A few months ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Japan. Photographically speaking, it was clear that a mobile telephone camera or other ‘small sensor’ camera would not be desirable, and this left me with essentially choosing between my Nikon D70S and Nikon D700.
Although the D70S had probably the more appropriate lens for travel photography (an 18-70 mm DX standard zoom lens), the D700 had undoubtedly better image quality and, as a much newer body, greater reliability. Not wanting to pay Nikon several hundred dollars for a new standard zoom lens that would match the D700, it came down to a choice between the 35 mm f/2 prime lens and the 50 mm f/1.8 prime lens. In the end, I chose to take the 50 mm lens as it seems overall a bit sharper than the 35 mm lens.
I expected to be somewhat limited on this trip, photographically speaking, but I also remembered previous travels on which I’d taken just a prime lens and hadn’t felt like I missed out on too much. How did this particular trip go, then? It’s clear that I would have been much better off if I’d brought a standard zoom lens—the sheer flexibility of being able to move between wide-angle and telephoto framing with a single lens cannot be underestimated. But in the end, I don’t feel as if things went as badly as I thought they might have.
Shooting with a prime lens does make you work harder, and it’s certainly true that you just can’t get some types of pictures (e.g., wide-angle landscapes), but I think that once you accept that a fixed focal length is a limitation you’ve decided to work with, it doesn’t become as big a concern. When travelling, do you always think about the pictures you’ve missed because you couldn’t get 50 m up in the air? Of course not, because getting 50 m up in the air is simply not an option for most of us!
Here’s a Japanese street scene that could have benefited from the use of a wide-angle lens, but I think a 50 mm lens with appropriate composition captures the scene adequately. Notice the absence of rubbish on the ground. Japan is a very tidy place, overall, and saves some photographers considerable time in editing out rubbish from the ground (in post-processing) …
While being 50 m up in the air to take a photograph is not usually an option, it does help if there is a tower nearby—in this case, the Sapporo JR Tower (JR denotes the Japan Railways Group). For greater depth of field, I shot at smaller apertures than usual, and braced myself against walls (and took several frames of each scene) so that I could maximise my chances of capturing a sharp image.
I don’t think a small picture on a website does this scene justice, but below is a misty footpath on a mountain in Odori Park. It was mid-morning, but the fine mist gave the area a certain air of tranquility.
It was the end of September, and the Germans were out in force, playing and singing to promote Oktoberfest (or presumably some festival like it). Well, I can’t be certain, but they did stop their music every now and then to take a drink …
Taking pictures of street signs in foreign languages can be a tremendous source of amusement, particularly when the message is not translated particularly well into a language that you’re able to read. In this case, this was a rather serious type of sign, and not one we would see in Australia.
Asahiyama Zoo, on the island of Hokkaido, features a few animals native to colder climates. In the following pictures of two of the Zoo’s residents, we can also see the quality of bokeh from the Nikkor AF 50 mm f/1.8 lens—passable for scenes with ‘busy’ backgrounds, but not particularly good, let alone spectacular. (Compare these to the bokeh in the picture above, which has a much cleaner background, which is also a greater distance away—and that helps.)
I didn’t get to see very much of Tokyo Disneyland, but the castle and a mobile piano (with an ebullient Canadian player) were highlights.
Minnie Mouse is probably one of the best known Disney characters, and there was quite a queue to see and be photographed with her at Tokyo Disneyland. She was attended by no less than three full-time photographers (in smart tan and khaki outfits) and a few ushers.
At Shibuya train station is a statue in remembrance of Hachiko, a Japanese dog famous for waiting for its master to return from work (via train) for years after the man had died. (If you’re thinking this story sounds familiar, Hachiko predated Western Australia’s Red Dog by some 40 years.)
Some days, we have to be grateful that avionic technology allows us to fly safely in adverse weather …
Travel photography in Japan with just a 50 mm lens? Feasible.