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Nikon 85mm f/2

An 85mm portrait lens has been the obvious gap in my Nikon prime kit-bag for quite a while.

This one came mail-order from Fukushima (!) for 13,000 yen. It’s manual focus, but compare the price to the 85mm f/1.4 (69,800 yen used) or the 85mm f/1.8 (29,800 yen). Bargain.

Seems there may be some variation in quality between the lenses out there, but look at the photos below. Mine is as sharp as any Nikon lens I have. The colours and bokeh are gorgeous. The lens is smaller than both the other 85mm lens, and even the 50mm. (Looks like Ken Rockwell got a good one too, if you want more details).

To date, I’ve used my workhorse 24-70 f/2.8 zoom for environmental portraits or a 50mm f/1.4 for up-close and bokeh. But time to practice my manual focus for a portrait shoot with this beauty.

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May 14, 2012 | Categories: new lens | Tags: 85mm, f/2, lens | 1 Comment »

Cherry blossom + Parkour

This is beginning to turn into a proper photo project. (Previous shoot here).

More Tokyo Parkour, this time with a Japanese flavour, early morning in Ueno park in the middle of the cherry-blossom season. (It was beautiful but very cold).

I used a 16mm manual focus fisheye on my D700. Not easy to find the right angle with that lens. Some of the shots had me flat on my back.

Night-time Parkour shoot next I reckon.

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Apr 30, 2012 | Categories: my photos | Tags: cherry blossom, hanami, Parkour, sakura | Leave A Comment »

A FabLabulous idea

Wouldn’t it be great to make household items just by downloading instructions from the internet and turning on a 3D printer?

The digital fabrication revolution started at MIT in the US a few years ago and last spring it came to Japan. I was really lucky to be one of the first people to visit FabLab Kamakura. I even got a FabLab made holder for my reporter’s notebook!

As a photo job, the main challenge was the somewhat small and static location. ’Fabmaster’ Hiroya Tanaka set up in an old sake storehouse. Very beautiful, but very dark and pokey.

The FabLab concept has all sorts of benefits. It’s eco-friendly because it removes the need for distribution. Its creative because you can make anything if you have the right design and the right machine. And it’s fun.

Tanaka-san and others are giving FabLab a bit of a Japanese twist. He told me they are cooperating linking up with some of the many traditional artisans based in Kamakura.

The FabLab concept reminds me a bit of the mingei movement actually. (The Mingei museum in Komaba is one of my favourite spots in Tokyo).

Quite a few people believe that digital fabrication will be a transformative technology – on a par with the invention of electricity or the internet. I wonder . . .

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Apr 16, 2012 | Categories: my photos | Tags: digital fabrication, FabLab, Kamakura, MIT | Leave A Comment »

Tokyo playground

This was a fantastic commmision. How much more photogenic can you get than people doing acrobatics in the middle of the city?

The principle behind Parkour (AKA freerunning) is pretty simple – the quickest, most natural way from moving from A to B. There are a couple of Parkour groups in Tokyo, but it’s not that popular here. According to Sullivan (in the night shots below) the number of Tokyo ’traceurs’ is in the low tens.

I knew almost nothing about Parkour before this story so I was surprised to learn it’s influenced by Western military training methods, Eastern martial arts, and even the films of Jackie Chan. Interestingly, there aren’t any Parkour competitions. It’s more a discipline than a sport – about training your body and mind to overcome all sorts of obstacles.

I called this blog (and my story) Tokyo playground. Parkour started as kids testing their athleticism in the playground. Its philosophy is to make a playground of the whole city. Quite a radical idea when you think about it. Tokyo is so grey and crowded. In a way, it’s one of the most alienating cities in the world. Good to see it from a completely new perspective.

Don’t suppose I’ll be doing backflips on the train platform any time soon though.