I was at the Tokyo Dome earlier in the afternoon for the press briefing about this weekend's XTrail Jam snowboard competition, which I am at on Sunday taking photos for Nippon News. Before I met a friend later, I had some time and went up to the 25th floor of the nearby Bunkyou Civic Centre to shoot a few pics of the view. The sun had dropped but as the lights came on it was pretty good. On a clear day you can see Mount Fuji through the twin towers of the Tocho [Tokyo Metropolitan Government] building in Shinjuku.

It's when I am taking shots like this I wish I was either using 5x4 film again, on a view-camera or, for digital, something like the new D3X. But, those will have to wait for a little while yet. The 5x4 is coming in the new year.

Nikon D300
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
5-frame bracketed HDR merged in Photomatix 2.5.4

Tags:   tokyo city cityscape buildings skyscrapers shinkousha tocho twin towers japan japanese asia asian urban sprawl dense megalopolis metropolis bunkyou shinjuku suidobashi sunset sun sky clouds hdr Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8

© All Rights Reserved

I shot this from just next to the bridge into Battersea Park, not far from our friend's flat. A mixed day on the weather front, so typically British! No tripod so camera braced on railings to keep it {not quite} still.

Nikon D300
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
5-Frame bracketed exposure
HDR made with Photomatix

Tags:   architecture battersea britain british building clouds derelict england london power river sky station thames

© All Rights Reserved

Well, well, well... what a sunset this evening. Just a shame that Mount Fuji was hiding behind a band of cloud which, over the course of the 30mins I was on the roof of our flat, didnt move hardly at all. Anyway, this evening's sunset was hardly spoiled by it. Far from it in fact. I never tire of standing on our roof watching the view. The winter days when the air is clear here in Tokyo and you get sunsets like this, who could possibly tire of such a scene?

The perfect end to a pretty cool day, on which I got to meet one of my heroes; animated film director, Hayao Miyazaki.

Nikon D300
80-200mm f/2.8 ED IF @ f8
250 ASA / ISO
7-shot bracketed HDR blended with Photomatix v.2.5.4 [I can't get on with the new version of Photomatix, the quality of the generated HDRs is so much more noisy. So I've gone back to the older version]

Very little changed from the original impact of the colour as it was in real life. The HDR was made with a minimum of tone-mapping.

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Tags:   japan japanese asia asian tokyo omori shinagawa sunset sun light orange landscape cityscape stunning evening dusk setting sunshine urban mountain fuji mount volcano SEVENTEEN7PHOOT geo:lat=35.593739 geo:lon=139.735931 geotagged

© All Rights Reserved

I shot this just a few minutes after the other shot on here. The sunset just went on changing colour slightly for a little after this, with the evening encroaching and all the lights in the buildings coming on. Evening twilight. The air getting cold. But what a wonderful scene.

If you look at the ridgeline of the mountains in front of Fuji-san, you can see the silhouettes of the treeline, whish has to be at least 80km - 100km away. That 300mm is old but it is sharp as f**k.

Nikon D300
Nikkor 300mm f/4 ED
5-shot bracket merged in Photomatix

Tags:   80-200mm afternoon asia asian buildings city cityscape d300 evening fuji fuji-san f_2_8_ hdr japan japanese landscape lights mount mountain nikonnikkor peak skyscrapers sun sunset tokyo urban volcano winter blue

© All Rights Reserved

Another from the couple of hours I was shooting at Bunkyou Civic Centre the other evening.This one was shot a little after the sun had gone down showing the amazing Shinkousha [Cocoon] building in Shinjuku on the right with the twin towers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, Tocho, to the left. Mount Fuji had been hidden in cloud for most of the time me and mhy buddy Jonathan were shooting. But, for just ten minutes or so, it poked its head out the clouds. Snap! Gotcha.

Nikon D300
Nikkor 300mm f/4 ED
5-frame bracketed burst
HDR Merged in Photomatix 2.5.4

Tags:   asia asian buildings bunkyou city cityscape clouds dense hdr japan japanese megalopolis metropolis shinjuku shinkousha sky skyscrapers sprawl suidobashi sun sunset tocho tokyo towers twin urban twilight Nikkor 300mm f/4

© All Rights Reserved