Life in Japan - Pictures galore !! Arcades, Temples, Rainy days, etc

Not to be left out of the hipster revolution Here's a few I took today with some quick half arsed retro effects.

Temple


Paper Wishes


Step Back in Time


Got to get a wash


The woman of my home


Yakumo

 

As you progress as a photographer, you will learn that shooting in anything other than RAW is a bad idea. RAW is the only file format which gives you the equivalent digital negative, without compression (asa JPEG), and as such, is the only way to accurately change white balance and other parameters in post-production.

I bought myself a Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f1.4 from Yodobashi in Shinjuku, as my NEX C3 was a present and I fancied a nice, fast, street lens.

EDIT: Nice shots Yakumo

 

I was waiting for the 5d3 but the bundle I got was really good. I'm happy w/ the 5d2. It's dope -- the ISO performance makes me jizz in my pants. I posted some ISO 5000 stuff earlier in this thread!

Yes, just get used to raw. While the quality of JPG is generally okay, non-destructive editing is really handy. There are some shots I've found that saving from a raw is just a few mouse clicks, but w/ JPGs there are various hoops to jump through!

EDIT: Nice pics nonetheless, man. Hope your wife doesn't catch the lady of your house.

 

I'll adjust the settings on the camera to save as RAW and JPEG at the same time so I can have a play about with these RAW files :thumbsup:

thanks, I'm starting to understand the camera better now. I'm no where near as good as you by a long shot though, that's for sure. By the way, that is my wife :nod:

Yakumo

 

I figured -- just being funny. Haha.

 

Right,

 

I have been periodically checking in on this thread and it has become one of my favorites. Really nice pictures guys.

 

Indeed.
I always find time to check out the latest pics here. Absolutely love this...especially scenes of the shrines and temples.

Makes me want to consider becoming more serious about photography in the near future.

 

I got a few of this guy but this one came out well I think. I will post the others later.


Ginza Monk (2) by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Shinjuku City Lights (Cinematic) by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Making Coffee (Cinematic) by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


On the phone in a Coffee Shop (Cinematic) by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

 

That monk picture it cool and I like the making coffee one too. That does actually look like it came from a movie.

What software do you use for post production? I have a feeling Photoshop doesn't handle RAW files and I don't really want to use Panasonic's software since all Panasonic software I've used in the past is very slow and bloated. Saying that, I haven't even installed the software that came with the camera.

Yakumo

 

I use ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) to process the RAW files, then export them to PSD and use Photoshop. *Sometimes* I'll do something in ACR (imagine a cut down version of Lightroom) without needing any processing in PS. Just depends on what it is.

 

ACR, hmm I'll have to look in to that. Thanks

 

It's free... it's basically a stripped down version of LightRoom. I will eventually buck up for the latter, but LR4 is in beta now so might as well wait.

 

Free, nice price. Right, I'll download that tonight and give it a shot on some RAW files I took yesterday. Thanks for the point in the right direction.

 

It can be a bit over-whelming. If you've got Photoshop, I would suggest only dicking w/ the following.

First Tab:
White Balance (this is what can really save a shot)
Exposure
Fill Light

2nd Tab:
Tone Curves - think of this as glorified contrast. Much more control

3rd Tab:
Sharpness / Noise Reduction

4th Tab is color balance. This is useful when you need it

5th tab I believe is the split-toning, and is good when you want to (wait for it...) split-tone

There's of course some other stuff, but I don't get too carried away in ACR. I just try to clean stuff up a bit before Photoshop. It's way easier to save a blown out/over-exposed image when meessing with the RAW file, I find. To each their own though.

 

Yeah, I have Photoshop. Been using that for years so I'm quite at home with it. I will take it easy though on this new software. Really, I want to play with it now but downloading the program via a tethered iPhone would take too long. Stuck in work with fuck all to do until 4:30 when we have another pointless drawn out meeting about shit any western person could solve while taking a dump. How I fucking hate meetings in Japan but you know that :nod:

 

Yep, I sure do. I have meetings but they're global, on the phone, and we generally get to the point and stop. No jerking each other off.

You probably know, but if you get comfortable with Curves Adjustment Layers you can do just about any filter that your phone does, but with better control.

EDIT: Oh... 10,000 posts!

 

CONGRATULATIONS. I remember when I had 10'000 posts. I've got far too much free time in my job If I could go home that would be good but as you can seen most of my posts here are done during work time. Come to think of it, so are yours ;p

 

That tip for ACR is really good, although so far I haven't really been shooting raw because I didn't really see the advantages of it.

 

Neither did I until I read the comments above. Just set the camera to save both RAW and Jpeg. That way you'll have the RAW file to work on if you really need to. With the size of SD cards these days you'll easily have enough space for a days worth of heavy shooting.

Yakumo