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 ....

Rainy Tokyo Saturday

Rainy day in Tokyo Saturday and many parts of Japan. Temp went down to 12deg. No outdoors so it was decided to have lunch at our favourite restaurant, The Oak Door at Grand Hyatt Roppongi Hills.



Chloe loves this hotel although she has never stayed there. Several weekend lunches was all it took for her to ask: "I like this hotel, can we stay here?"

Outside was cloudy and rainy, lighting was poor. Wrong camera to be having is poor high ISO Olympus. But I had to try the Nikon 300mm on the 4/3 cropped sensor, so brought it along. Eventually I could not use as the weather did not clear it so only used the Zuiko 50mm F1.4 manual lense. Bright enough even for indoor dining to be shot as you can see below. Main course, Chicken Rottiserie on a bed of Cous Cous with Asparagus and Broccoli.

Rounding off a sumptuous main course was an exquisite fruit tart with ice cream.

A photo weekend

Last weekend (11-12Apr) was spent shooting photos. A walkabout lens is most useful for amateurs and weekend candid and general photography.

Above shot is an interesting combi, orange heels and mesh stockings. What a combination. Even dogs are 'fashionably" dressed in Japan...Fashion is a very individual thing. Some like it hot, others....

Below is a traffic warden at Motomachi in Yokohama, holding her "light sabre" and whistle. She stops pedestrian traffic using both, whenever a car needs to cut across the pedestrian street, which I estimated was about once every 10minutes. Not a bad job compared to in Bangkok.

The above were shot with the trusty old Olympus 50-200mm walkabout zoom, which gave me an effective range of 100-400mm equivalent field of vision.

Now on to Nikon, my new telephoto 300mm zoom.

First photo was sunset over Kawasaki skyline. Then an Oriental Turtle Dove in Tokyo Port Bird Reserve.

Last but certainly not least is Chloe at the Bird Reserve.

Nikon 300mm Telephoto + TC14E II Teleconvertor

Here's taking my photography one notch up in seriousness with my latest Nikon lens, a 300mm F4 AF-S telephoto, acquired today. It is a very sharp lens, even when used with a teleconvertor. The moon was taken with a 1.7X teleconvertor, not the TC1.4E II I just bought together with the lens.

On my APS-C Nikon D300 body meant that I had a multiplication factor of 2.55 and have an equivalent 35mm format reach of 765mm! There is no post processing of the photo except for cropping, which goes to show the sharpness of the lens...




I found out that the price in Singapore, where Nikon is usually cheaper, has gone up significantly in the last 2-3months so it is now about S$500 cheaper in Japan. The Yen has come down a bit so it was a good opportunity to get hold of this lens. The dealer have announced that Nikon will be raising the Japan price for this lens sometime in this month.

I was deciding between the costlier Olympus 150mm F2, which is almost double the price, and all considered, in the end I decided to go for the Nikon as it is slimmer and just tad lighter, sacrificing a bit of speed. This lens also comes in a choice of professional "light grey" that helps keep it cool under the sun, or the usual black.

ConfitdeCanard

Having a nice duck "Canard" confit with a Languedoc with a French mate at Aux Bacchanales Ginza. This was following some pork pate with bread earlier. We finished 2 bottles and headed for a party at Armani building.

Spring !

Its spring time again. The sakuras are in bloom. With highway toll fees on weekend cut to a max of JPY1,000 travelling on long weekends and public holidays will become very affordable. This is a great way to stimulate the local economy by increasing domestic consumption. It would also have benefit for the car industry. More tyres, cars, fuel, food will be sold. The only setback and small price to pay is the traffic jams on the highways will be even worse...