okinawa, it was raining. Hard. We hopped into the hire car and made our way up Route 58 from Naha, which goes all the way up the west of the island, to Cape Hedo. We stopped on the way to have a delicious, local lunch with a couple of my colleagues old friends. Our mission was to replace some parts of an instrument there, amongst other things.

As expected, things didn't go smoothly. We discovered that the main UPS system had failed, meaning our data had no sure-fire time stamps. Damn. However, we were in luck! By complete co-incidence, I also had to change the UPS battery in another system, so we had a spare on site. The old battery still worked well, and we did a "bodge-job", so we can at least resume measurements for now. The nearest hardware store is over 1 hour's drive away (one-way). This means we have to be as prepared as we can be, each time we leave that shop.

One of the issues with Okinawa, is its excessive year-long heat, humidity, and salty air. This corrodes most objects, turning them to rust within a few days, or weeks. This voltage transformer, for example, was actually in a plastic box, but still managed to age several years within just one.

After repairing all of the instruments, we finally have a stable system in place, and we're learning what else we need to prepare for, with each coming visit. I usually like to take a lot of photos when I visit places, but we worked from sunrise to gone-sunset, leaving no time for anything other than driving, eating, and sleeping.

So for now, so long, Okinawa! I hope to see you soon.

Ume

Ume │ NEX-7 & SEL24F18Z │ 24mm, ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/100, RAW

梅,pronounced "oo-may", means is the Japanese apricot, though it is often mis-translated as plum. Bitter to the taste, it's not like a sweet apricot. It's usually pickled, or used to flavour alcohol (more on that to follow in a future post).

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There are no fruit yet, however. The blossoms have only just started, but the matsuri (festivals) are in full swing. Crowds gather, cameras pointed in all directions.

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I even saw one chap taking a photo with an iPad today. An iPad. Fantastic! I suppose his phone wasn't big enough? Each to their own.

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Nestled in between the skyscrapers and train lines, the odd temple or two soldier on. It's rather remarkable, really, considering the price of Tokyo real-estate. I, for one, am glad these temples exist here in Tokyo.

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And judging by the number of "wishes" left outside of the temple, I am not alone with this thought.

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We managed to walk for about 30 minutes before finding this temple, though we had planned a much longer afternoon of walking. The temperature was barely above freezing, with the 25kph Northerly wind carving its way between the buildings. We chickened out, faces numb, and warmed ourselves with hot sake and plum wine.

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Brickweave

Brickweave │ NEX-7 & SEL24F18Z │ 24mm, ISO 500, f/1.8, 1/60, RAW

Some parts of Tokyo are so spacious, that it's easy to forget all of the winding narrow streets, and how I have to duck to get in and out of trains, rooms, restaurants... almost everywhere.

The above photo was taken close to Tokyo station, which has just finished renovation. Around here, there is lots of space, and almost every single floorspace is made from brickweave, which appears to be less than 24 hours old. Everything is spotless. So clean. You'd eat off it. Well, you wouldn't choose to, but the "5 second rule" would become at least a 30 second rule.

As you can see, there are still "Christmas lights" up and about. Though they're not Christmas lights at all, just a nice illumination for the shopping areas. They'll probably come down as the nights get longer, and the temperature rises. Speaking of which, it's still pretty frosty right now, and sunset is currently 5:30pm. It's time for some dinner... adios!

Let down by Sony

It pains me to type this, it really does. Not because I'm sad for Sony, I am very sad that my 28th birthday present, a Sony NEX-C3 (pictured) has broken, again.

The camera was purchased from Yodobashi Camera in Shinjuku, at the end of August 2011, by Charlotte, for me. I couldn't believe my luck when I unwrapped it. It was my first ever "new camera". I'd only ever had used cameras before, and I was like a child at Christmas when I unwrapped my shiny, new, NEX-C3, just one day before our summer holiday trip to Okinawa.

I babied it like nothing else. Unfortunately, after about 6 months, the "up" direction on the circular button at the back, stopped functioning. As any NEX owner knows, this button toggles display settings, but also is the only way to get through the different menus... and to move the focus point. It's critical to camera functionality.

I took it back to Yodobashi, who sent it off to Sony for repair. It was well within the "1 year international warranty" date, stamped on the included card. I received the camera back on around the 26th April 2012, and resumed shooting. The above two photos are not from when I originally received the camera, but they are from the day I received the camera back from Yodobashi & Sony. I was that excited.

I was very impressed with the service from both Yodobashi, and Sony. The camera was back in my hands in under a week, with apparently a completely new rear (screen had a sticky cover on it, buttons all clicked nicely). It was as good as new...

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago... and the button's stopped working, again. The same button. Furthermore, the screen coating has deteriorated like no other screen I've seen. Sony either didn't fix it properly, or the camera has a tendency for this button to fail. Either way, I wasn't exactly thrilled, and took it to Yodobashi again. However, the warranty on the card is valid until August 2012, or thereabouts... and we just entered 2013. I've been told today, that the repair issued by Sony last year was apparently only valid for "3 months". Sony want ¥25,000 (JPY) to repair their repair. No. Way. That's a third of the original retail price, and around the price of an "as new" unit from a second hand shop.

Sounds more like a bodge-job, than a repair. How can original warranty be 12 months, yet warranty on a repair only be for 3 months? If this were the first time I’d experienced this problem with it, then I would be upset… but probably more pragmatic - it has been around 18 months now, and though I expect a camera costing several hundred pounds (or tens of thousands of yen) to last for a few years without fail, it would be out of warranty and that would be that. But to have an identical problem raise its ugly head, 6 months after a repair, and Sony refuse to take responsibility… is simply not acceptable. I am heartbroken. I love this camera. It is more to me than any other camera, because it is a very, very special present.

If I were in the UK, I would be on the phone to Sony and demanding a free repair, as EU regulations for electronics can often overrule the standard "1 year" warranty.

My issue is, that I am here, in Japan, Sony's home... not mine. My only option is to go and see them in their Ginza flagship store, and demand that my camera be repaired. It's just not acceptable. I want it back, working, so I can use it as intended.

Please fix my camera, Sony.