Soccer

Today my nephew was out playing soccer against a local team. I thought I would take the opportunity to try out some sports photography. Never having shot field sports before I took a collection of potentially useful kit with me. I was expecting my 7D to be the workhorse for the event but I also threw in the 5DII so I could compare the two cameras. As for lenses I went with my 400mm f/5.6 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS lens.

Canon EOS 7D with  a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

Canon EOS 7D with  a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

The 400 was framing a little tight on the 7D and just about perfect on the 5DII. However the 70-200 at 200mm was lacking in reach for the longer shots with the 7D. I found myself wishing I had a 300mm lens attached to the 7D.

Canon EOS 7D with  a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

Canon EOS 5DII with a Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM

The whole extended family turned out to watch him play. I'm sure that made him feel a little self-conscious although it didn't stop him from having a good game. He still managed to score two goals for his team.

Canon EOS 5DII with a Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 L USM

The lack frame rates and slower focus on the 5DII reduced its keeper rate but it's still usable.

Canon EOS 7D with  a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

I had a good time trying to capture some soccer action and some family memories for my in-laws.

Misato Sunset

After an afternoon storm there were some interseting clouds in the sky. It could be a spectacular sunset so I headed out around the local neighbourhood to see how it turned out.

This first one is the rice fields next to my house.

Winter Rice Fields

After that I headed down to the river. On the far side there was a few boats in a kind of dry dock harbor.

River Harbour

After the sun had gone down, I was returning home but took one last look back up the river. Most of the storm clouds had moved on.

Nakagawa River

Well after the sun went down I grabbed a shot of some lights reflecting off the river.

Tsukuba Express rail bridge over the Nakagawa river 

It wasn't as spectacular as I was hoping for but there was still some colour in the sky.

Misumoto Koen 2

This morning I took the opportunity to head back to my local bird sanctuary to see what bird life was still around as winter comes to an end. Here's a shot to give you an idea of what the place is like.

Misumoto Koen

I was hoping to get a good shot of a Eurasian Teal but they were all too far from my lens to make good images. Instead I got lucky with some birds in flight.

Great Egret - Casmerodius albus

This Grey Heron was collecting materials for building it's nest.

Grey Heron - Ardea cinerea

Towards the end of the morning I found a few Grebes. These guys are hard to capture since they are quite shy and spend most of their time underwater feeding. They surface briefly and in random locations, so getting them in focus before they dive again is quite a challenge.

Little Grebe - Tachybaptus ruficollis

Misumoto Koen

Today my wife and I went to Misumoto Koen. She went there for some exercise walking around the park but I was there to see what kind of bird life I could photograph. It was a productive morning with three new species captured.

Eurasian Coot -  Fulica atra

This one was a new species for me. Quite colourful head pattern. It's quite a small duck and therefore hard to photograph since I have to get so much closer to fill the frame.

Eurasian Teal - Anas crecca

Here is another new species. I thought it was related to a coot but it's actually a moorhen.

Commom Moorhen - Gallinula chloropus

And another new species. These are only around in the winter so I was lucky to see them before then fly North until next year.

Northern Shoveler - Anas clypeata

Here's a black headed gull in winter plumage, so the head has only the faintest colouring.

Black Headed Gull - Chroicocephalus ridibundus

At the end of the morning I managed this shot of a Great Cormorant as it swam quite close to me before turning away.

Great Cormorant - Phalacrocorax carbo

Kamakura's Birds

Here are a few birds I captured on digital while visiting Kamakura. I didn't really go there with the plan to shoot birds. I just had a 5D mk II and my longest lens was a 70-300L lens, not exactly ideal birding equipment. However I was presented with a few close up opportunities and did the best I could.



Japanese Spotbill Duck


Caught this guy doing a little early morning exercise.

Grey Wagtail

Totally wasn't expecting to see one of these here. This was two stops underexposed since I was in manual mode shooting cherry blossoms against a bright blue sky when this guy and a mate landed in the shadows next to me. I snapped this insurance shot in case they flew away before I could change my settings. It was a good thing to since they did fly away before I could get a second shot.

What I'm most impressed about here is how well the 5D mk II images respond to unkind exposure adjustments in Lightroom 3. This is also heavily cropped too.



Grey Heron



Grey Heron with a meal


For lunch we headed down to the beach with some barbecued chicken on sticks. Well not such a good idea in Japan. Instead of being mobbed by seagulls as you would in Australia, we were assaulted by about 50 Hawks. I had flashbacks of being attacked by magpies as a kid but this time they were bigger, more aggressive and a lot more of them.



Black Kite



Black Kite



As you can see, I could get some really close shots even with only 300mm of reach on full frame camera. This is cropped but both wing tips weren't in the original image so I might as well focus on the facial features.

Kyoto in Square

After a recent trip to kyoto, I was processing my images and found a few that suited a square crop. Then I thought it would be cool to put them together as a set. So here is a selection of square images from Kyoto.



Trees or Flowers


I found these interesting plants while walking the back streets of Kyoto. Depth of field is a little shallow in this one. I kind of wished I had a tilt shift lens for this shot.



Souvenirs


Tiny little priest figurines at a souvenir shop in front of Tenryu-ji temple.



Tsukubai - Ryoan-ji


An iconic image from Kyoto. It is the Tsukubai (cerimonial washing basin before entering a temple) from Ryoan-ji temple.



Ume Tree Flower

We went to Kyoto to see the Cherry Blossoms but this year it was a little colder than usual so the cherry blossum trees were late. Before the main cherry blossom season, other fruit trees will often flower but they are much less popular. This one is an Ume or apricot flower.



Kinkaku-ji


Another of Kyoto's most famous sights. Kinkaku-ji or The Golden Pavilion.

Sake Barrel

Some temples and shrines make their own Sake or rice wine.

Fortune

Temples and Shrines often offer fortunes. They are written on a piece of paper and once read, people often tie them to some part of the temple or shrine for good luck.

Niodori Park - Misato

I spent a couple of hours birding at Niodori Park this morning. I was primarily after a good clean shot of a wagtail but they were hard to find today. The wagtails were surprisingly hard to find today but I made up for it with a couple of new species. So all in all it was a good morning.



White Cheeked Starling

 A relatively common visitor to the park.

Daurian Redstart (female)

I believe this is a Daurian Redstart female but I'm not 100% on identification here. The male is very colourful but I didn't see any males around.




Oriental Greenfinch

 Another first sighting species, a pair of Oriental Greenfinches. They were hard to photograph since they didn't like me getting too close. This image is cropped more than I would like. I probably need 800mm or more of reach for these guys.

White Wagtail (ssp. lugens)

These guys were the purpose of my outing but only showed up as I was leaving and didn't hang around long either. The other day I got a reasonable shot with just 35mm of focal length. Today I needed all 400mm and a cropped sensor camera.