Japan, Part 3: Arashiyama Bamboo Forest

Here's a quick tip to get the best out of the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest: Go as early as you can in the morning, possibly before 8am.

Japan, Part 2: Golden Pavillion

The beautiful Golden Pavillion - the kind of scene that fills you with serenity and makes you want to lean against the wooden fence and take a deep breath ...

... until someone's selfie stick nearly takes your head off as they try to take a normal photo with their cell phone with the three foot stick still attached.

Japan, Part 1: Kiyomizu-dera

I traveled to Japan for 10 days in early April, peak cherry blossom season (yay!) but also peak tourism season (boo!). I stayed in Kyoto for the first half of the trip, hitting up all the typical tourist spots. Why the heck not? Japan is gorgeous, and Kyoto has so many beautiful places to see. The colors everywhere were amazing.

For the trip, I decided to pack as light as I could, so I brought along my trusty Fuji X100S and the Instax 210.

Davenport Bluffs

File this under "I spent so much time exploring and taking photos that I forgot to pay my credit card bill."

Shot with the Fuji X100S and my new 50mm attachment.







And, of course, a few from my favorite instant camera to carry around, even more so than the Polaroid 195.
Take the photo, stick it in my pocket.

 
 
 

Finch Snuggles

Sometimes, they sleep together all cuddled up like this at night. The baby birds have pretty much developed all their final colors. No matter how old they get, the children will always be babies to me.

(Left to right: Baby boy, mother, baby girl, father)

Shark Fin Cove in Davenport Beaches

While Tyler was driving, I frantically searched "Shark Fin Cove" into Google Maps, but no actual location popped up, only a not-very-useful "Highway 1, Davenport, CA" address.

It was coming up any minute and turning around on a one lane highway was too stressful to think about.

I googled "Shark Fin Cove" and looked for any indication of a location on a map and then proceeded to try to match the edges of the coast to the app. It was like studying puzzle pieces.

It looked like it was coming up soon. One minute later, I told him "It should be any parking area that comes up RIGHT after Bonny Doon road."

We literally just had a few minutes of light left. It didn't help that I wasn't wearing appropriate footwear.

(I'm never wearing the right shoes for these things.)

 


Also, as a final note, here's how to find Shark Fin Cove, since it wasn't easy finding exact directions.



Basically, turn left and park in the lot that comes RIGHT AFTER BONNY DOON ROAD when traveling north on Highway 1.

Two Thoughts About the Fujifilm TCL-X100

Precisely a year ago, I attached a Sony teleconversion lens with a step up ring and made a poor man's 50mm attachment for the X100S. It was neat for a few shots, but the crazy amount of distortion and warping in the sides made any photo that wasn't a close up portrait of a single person pretty much unusable.

With a trip to Japan coming up soon, I wanted the real thing. So I plunked down $350 and got the Fujifilm TCL-X100 teleconversion lens.

Here's what it looks like on my X100S:

Here are two thoughts from my initial use of it  -

1. There's still some distortion, but easily correctable in Lightroom. I found that setting the distortion to -13 got me a pretty accurate image. I only need to do this if my background has distinct straight lines, such as doorways, window frames, or the horizon of a landscape.

EDITED: The firmware update 1.2 fixes this.
http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/software/firmware/x/x100s/

Left: No distortion correction.
Right: Set the distortion to about -13 in Lightroom.

2. It's not the sharpest when focusing at close distances. Using the 50mm attachment, yes - I can focus pretty closely. But it will be soft. For pixel-peepers, this will be a glaring problem. For the average shooter, maybe not too much. I don't really consider myself a pixel-peeper, but I did find my close up images a bit too soft for my taste.

Solution: just back up a bit. Even without the 50mm attachment, the X100/S isn't the sharpest when you're shooting at the minimum focusing distance.

Other thoughts:

It's easy to attach and small enough to fit in a jacket pocket. It made the X100S larger, but definitely not obtrusive. The only thing I'm bummed about it is that I can't use the optical viewfinder with it so it'll drain my battery faster.

I have a few photos from exploring some new places shot with the X100S and the TCL-X100 50mm attachment that I'll be sharing shortly.