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Japan Wide Open with a 5D

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You know, I have been "takin' pitchers" for a good 50 years (although in all fairness my first serious camera was a Pentax Spotmatic, when they were relatively new). I must say, believe it or not, your wonderful photos have opened a door which I have never really considered, except at close range.

Beautiful images. Japan is my "second home", but I haven't been there for a few years, so thank you for your style and subject matter in these photos!

Hmmm. Now where did I place my camera?

--
-Dennis W.
Austin, Texas

 
Neat pics Joe, as always, I actually like the old guy on the bike too (as well as teh mountain mist one).

Hope you caught a good smell of tatami in the suimmer heat (my fav!) amoungst other things.

I'm interested in a lot of your non-close up shallow DOP style and hoping to try some of it in new scene in Costa Rica next week.

Thanks for the nihon update - please post more if you have 'em after you recover from the j-lag ;-)

--
http://www.pbase.com/hojicha
 
Joe, Go back to shots you took a year or more ago if you can... you will often find frames you didn't think were that interesting at the time that pop. That idea you had when you on location can often distort your evaluation of the product. Shooting digital can unfortunately prevent this reflection if you cull out and delete work in favor of what you feel is important at the time. You need space from the moment when you shot the images, to see the images for what they are. So don't trash properly exposed frames until you get that distance.
 
3dwag said:
You know, I have been "takin' pitchers" for a good 50 years (although
in all fairness my first serious camera was a Pentax Spotmatic, when
they were relatively new). I must say, believe it or not, your
wonderful photos have opened a door which I have never really
considered, except at close range.
Click to expand...
So was that Spotmatic 1.6x or FF? : )
3dwag said:
Beautiful images. Japan is my "second home", but I haven't been
there for a few years, so thank you for your style and subject matter
in these photos!
Click to expand...
My wife is pressuring me to make it my "first home", and I am finding it harder and harder to find a reason not to do so. On this last trip, I hiked Yatsugatake, but only one peak. On my next visit, I'm doing all eight -- they're incredibly beautiful and close to my wife's hometown. My legs are still sore from the one, though. It was a furious pace to get up and down in just one afternoon.
3dwag said:
Hmmm. Now where did I place my camera?
Click to expand...
Mine is never very far from my hand. : )

--
--joe

http://www.josephjamesphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/joemama/

Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit my photos. If you wish to use any of my photos for any purpose other than editing in these forums, please ask.
 
Member said:
Neat pics Joe, as always, I actually like the old guy on the bike too
(as well as the mountain mist one).
Click to expand...
Compositionally, I really like the old guy on the bike pic, too.
Member said:
Hope you caught a good smell of tatami in the suimmer heat (my fav!)
amoungst other things.
Click to expand...
Actually, my house here in the US has three tatami mats, so the smell is always "close to home". But they're old, and I want some new ones that are still green. : )
Member said:
I'm interested in a lot of your non-close up shallow DOF style and
hoping to try some of it in new scene in Costa Rica next week.
Click to expand...
A freind just got back from Costa Rica recently. He loved it. Still hasn't shown me his pics!
Member said:
Thanks for the nihon update - please post more if you have 'em after
you recover from the j-lag ;-)
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, most of my pics are of friends and family, so I'll be posting them on my pbase account, but not here. I thought the pics I posted were appropriate for this forum since they present a use for shallow DOF that some may not have considered. Usually, when I post pics, it's simply in response to a question about this lens or that. I very rarely post pics (anymore) simply for the sake of posting.

Nonetheless, thanks for the props!

--
--joe

http://www.josephjamesphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/joemama/

Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit my photos. If you wish to use any of my photos for any purpose other than editing in these forums, please ask.
 
///M said:
Joe, Go back to shots you took a year or more ago if you can... you
will often find frames you didn't think were that interesting at the
time that pop. That idea you had when you on location can often
distort your evaluation of the product. Shooting digital can
unfortunately prevent this reflection if you cull out and delete work
in favor of what you feel is important at the time. You need space
from the moment when you shot the images, to see the images for what
they are. So don't trash properly exposed frames until you get that
distance.
Click to expand...
I keep the vast majority of what I shoot since I normally delete the throw-aways when chimping. Right now, just the last years pics alone occupy a 500 GB hard drive (backed up on two other 500 GB drives).

What I meant by saying "it's interesting to contrast people's comments with what I was thinking" is not that I thought the pic was bad (or I'd not have gone to the trouble of a RAW conversion), but that with all the people blasting the 50 / 1.2L for its backfocusing at close AF distances, and this pic was exactly that, and it's what I was thinking when I took the shot! : )

Of course, the BF issue at close AF is only when stopped down, but I have a few close AF stopped down pics that I just fine, too. It's just that you have to use an off-center AF point, which is simply not an issue for me.

--
--joe

http://www.josephjamesphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/joemama/

Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit my photos. If you wish to use any of my photos for any purpose other than editing in these forums, please ask.
 
WOW! thats a major amount of files to manage! TB drives are coming along just in time. (Somewhere I have a crate of 35mm negs... )
 
Joe:
Superb images - as always. Many thanks for sharing.
 
i can see in some of the pics (the tricylce & your daugter with her mom) the subjects look extra sharper and brighter compared with the background.

are they simply due to the shallow DOF?
 
Eden Yip said:
i can see in some of the pics (the tricylce & your daugter with her
mom) the subjects look extra sharper and brighter compared with the
background.

are they simply due to the shallow DOF?
Click to expand...
The 50 / 1.2L vignettes over a stop from center to edge wide open, and it's most likely that which you are seeing. So, it's not the shallow DOF per se, but a result of wide open shooting.

--
--joe

http://www.josephjamesphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/joemama/

Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit my photos. If you wish to use any of my photos for any purpose other than editing in these forums, please ask.
 
joe mama said:
I rented a 16-35 / 2.8L II for the trip, to try it out and see how I
liked it compared to my 16-35 / 2.8L I, but what I concluded is that
I really want a 24 / 1.4L instead. Mostly, I just used the 50 / 1.2L
wide open -- no big surprise there, I guess. : )

The pics are in the reply to this post, and there are a bunch, so
beware of page load times. I didn't take as many pics as I thought I
would, actually, even though the trip was pretty short. Mostly, I
took pics of friends and family, but I tried not to bore you with
those.

I've been accused of not being very creative -- just setting the lens
to max aperture and snapping away. I did take some pics stopped down
(actually, there is one of those in the set), but, quite honestly,
for the most part, I just don't like the look of deeper DOF. Even f
/ 2.8 was pretty stopped down for me. : )

Anyway, like I said, the pics are in the reply -- I hope you enjoy
and don't find them too boring due to a lack of variety in f-ratios.
Click to expand...
Welcome back Joe. I've kind of missed our little "quarrels" :) Very nice pics. Please bore us with some of your family/friends stuff too. And btw, I had some responses to you about your "equivalence" essay in the "Please show off your 85mm f1,8..." thread, that you might want to see.
 
Hi Joe,

thank you for sharing some amazing photos. I love your style.

Please can you share with us your impressions of the 16-35 II. What are its strengths and weaknesses. What tipped you toward the 24L?

Thanks.
 
Nice shots Joe

I'd be interested to know what focusing technique you use when wide open 50/1.2 & 100/2 i.e. One shot, AI Servo, CF4.1 or shutter button to focus, focus recompose centre point or nearest outer point etc..

--
5D~35L~50/1.4~85L~85/1.8~135L~Kenko 1.4x & 2x~Tamron 17-35/2.8-4~G7
 
Hi Joe!

Very nice :)
joe mama said:
Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit my photos.
Click to expand...
The first one is really cool with the three people heading the same way, but the staircase(?) is a bit distracting.

In the one with the umbrealls, the air vent(?) in the upper left corner draws my eye away from the umbrellas- Clone or crop, maybe?

Anyway, really sweet collection :) I hope to someday be shooting in Japan, too. Wouldn't mind some pics like yours! :)

Cheers
Jens

--
http://www.JensRoesner.de
 
joe mama said:
So was that Spotmatic 1.6x or FF? : )
Click to expand...
Heh, heh! Those were the "good ole' days", never having to multiply focal lengths (unless you had an Olympus PenFT). Unfortunately, I got bit by the new Pentax K-mount in about 1978, sold all of my screw-mount stuff, then baby came and I had to economize on the lenses, so no more bright primes (35 f/2 and 85 f/1.8, or for that matter my 20mm) - I've recently been scanning in some of those old Spotmatic slides and working on them - now I realize what I've been missing!

By the way, in my signature photo below, that is the 85mm f/1.8 I'm looking through (shot by a friend at my request with my other body and 50mm f/1/4 SMC Takumar, circa 1976).
joe mama said:
My wife is pressuring me to make it my "first home", and I am finding
it harder and harder to find a reason not to do so. On this last
trip, I hiked Yatsugatake, but only one peak. On my next visit, I'm
doing all eight -- they're incredibly beautiful and close to my
wife's hometown. My legs are still sore from the one, though. It
was a furious pace to get up and down in just one afternoon.
Click to expand...
What prefecture is Yatsugatake in? I would dream of living in a small mountain village - if I could figure out a way to earn a decent living. Unfortunately, so much of my living/work experience has been in the "big city", i.e. esp. the Tokyo area. My wife is from a small city in Kyushu, near Kagoshima, near to which are some nice mountain villages.
joe mama said:
--joe

http://www.josephjamesphotography.com
http://www.pbase.com/joemama/

Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit my photos.
If you wish to use any of my photos for any purpose other than
editing in these forums, please ask.
Click to expand...
--
-Dennis W.
Austin, Texas

 
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