花痴系列：桜＠小石川後楽園

28 Mar 2010 - It's Sakura Season again! No time to waste, I checked the internet for information about Sakura and 小石川後楽園 is the only place in Tokyo with 満開。


One of the only few macros that I took.
I can take Sakura macros anywhere, even at the park near my place, so I concentrated on landscape/scenery instead.











View of the main garden

No Sakura but Sky

Clouds were great that day

That's Tokyo Dome


Colors...Pink Sakura, Blue Sky, White Clouds


Bamboo
An Attempt to look at shapes and lines

Another Attempt


These 2 uncles, armed with 500mm sniper lenses, were camping to snipe ducks and birds.

It's still early for Sakura, next week will be better...


Silhouette

More photos at Flickr

Portrait Photoshoot at Odaiba

21 Mar 2010 - Went to photoshoot at Odaiba, organized by Fresh!. I went to one last month and I learned a lot from the portrait experts there, so I decided to go again.

I fixed my White Balance the last time and I had lots of trouble post-processing those pics, because the color temperature changed totally when the clouds came passing by. This time round, I left it to the camera, set it to portrait mode and AWB.

I concentrated on only 3 of the 9 models this time.

二階堂まり
"Young and Cheerful"





南川涼子
"Elegant Classical Pianist"








宮下裕美
Sexy and very professional







I used a 70-300mm this time round, so mostly close-up shots. Plus, I was standing further away than most of the photographers, so I couldn't really catch the attention of the models and get them look towards my direction.

Also, the number of photographers this time round was almost 3 times as many as the last one! Around twenty photographers per model, and there were 9 models....200 people!!! Wah I shall start another company like this man,,,

More photos at Flickr
or see the slideshow below...

花痴系列 : 梅花

13 Mar 2010 - Went to Plum Festival at Yoshino Plum Garden (吉野梅郷), located next to Hinatawada Station, only 30mins from my place. Entrance Fee was 200 Yen.

This was my 2nd time visiting the garden, I went there 2 years ago in 2008 and the old photos taken using with my Lumix can be found here.

My equipment this time was:
Canon Kiss X2 (or 450D) with EF70-300mm F4-5.6 IS USM Lens and sometimes DMW-LC55 close-up lens for Macro shots.

Landscape shots



Surrounded by Beauties

Mother and Son

Zig-zag


Just Colors

Steps by the tree

Macro shots








1st Born

Cold Plum

Fallen Angel

Other than Plum

Non-macro Flower shots


紅白対戦

Painting with Light

Other Misc shots

The Painter

This was my 2nd time using my 70-300mm Telephoto zoom. Just in case that I needed to take scenery shots, I brought my 10-22mm along as well. But...wow 70-300mm did a great job at taking landscapes and I didn't really have to switch to my super-wide. 70-300mm, I'm lovin it!

More flowers at flickr