Iwate pork shoulder

Grand Hyatt Oak Door lunch with staff and family.

Szechuan Dou Hua

Lunch at Marunouchi Szechuan

Spanish lunch

Spanish for lunch

China Room

Dessert after hearty Dim sum lunch at Grand Hyatt Roppongi, eat all you can! burp!

Spanish

大トロ

highlight of the dinner, otoro〓

寿司大

Favourite sushi shop with old colleague at Tsukiji.

Lamb tomato 煮込みlunch

99% Full Moon, Waning Gibbous

Have not been blogging for a while. Tonight the moon is 99% full. A good chance to try out my 200-400mm Nikkor. Mounted with a TC17E mk II, I get an effective reach of 975mm telephoto lens 35mm equivalent. The surface of the moon is not so smooth actually....

Today was a golf day at Tochigi Sunhills Golf and Resort. Score was 95 with 5 pars. Not a bad day although was not hitting the irons well. Putting was pretty alright, since green was so fast.

Moule and wine

Crepe lunch

Nikon Salon

At Ginza Nikon House..

Grand Prince Takanawa

The sky was an interesting hue yesterday. There were also 2 rainbows visible. We decided to have dinner at the nearby Grand Prince Takanawa Hotel. There was a choice of Seafood Saute or Australian Sirloin Steak for the dinner course. I chose the Sirloin Steak to share with Chloe. This was accompanied by a bottle of Italian White wine.

Golf Handicap

My recent handicap for golf is 21. This was counted after 25 rounds played in Japan. Have to bring this down below 20 soon.

Park Hyatt Tokyo

15th anniversary of Park Hyatt Tokyo at Shinjuku. Great party and spread!

Mardi Gras

Friday was mediterranean dinner in Ginza with Y.

Bourgogne

Thinking alone over what was said tonight between 2people, over a bottle of bourgogne..

Mardi Gras

Evening was with Y at mediterrenean restaurant, with Taittinger for a start. Reminiscing occupied most of the time, but we were able to find clarity..eventually! after 11 years apart!

Gitzo Carbon Fibre

This is how the 200-400mm looks like mounted on a Gitzo 3530LSV with Markins M-10 ballhead. I went for the 3 section tripod as it is more rigid, albeit less portable. Thanks to Kim for bringing the tripod from Singapore.

This is a close up of the ballhead. It is precise and smooth. No creep whatsoever.

居酒屋

Dinner at izakaya typical beer joint for sarari-men in Japan.

SKAL

Dinner as a guest at SKAL Tokyo.

Testing the Nikkor 200-400mm

Yesterday, at grocery shopping, took my Nikkor along for a shootout. The day was overcast, and drizzling, so not the best times to shoot a long zoom with F4 maximum aperture. However, with VR, it was a different proposition altogether. Here's the evidence.

The first shot was taken at 1/50sec, ISO 400at F4 at 400mm. I had to wait till the lady paused at some expression to get reasonably sharp shots.

This one was shot at 1/80sec, ISO400 F4 at 360mm. Without VR, these shots would have not been possible. Colour and contrast seems to be superb.

Nikkor galore!

Here's my latest line-up of Nikkor tele-photo collection. From left, the AFS 300mm F4.0, the AFS 70-200mm F2.8 VR, the AFS 200mm F2.0 VR (with TC-14E attached) and the latest AFS 200-400mm F4.0 VR.

I waited patiently for a week from ordering for delivery. It finally arrived at home on Friday while I was at work.

It was securely packed, double boxed by manufacturer.

From the inner box, the lens was packed in a Nikon carry bag, like a backpack.

Here's Chloe holding the lens on her lap. She seems to be quite contented with the lens or perhaps assured by the 5-year Nikon USA warranty.

Aux Amis De Vins

Friday was dinner with Y at French Aux Amis De Vins in Ginza. We caught up with the last few years of our lives. She had quite interesting chapters in hers, perhaps enough to write a book on. Interestingly, it includes a brief marriage (it did not last the honeymoon)...

She is still her usual self. Or at least the self that I did know.

Y certainly had her own mind and is at odds with the mainstream Japanese way of life, at least with her family. At least the herd's thinking or somewhat myopic views of "my way is the right way, therefore its good for you". Is this not the way of mainstream society in any culture?

The evening was helped along by a pretty smooth and spicy 2001 St. Joseph Cotes du Rhone, principally of the Syrah (Shiraz) variety.. St. Joseph is located north of the Rhone valley and Syrah the main variety planted.

Seiji's dream!

This is my friend Seiji. He has a dream. He used to work as a bartender in Roppongi. Trained as a baker in Germany, I wondered what he was doing as a bartender. So we had a chat over a bottle of wine. Appears that he had a dream. That was in February. Recently he contacted me to inform me he had quit his job and now works as a sales rep for a Swiss bakery in Chiba. They supply to hotels, retail, restaurants. One small step closer to his dream of running his own bakery. Eventually, this step may be the biggest he ever made. Good luck Seiji san.

BKK

Off for meeting in BKK again..

Long absence

Last night (earlier) caught up with someone who's been out of my life for over 10 years. Y came back to Japan from the USA for good, and has set up home at Toyosu, not far from Ginza. Had sushi for dinner and a chat. Nothing seems to have changed much, only time has passed. Well at least not what we remember of each other....

Sometimes unexpected things can happen in life, especially when you least expect it. I could have carried on living in Tokyo or Japan for the next 10 years and not have an inkling of this person is around or living in the same city. Such is life.

Aux Bacchanales Takanawa

Mother's day at Aux Bacchanale near home. Took some candid shots of the patrons and passerbys with the Nikkor 200mm. A cross dresser came up to me and asked "what lens is that?" in Japanese. Nearly gave me a fright as "he" was quite big but dressed up as a she, with make up and lace stockings.

This shot reminds me of Joni Mitchell from Both Sides Now album cover. The cigarette smoke gives it a nice effect.

Have you tried playing ball with friends? Here's what it looks like.

TY Harbor Brewery

Saturday lunch with the family at TY Harbor Brewery at Tennozu Isle, Shinagawa. Its just by the Shinagawa Futo Harbor, not far from where we live. Brought my New Carl Zeiss 50/1.4 and Nikkor 200/2 to test out.

Photo above of a passing cruiser was taken with the Nikon 200mm F2 VR wide open at F2. Sharp and just beautiful colours! This is the sharpest lens I have ever shot with. Another shot below is focused on the condiments on a table where the waiters put their wares from where we sat.

Lunch was Ceasar's Salad, Hawaian Pizza and Daisen Jidori chicken. Here's the main course taken with the Carl Zeiss 50mm. Its a manual focus lens but the D300 has focus confirmation indication with this lens.

The next shot of Chloe was also with the Zeiss, natural and rich colours, just beautiful!

Singapore

Last one week was Golden Week holidays in Japan and I spent it in sunny Singapore. It was an eventful week for me.Singapore is busy and pleasant for a visitor as usual, and I even went to the touristic Merlion site to take some evening pics.

As I had not brought a tripod along, I was fortunate to have the trusty Olympus E-3 with built in image stabiliser. I shot all these evening scenery shots handheld ! The Olympus is famous for its blue hues from its old Zuiko days, and the digital range SLRs have maintained this tradition. Coupled with the Leica, the colours are rich and saturated.

The above shot was taken with the 50-200mm SWD lens. The image quality is very good for a compact zoom that is very portable at only just below 1kg.

The above was shot with Leica's 14-50mm at a very slow shutter speed, impossible without the Image Stabilizer in the E-3 body. The colour is again rich and saturated. I shot it next to a Canon user who was using a tripod and a prime lens without image stabilizer. He must have been laughing at me quietly.

On this trip, I also met up with old friends from Raffles Hall for a birding outing. It started with heavy rain in the morning but fortunately the birding in the "wild" had plenty of man made shelter from the wilderness. The wild was of course, as wild as manicured Singapore, the Mandai Orchid Gardens.

These two buddies above, both of whom are accomplished lawyers, have a knack for photography. BL, (right) shoots mainly birds (the feathered kind), and on the left, Roger, shoots anything that captures his eyes. The third guy, Ruey, being the most serious photographer amongst us, was obviously not in the pic as he was busy taking pictures whilst we were having intellectual "discourse" on lenses and cameras.

These buddies were helping me decide on a telephoto lense, and had brought along their precious lenses and cameras for me to try. Roger even rented a Nikon 200mm F2. I am grateful to have such an opportunity, and friends like them who would share they knowledge and experience with me.

This Stork-Billed Kingfisher shot was taken with BL's E-3 with the 300mm F2.8 lens. An expensive lense but you can see why from the photo. Image is sharp and colours are saturated and rich. This kingfisher is the largest found in Singapore. They are rarely found in urban areas and hunt crabs, insects, frog, mice, lizards, birds and bird eggs. They are territorial and will chase away other larger birds like eagles and storks.

This is a Sunbird shot with the same 300mm lens. The lens is super sharp. The Sunbird belongs to the nectariniidae family, or nectar feeding birds. Although they are not related to hummingbirds, theya re similar in theor iridescent colours and feeding habits. They are found throughout Asia and make great photo subjects. Being small in size (9-22cm), long telephoto lenses are essential.

No outing is complete in Singapore without some snacks, so we had cream puffs, pizzas, drinks...The shot below was taken with BL's Leica 25mm F1.4, really wonderful colours and contrast. All in all, a wonderful and memorable experience birding with friends. Arigatou gozaimashita !

Bright Sunny Sunday at Tama Zoo

Weather was fantastic on Sunday and I could test out the Nikkor AF-S 300mm F4 at Tama Zoo, Hino City, Tokyo. The above Tiger is 2yo cub, and walked about quite busily for visitors to take photos. This was shot at 1/320 sec, with the in body Image Stabilizer on the E-3.

Another resident of the zoo, the name of which I have forgotten.

All in all, a fun day in great weather for the family. Now that I have tried a Nikon 300mm equiv to 600mm on the E-3 body, I am seriously considering the real McCoy of an Olympus 300mm F2.8 lens, it weighs 3.3kgs and costs JPY618,000...

Chloe beaming at the end of a lovely day out ....