I’ve been shooting my haikyo and structures photos for months now with a Canon Powershot compact camera. It was the best camera I’ve owned- which is not saying a great deal- though it is a nice compact. But too many times I’ve been to haikyo in poor conditions and:
1- come back with poor photos due to low-light conditions, and
2- felt shamed by other haikyoists packing dSLRs, getting more value from the location with their superior cameras.
So- I sped the levelling process and bought a Nikon d90 with 3 lenses in the past few days- thanks to Jason for his advice. We went on a night photo-walk after the purchase and I took a few photos:
This was shot in the Okubo station underpass.
The lenses I got, after plenty of discussion over what I really needed, are:
Tamron 18-50mm 2.8f: Useful as a walk-around lens, shooting fairly wide on buildings, shooting in haikyo in so-so light conditions- of course OK with tripod.
Sigma 70-200mm 2.8f: Telephoto lens, not so much for haikyo, but I’ll use it to shoot candids of people round the city- a content stream I’ll add in the next few weeks.
Prime 50mm 1.4f: Prime lens good for getting background blur, low light shots of objects, and general low-light shooting.
I’ll hasten to add that I’m certainly no expert. I thought about getting a cheaper package- just one lens, 18-200mm, 3.5f, but figured if I’ll spend that much, why not spend a bit more? Either way- now I’ve got some great lenses I can grow into.
A few more photos:
Lanterns somewhere near Okubo station. Kana reads- Hoppy! Perhaps beer? I’m not sure.
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More lanterns, same area. Not enough light really to shoot much else.
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Me- shot by Jason, modeling my awesome new camera.
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Am looking forward to bringing you some better quality images in the future.