Travel Photo: Out Shooting the Dam with an Old Friend

It's Been a Few Years Since I Last Used this Camera

 

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 got dusted off and taken to Kin Dam today.

The Pentax K3 was mounted on a tripod and, waiting for some birds to fly by.

After a few days of cold weather and rain, it was time to get and get some sun and exercise.

A bit of a chilly breeze started blowing so, I reached in my camera bag for a windbreaker.

That's when, I remembered, I had brought the little Panasonic along.

When, I yanked my jacket out of the bag, the camera went flying and, crashed to the ground.

The poor camera was sent in for a tune-up earlier this year and, came back like brand new.

It cost a few hundred bucks but, I liked that old camera. And, now it's busted, again.

That's what I figured, I deserved anyway. Here's the test photo, I shot.

Exposure:  f/5.6  1/500   ISO 100

Focal length: 7MM

Location: Just off HWY 104 standing above the Kin Dam, Okinawa, Japan

Date and Time: DEC 9 2015  3:08PM

A similar shot was taken from the same location with the camera at f/11.

But, dark clouds had rolled into the scene so, it's been digitally disposed of; trash.

And, I will have a big decision to make if, this blog ever hits 2 million views.

For the celebration:

Should I give away the Panasonic or, the Cannon G12 ? 

Related Post:

 Panasonic DMC-FZ50 Review of a Good Old Camera

Then and Now (Photos) Kin Kannon Temple Okinawa, Japan

This photo of Kin Kannon Temple was taken in 1966 by photographer Donn Cuson.

Here is a photo of Kin Kannon Temple taken yesterday afternoon.

Other than Coca Cola and Pepsi vending machines, a cell phone tower and a satellite dish antenna (far left) for the Buddhist Monks to watch TV, the place hasn't changed all that much in the past 46 years.

This temple was built sometime back in the 16th Century as the result of a Buddhist missionary being rescued from a typhoon-wrecked ship by the people of Kin Village.

There are more spirits on these temple grounds than all the other spiritual places I've visited in my travels around the world !



Then Photo was taken with a Canon 7

Now Photo taken with a Canon G12  



NOTE:  It has been brought to my attention that some folks interested in following this Then and Now Series are experiencing difficulty locating the posts.


In the near future a Then and Now page will be created to make things more reader friendly.


Please, bear with me on this.


There are a few of us Ryukyu Cameramen, really excited about this project.


We are traveling all over the island of Okinawa, Japan doing whatever it takes to identify, locate and recompose those photos on the REMEMBERING OKINAWA Website.

It is a work-in-progress that requires plenty of outdoors exercise, research, patience, and time but, we are determined to document every recognizable site we can find.  It's a blast !


Shooting these photos from the same perspective as the original is our goal and that can be a real challenge, at times.

We have received some excellent support from members of local communities in identifying the THEN sites when we tell them it is to obtain a NOW photo, 50-60 years later. 

It dawned on me,  just this week,  we should take photos of the process we go through in making this series.  The smiles we encounter on the faces of Okinawan people, the methods we use looking for a certain location, how we get there and some of the trying, hilarious or dangerous situations we get into to take a photo, are all part of the story.  A book could be written about it but, we are cameramen, and busy.


The good old Google Search for "Then and Now Photos Okinawa" works fine, for now. 
As soon as I get ten in this series of blog posts complete,  a Then and Now Page will be created.


More Then and Now Photos

The Flying Spider-monkey Tree Fern (Cyathea lepifera) Photos

The ferns right behind the pink and white flowers in this photo don't look very tall when viewed from this angle.  I was up in a tower shooting an Azalea Festival at the time and thought they added some interesting colors and contrast to my shot.  I took this photo with the Panasonic DMC-FZ50 in March 2009.

These ferns grow all over the forests of northern Okinawa, the area we call Yanbaru.  Today I was back up that way again shooting coffee plants when Flying Spider-monkey Tree Fern popped into my head.

Here's a shot from 2009 that I took with the Pentax KD10.  It's just a sprout of a fern that I couldn't identify, at the time.  I narrowed it down to two of the thousands of types you can find in the fern family but, was never sure what the thing really is supposed to be called.

As I was leaving the area where the coffee plants were and brushing spider webs out of my face walking up a jungle trail, I spotted these guys overhead and shot them with the Canon G12.  No tripod, handheld and with camera flash turned on,  I snapped a few quick shots and got out of there as fast as I could.  Spiders and monkeys and ferns, I had to figure this out TODAY before it really drives me crazy.

Doc and RyukyuRu were up above at the coffee house drinking freshly made iced coffee.  I didn't mention spiders, monkeys, or anything.  I drank some coffee, too.  Then, shot a few more photos of little potted coffee plants.  Doc bought a couple of them.  We thanked the guy running the place and went off on our next adventure, chasing the sun with our cameras.

A few hours later as we were coming down out of the mountains RyukyuRu says "Hey, Mike.  Look at those ferns.  There's a bunch of them over there".  I told him they're spider monkey arm ferns, or something like that.  And, they have been driving me nuts, ever since.

Well, I downloaded my camera and developed the shots.  Then, I did some serious research.

They are Flying Spider-monkey Tree Ferns (Cyathea lepifera) because someone thinks the way the new plants and leafs form looks like a spider monkey's arm.  I don't make this stuff up.

REFERENCES:

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TREE FERNS photos and descriptions.

WIKIMEDIAORG photo from Okinawa, Japan.

SPIDER MONKEYS FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC for monkey fans.

The Mountains and Ocean Are Calling Me (Photos)

This weekend an event that happens only once every two years takes place in Ada, a coastal village in the northeast area of Okinawa, Japan.  It's called the Shinugu Matsuri (Festival) but, there won't be any of the trappings you'd see at most festivals.  Here are a few photos from the event in August of 2009.

The mountains, ocean, and river play a role in this event and I will capture all I can from whichever angles the light suits me best.  I'll be putting the Panasonic, Pentax, and Canon through their paces.

          There will be some high contrast photography in daylight and during the hours of darkness. 

        There will be gals, both young and old, dancing around fires for me to capture on digital film.

After a long, hard day humping all my camera gear up mountain trails and down to the ocean, I might just hand one of my cameras to someone else.  Then, have a sip of the local spirits and jump in on the last dance so, someone can snap a photo of watashi!  Reckon that'd be alright?

A Whatchamacallit Kinda Day in Bise Okinawa (Photos)

Today the better half and I went to the village of Bise in Okinawa, Japan.  She'd never been there before and has been bugging me to take her ever since she saw the first photos I shot, way back when of the fukugi trees lining the streets in the little town.  More about the whatchamacallit in the photo above, later.

The wife fell in love with my new CANON G12 and wanted to shoot the fukugi trees.  She knew I'd be packing my tripod and camera gear to do some photography so, she wanted to try some, too.

The first thing we ran into driving on the narrow, main road going into town was this water buffalo pulling a cartload of tourists.  My camera bag was in the back seat.  By the time I pulled off the side of the road to make room for the contraption and had my camera ready to shoot, the water bull was passing.  I snapped this quick shot with the PENTAX K5 through the open, driver's side window.

The Missus took this photo of whatchamacallit plants with the Canon G12.  All of a sudden anything that resembles those elephant ear plants, no matter what shape, or color they are, has become an elephant ear plant.  She could be right but, for now, they're just whatchamacallits, to me.

We wandered the streets of Bise and shot photos of the trees, all kinds of flowers and it was kinda fun.  I still have a pile of photos to develop and look at.  Then, serious research begins.

The Canon, the wife was shooting, I set to fully AUTO MODE so, her photos are JPGs, right out of the camera.  If and when I ever get the new camera in my hands, I'll switch it to fully Manual Mode and be shooting RAW files.  Not sure yet if its the Canon, Pentax, or the RAW converter program I use but, the color in the Pentax photos sure looks better than what the Canon created, to me.

While the Canon Lady was (ahem) composing shots of the (ahem) elephant ears, I pretended I was shooting them, too.  This big, fat, juicy caterpillar was munching on an elephant ear plant so loud I could almost hear him.  The wife would scream if she saw the rascal.

He was probably just eating a leaf that was dying, anyway.  But, whenever she sees one of these things in our garden she acts like it's some kind of humongous snake. HELP!   ANACONDA!

Maybe it'd be a good idea for me to study up on these critters.  They look like they might just turn out to be a really pretty butterfly.  Probably a great big one, too.  But, for now, they're just whatchamacallits like the rest of the stuff I don't know.

Greenstuff squirts out of them when you step on one.  Squirts pretty far, too, if you stomp on one really hard (ahem) so I've been told.  Anyway, this guy just got his picture taken today and got to keep munching away because (ahem) nobody saw him.

The whatchamacallit character in the first photo I bought from this gal who runs a seashell shop.

We became friends on my previous trips to Bise and I'm always forgetting to bring photos I promised her. 

The wife bought some trinket and I got me the character.  I may make a logo out of him someday.

Anyway, once I got home, I grabbed the G12 and snapped the photo of the handsome-looking dude at the kitchen table using the wife's special camera settings while she was busy doing something else.

I'll have to sneak out of the house with that camera sometime and see what it'll do with my settings on it. 

A thorough review of that little puppy is coming soon.  Please standby...