rainy week

it's been a while since my last post. been busy moving jobs and apartments.

tokyo welcomed the fall with rains which will continue through this week. got a "new" old lens that i've been dying to take pictures with, but i'm down with fever on a perfectly fine weekend.

さよなら歌舞伎座

東京オリンピック以来歌舞伎座46年の歌舞伎甘栗も本年四月をもちまして閉店と相成りました。長年にわたるお客様のご愛顧に厚く御礼申し上げます。

kabukiza will be closing at the end of the month to be reconstructed as a 29-story building, retaining the facade of the current building. this seems to be the current architectural trend here. (take for example the nomura building in otemachi.) i personally prefer they kept the old building as is. for me, the high-rise jutting out is an eyesore...

anyway, this is one of the few times i asked somebody if i could take their picture. this old man runs a small chestnut stall just outside kabukiza. he's been running the stall since the tokyo olympics for 46 years. it is in a way sad that he will be closing shop, but he can still keep his smile. i'm sure he has lots of memories of this place. i wonder what he will be doing after this.

i forgot to ask his name, but i hope i will be able to ask him one last time on friday.

Noctilux 50mm f0.95

no, this is not taken with that lens, nor do i have one. i have been looking at pictures taken with that lens, and i think it's just too... perfect. i like the bokeh created by my canon more, but it's just too big to carry on a regular basis. plus i always need a toothpick to take the lens off from the body.

how does the old noctilux fare, or even the nokton? off to search for pictures...

now this woman looks like another mad hettie, but when i actually saw her face, she looked like a regular old lady (with an odd fashion sense, at least for me).

ps

i also got an old canon 50mm f1.4. got it cheap and didn't really expect anything special about it. i found it to be actually sharp, but that's about it. will post some when i get the time.

sunshine

i have been photography "challenged" these past few weeks (months?). finally got a bit of fresh air and sunshine after doing some errand. something unusual for me to shoot during the daytime.

ben

been awful busy the past couple of months. i've only been either in the office or at home, so taking more photos at home now. am supposed to be studying for some certification exam, but gave up, thus the post.

my mouse, ben, had his first bath, and spent the whole afternoon under the sun to dry. now he's pristine white again.

the colors look a bit off. not sure if it's because of the blogger compressing the image. you'll get better results if you click on the image(s).

浜降祭

my digital shots were crap. had to crop this to 4:3. hope to get something decent from my film shots. will definitely go back to this event (and bring color film next time).

the balloon man

it's been a while since my last post. been busy again with other stuff (more of was just lazy).

nothing much to say except it's already 2am here and i should be sleeping. maybe i'll write more next time. maybe.

btw, also created a new flickr account for mobile pictures. was kinda surprised at the pictures it (the phone) is able to produce. plus i get location information.

築地

wandered around tsukiji while waiting for our favorite sushi shop finish their periodic maintenance. this guy was busy hauling some crates to his shop even though the market was closed on this day.

(the colors came out somewhat different than what i see in aperture... should be greener and darker)

梅雨

it's rainy season again. saw this guy looking at something. i don't remember now if he was looking at a map trying to find his way or trying to decide what drink to get in front of a vending machine. (i passed by this place again and saw it was an area map he was looking at.) actually, i first thought his eyes were closed, was drunk and trying to fight off a bad headache, but when i looked closer, he was actually staring at whatever it was in front of him. and i think he knew i took his picture because right after, he lowered his umbrella covering his face.

something i have to keep in mind with the way rangefinders work... while i tried to frame this so that there is space between the guy and that thing to the right, i forgot that what i was viewing is not through the lens (unlike an SLR) thus the shot ending up less than ideal. oh well...

monday blues

it's monday again tomorrow. i was told off to come on time, so i have to leave the house earlier than "normal"... =(
taking the train is such a pain now since we moved to the "new" office. i have to change trains thrice and endure these crazily packed trains. (before, i was able to sit, and sleep all the way till my stop.)
i was planning to make a series of my daily commute. i still have to get shots of people running to change to the other train line, not to mention people being pushed in just to be able to close the train doors. crazy...

abandoned

i found this abandoned apartment about a month ago in tsukishima while waiting for friends. i wanted to explore more but was scared some homeless guy would just come out of one of the doors. maybe next time when the sun is up...

0 . 9 5 (れい てん きゅう ご)

note: got this lens off an auction a bit more than a month ago. was shocked to see a lot of fungus on the lens. (i know i shouldn't trust the dodgy description on auction sites but still fell for it.) had it immediately brought to some 'camera lab' to have it cleaned and modified to M mount. they originally estimated 2 months, but was surprised to get a call 1 month early (reminder to self : apr 29) they couldn't take away all the fungus traces, but i think they did a very good job cleaning it.

this was shot a day after i got it. i shot some with film on the 1st day but i still don't have it back. the lens performs better than i expected. i think it is sharp enough. (the picture here is a bit out of focus though. focus is more on the nose rather than the eye, but this is the one which captures the old man's expression most with the shots i took of him.)

blog: i wanted to try this lens at night where it works best, so decided to walk to higashi-ginza after work. i chanced upon this old man along the main street of ginza. there were 2 of them actually. the other one was a middle-aged woman, who i initially thought was the main performer, but she called this old man sensei (teacher)... this old man (muraoka-san, name printed on the cd he was selling) was very nice. i think he talked more than he played. =) (i also think his cd is not worth the 2,000 yen he is selling it for. you should just listen to him live whenever you chance upon him) (btw, i walked all the way to shiodome to catch my train home. around twice the distance of my original plan, for those not familiar with tokyo.)

additional note: somehow i like the sound of how they say the aperture value in japanese: れい てん きゅう ご (rei ten kyuu go)

easter sunday

was out in shinjuku after attending an easter vigil. didn't realize the time (it was already around 2:30 am). this is right when you get out the tunnel connecting the east exit (from alta) and the west exit (going towards omoide yokocho (思い出横丁)). it looks very different when the shops are all closed and there are no people on the street...

sunset

same park as in my previous post. was trying to do some post-processing but gave up. i still like how the original jpeg came out. i also don't remember which lens i used here... either 35mm or 50mm...

90mm

last sunday, we were only supposed to go to a nearby restaurant to have lunch (at 3pm!) then head off to shinjuku. the local theme park was doing a sakura festival until that day, and entrance to the park was free after 4pm. it was already past 4pm by the time we finished lunch, so we decided to have a look inside the park since we were already there, plus it's free.

we found several sakura trees where they usually have the ajisai (hydrangea) festival. it was a nice quiet place away from the main festival area and away from the rides. there were only a handful of other people there, so there was no need to fight any crowds or think of a way to frame a shot so that people's heads won't be in it.

i finally found a nice quiet place in tokyo to enjoy the sakura.

anyway, this was shot using a 90mm lens. the R-D1s only had frame lines up to 50mm, so i have to guess what gets in the frame when using this lens. i also found out i couldn't focus properly with a canon 85mm f1.9 using the R-D1s (it front-focuses). while that lens is brighter, i am stuck with the 90mm to get proper focus.

桜

went to chidorigafuchi last night to check out the sakura (cherry blossoms). the sakura were still in full bloom. didn't take much since there were still a lot of people. was on the way to yasukuni shrine and found this couple looking at the sakura at the edge of the moat. didn't have time to setup/focus properly, but this is what i got.

new year

april 1 marks the start of the japanese fiscal year. as with all things new, i welcome a new member to the family.