NIKON Z 8 (48mm, f/4, 1/250 sec, ISO640)
Blog post number six that covers the second day of our first trip to Japan. A day to remember.
Early morning we took the train from Osaka to Kyoto. We saw the beautiful old town of Kyoto, amazing temples and gardens and are now on the way back to the train station. The sun is about to set but it is still warm. We literally walked for miles and I took hundreds of images on a single day. We are exhausted but happy.
We just landed the day before but we are already completely forgot our daily grind. That’s the magic of traveling. You enter a new world and you immediately leave your little problems behind. There are so many new things that crab your attention there simply is no time to worry about life.
NIKON Z 8 (61mm, f/4, 1/500 sec, ISO200)
NIKON Z 8 (27mm, f/4, 1/500 sec, ISO200)
The light was magic when we passed by this beautiful house. It looked like a temple but I think it was a normal house. There was a Japanese sign in the entry gate. I used google translate on my iPhone to read it and it simply said: feel free to enter. So that’s what we did. There was this beautiful young woman in a kimono and I couldn’t resist to steal a candid portrait. She and her friend also used this perfect little garden as a backdrop for a couple of portraits. This place was just beautiful and even though it was next to the busy walkway there were no other visitors thanks to the Japanese sign. Most did not take the time to translate it.
We could have taken a taxi to the train station but we decided to walk.
NIKON Z 8 (24mm, f/4, 1/250 sec, ISO1100)
NIKON Z 8 (26mm, f/4, 1/250 sec, ISO800)
NIKON Z 8 (26mm, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO1800)
I was still talking pictures on the streets of Kyoto but meanwhile switched to my smallest lens as my neck started to hurt. I had my camera on my neck since early morning and only packed it away during our lunch break. I used heavy cameras in the past but it has been a while. The last 8 years I mainly shot with my Fuji X-Pro2 plus small prime lenses. You hardly recognise the Fuji but my Nikon Z8 is a completely different animal. It’s about twice the size and depending on the lens it’s twice the weight too. And it doesn’t help that I don’t get any younger. But like my X-Pro2 it fits like a glove.
I’m glad that I decided to get the Z 26mm F2.8 right before the trip. It transfers the camera. Now there is no big lens sticking out of the fron of my camera. The 26/2.8 is super small and it weighs next to nothing. A perfect match and just perfect after a long day of shooting. AF is impressive on my Z8. I used AF-C and wide area face detection on all those images. The camera is fast and totally silent. A street shooters dream.
NIKON Z 8 (26mm, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO640)
NIKON Z 8 (26mm, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO280)
Time to get on our train back to Osaka. It was a long day. According to my phone we walked 20.000 steps. What a day! We were very tired so I even set the alarm on my phone in order to make sure that we don’t miss our station should we fall asleep like the guy next to us. Everywhere in Asia I saw people sleeping in trains and always wondered how they manage to wake up and leave the train at their destination.
Our seat neighbour managed the trick. He left the train before us. We managed to stay awake and left the train at our station. We had Ramen for dinner and fell asleep early despite our jet lag.
NIKON Z 8 (26mm, f/2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO4500)