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.

First Impressions - 5D MK II

After humming and harring about buying the 5D mk II now or waiting for the next generation full frame camera, I finally pulled the trigger and bought one. I also got the 24-105mm kit lens which I was just as excited about since I have been after a standard travel zoom and all the cropped camera options left something to be desired.

On full frame this lens is

• Wide enough for landscapes
• Long enough for portraits
• Weather sealed
• Image stabilised
• Constant aperture zoom
• Shallower depth of field relative to cropped alternatives 

Seriously, what's not to like about it.

Anyway, it arrived early this morning and since this camera uses the same battery as the 7D I threw in a fresh one and immediately took it out for a field test.




Choco-chan


Before I even left the house this test subject, came around. A neighbourhood cat we've come to call Choco-chan. I like the shallow DOF here.



White Wagtail


While 105mm is not what I would usually choose to photograph birds, I thought I would see what it can do anyway. This image is about a 75% crop but still shows great detail for a web image. One thing becomes quite obvious with the camera is the lack of a built in fill flash to add that catch light to the eye.

Purple and yellow pansy flowers

The shallower depth of field will take a little adjusting to. I was going for a slightly out of focus station in the background but this is a little more than I expected even for f/8.0. Looks like a great subject for a tilt-shift lens.



Tsukuba Express entering a tunnel


I took a trip to Akihabara, Tokyo to get a few supplies (protective screens, filter and flash sync cable) for the new camera and lens. While riding the train I took the opportunity to try some photography from the last car as we entered a tunnel. You won't be able to see this in a web compressed jpg image but this was at ISO 800 and the noise is so much less than my 7D.



Tsukuba Express in a tunnel


This is a 5 second exposure at f/4.5 and ISO 800. Again the noise is very well behaved and although it's hard to prove, I'm hoping that image stabilisation is helping to keep the image smooth and "together".

So for my first day out, I'm very happy with the camera and lens. I must admit I am left wondering why I didn't buy it sooner. I almost bought another 7D with the Canon EF-s 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens, but now I'm so glad amazon was out of stock and I cancelled my order. For what works out to being just 50% more, I have a much better camera and walk around travel lens. I should be able to recover some of that cost by selling some old EF-s lenses too.

Snow Monkeys

Today I took a trip to Nagano to photograph the world famous Snow Monkeys of Japan.

These are some of the most northern primates (except humans) that live in a cold harsh environment. A few years ago they discovered that onsens were warm and they started relaxing in them through the long winter months. In these parts of Japan there is snow on the ground for about 4 months of the year.

These monkeys are wild and live in the mountains near by but are very used to tourists and photographers around them. As such we can get really close to photograph them.




Cold Day

This is why they are called Snow Monkeys.




Their Onsen


When it's really cold, lots of monkeys will get into the onsen. This was taken shortly after a snow shower.

Young Snow Monkey

This little cutie was making several strange sounds and facial expressions.




Grooming, a never ending task





Finally some nice lighting



Birding in Taiwan

I recently spent 5 days sightseeing in Taiwan. I didn't really plan to do any birding while I was there. However while walking around I observed several species I'd never seen before so I did my best to capture them on digital. I was using a Canon EOS 7D with the new EF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 L IS USM lens giving me about 480mm EFL. It's a great travel lens but perhaps not the best for birding, none the less I thought it performed quite well.

Red Turtle Dove



Night Heron (adult)



Night Heron (juvenile)

 Etsuko spotted this one in the trees above us while I was busy photographing the adults in the pond.



Chinese Bulbul




Grey Treepie




Common Magpie (ssp sericea)


It wasn't until I arrived home and began to identify them that I realised the Red Turtle Dove, Chinese Bulbul and Grey Treepie are not usually found in Japan so I was glad I took the time to capture them in Taiwan.