Autumn Photography in Japan with a 4x5

ndwgolf

ndwgolf

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Neil Williams
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Well its getting close and I'm off to Japan in 2 1/2 weeks time, two days in Osaka four days in Kyoto and finish off one night in Nara before coming home. I have rented a car for the whole trip picking it up in Osaka Airport and dropping off at the same location. Last year we did the same in Tokyo and drove 100's of miles to places I cant remember the names but we had a fantastic time going to all the places the tourists miss.

This time I have a plan of where I want to go and what I want to shoot so what do I go and do..............yesterday I went ahead and bought myself a Chamonix 4x5 and will take that along with a dozen pre loaded 4x5 film holders loaded with Ektar 100 colour film. I have no plans on developing on the fly I will take the used film holders back to KL after the trip and develop the film myself in Kuala Lumpur. So I will hopefully have 24 x4x5 colour shots when i get home and whatever else I shoot with my S007...........

There are many places now in japan (so I am Told) that wont let you take a tripod so not sure how I will get on shooting my 4x5 hand held but I am sure there is a way and if there is I will find it..............only joking. But this is the reason why I am taking a car so that we can go to the none touristy photography friendly places (Rivers, streams, lakes etc etc ) and hopefully get some nice pictures at the same time seeing a bit of the country side. When I mentioned to Nuk (my wife) that I was taking a large format camera she was not impressed and said she doesn't want to hear me shouting again........that was another story

Hopefully the guys at the airport in Japan are film friendly............I guess I will find out sooner than later :)
Pictures to follow

Neil
 
Well enjoy but can you speak Japanese? As I've read the Japanese have about the same knowledge of English as we have of Japanese :eek:
 
excalibur2 said:
Well enjoy but can you speak Japanese? As I've read the Japanese have about the same knowledge of English as we have of Japanese :eek:
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You're surely not suggesting we should restrict our holiday destinations to locations where we can speak the local language? If that were the case I wouldn't be able to go anywhere!
 
RaglanSurf said:
You're surely not suggesting we should restrict our holiday destinations to locations where we can speak the local language? If that were the case I wouldn't be able to go anywhere!
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Well outside cities touring by car is different erm Whats Japanese for "I'm lost can to tell me the way to....." ;)
 
excalibur2 said:
Well enjoy but can you speak Japanese? As I've read the Japanese have about the same knowledge of English as we have of Japanese :eek:
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Brian.......smiling normally gets it :) :)
Car comes with an english speaking GPS and they work off of telephone numbers..........put in the land line telephone number and it will take you there :)

The younger generation can speak english......can you speak Japanese????

Neil
 
ndwgolf said:
The younger generation can speak english
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Ah but all the youngens would have moved to the cities and you will be meeting the old folk in remote places ;) Anyway if you thought there was a problem you wouldn't be going, Don't forget there are some cheaper camera shops over there but you might have to be lucky coming thru' UK customs although something secondhand under £100 they probably won't be interested.
 
Carl Hall said:
If I didn't travel to places where I couldn't speak the language, I wouldn't be allowed out of Somerset!
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Oi! Get back in your village!
 
ndwgolf said:
Well its getting close and I'm off to Japan in 2 1/2 weeks time, two days in Osaka four days in Kyoto and finish off one night in Nara before coming home. I have rented a car for the whole trip picking it up in Osaka Airport and dropping off at the same location. Last year we did the same in Tokyo and drove 100's of miles to places I cant remember the names but we had a fantastic time going to all the places the tourists miss.
Click to expand...

Those are awesome places to visit and photograph. I was in all of those places you mentioned over the summer and we're heading back to Japan again in a few weeks (although we're heading to Kyūshu this time). I've been using a Rolleiflex and a Plaubel Makina 67, however, which are a bit easier to get around with than a large format camera. I hope it goes well with the bigger camera.

There are some great places for camera shopping in Japan too...

ndwgolf said:
Hopefully the guys at the airport in Japan are film friendly............I guess I will find out sooner than later :)
Pictures to follow
Click to expand...

They are quite film friendly, but they can be sticklers for rules and procedures. I had one agent who accepted the request for a hand check, but she insisted she had to swab every single roll of 120 film I was carrying, so we were waiting a while. It was fine though, as we weren't in a rush.

excalibur2 said:
Well enjoy but can you speak Japanese? As I've read the Japanese have about the same knowledge of English as we have of Japanese :eek:
Click to expand...

If you learn to read katakana, which you could conceivably do in a few hours, you will discover that there's quite a bit of English being used in Japan that is hidden in plain sight. Learn to read that and a lot of signs, menus, food labels, etc. suddenly become readable, as so much is borrowed from English.

For instance, film camera in Japanese is フィルム　カメラ (firumu kamera in roman letters), hamburger is ハンバーガー (or hanbāgā), beer is ビール (or bīru), and hotel is ホテル (or hoteru in roman letters).

As for how much English is spoken, we definitely encountered quite a few people who couldn't speak English (or were too embarrassed to speak much English), but we did go off the beaten path for bits (particularly in Hokkaido).
 
excalibur2 said:
Well enjoy but can you speak Japanese? As I've read the Japanese have about the same knowledge of English as we have of Japanese :eek:
Click to expand...

Doogle translate Brian, sorted. :D
 
excalibur2 said:
An idea Andy but if your mobile needs recharging it's 100v in Japan, so it would need a Japanese charger.
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If you have a relatively new phone (e.g., smartphone), most of those can handle different voltages as indicated on the charger. I think my iPhone charger says 110v–240v on it, for instance, and we had no trouble charging these in Japan.
 
skysh4rk said:
Those are awesome places to visit and photograph. I was in all of those places you mentioned over the summer and we're heading back to Japan again in a few weeks (although we're heading to Kyūshu this time). I've been using a Rolleiflex and a Plaubel Makina 67, however, which are a bit easier to get around with than a large format camera. I hope it goes well with the bigger camera.

There are some great places for camera shopping in Japan too...



They are quite film friendly, but they can be sticklers for rules and procedures. I had one agent who accepted the request for a hand check, but she insisted she had to swab every single roll of 120 film I was carrying, so we were waiting a while. It was fine though, as we weren't in a rush.



If you learn to read katakana, which you could conceivably do in a few hours, you will discover that there's quite a bit of English being used in Japan that is hidden in plain sight. Learn to read that and a lot of signs, menus, food labels, etc. suddenly become readable, as so much is borrowed from English.

For instance, film camera in Japanese is フィルム　カメラ (firumu kamera in roman letters), hamburger is ハンバーガー (or hanbāgā), beer is ビール (or bīru), and hotel is ホテル (or hoteru in roman letters).

As for how much English is spoken, we definitely encountered quite a few people who couldn't speak English (or were too embarrassed to speak much English), but we did go off the beaten path for bits (particularly in Hokkaido).
Click to expand...

.....knowing a few foreign words and using your hands. is useful..worked for me ;)
 
skysh4rk said:
If you have a relatively new phone (e.g., smartphone), most of those can handle different voltages as indicated on the charger. I think my iPhone charger says 110v–240v on it, for instance, and we had no trouble charging these in Japan.
Click to expand...

Hey you are right as I just looked at my charger and it says 100-240v..you learn something everyday (y)
 
mmmmm........shopping.....:naughty:


fuji 6x8..............xpan.........TX2...............GF670W..........horseman convertible..........linhof 220.......mmmmm.......:hungover:


:lock:
 
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