Japan Photography » Panorama

Osu Kannon Temple and Shopping Mall – Spherical Pano

steve — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:41:49 +0000

Osu Temple

The Osu Kannon Temple and shopping mall located in central Nagoya has a classic Japanese pagoda style Buddhist temple that is a popular tourist spot. Osu Kannon first was established in 1612 but the current temple is a replica built in the 1970′s.

The price of goods at this huge outdoor type shopping mall isn’t the cheapest but you will find a big selection. It’s known by the foreigners for the many computer and gaming stores.

Osu Shopping Mall

Osu Kannon Temple

Below you will find my spherical panorama taken on market day at Osu Kannon Temple.

Held rain or shine on 18th and 29th of each month, throughout the year this market is great to browse even without an intention to buy.

*** If your reading in Lonely Planet please click my blog link to see a panorama from the inside.

Click the panorama to start it.

Higashiyama Botanical Gardens – Spherical Panorama

steve — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:41:53 +0000

Higashiyama Koen

Higashiyama Botanical Gardens is located along side the Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya, Japan.

The garden collections include Aconitum, Camelia, Gentiana, Glycyrrhiza, Papaver, Rheum, and native wild flora, as well as a greenhouse, insect hall, and a Japanese garden.

Only one ticket is required for the zoo and gardens plus you can walk in a huge park with many sights.

TEL: 052-782-2111 FAX: 052-782-2140
3-70, Higashiyama-motomachi, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-0804

*** If your reading in Lonely Planet please click my blog link to see a panorama from the inside.

Click the panorama to start it.

Atsuta Jingu Shrine – spherical panorama

steve — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:25:09 +0000

Atsuta Jingu is one of the top places to see in Nagoya, Japan. It’s located in a huge park with many old trees and buildings. It’s said to house the famous sacred sword Kusanagi-no-tsurugi, one of the three sacred treasures that symbolize the Imperial throne. They also have nice museum with many old items including swords.

Today many Japanese go there for weddings, festivals and yearly events.

This is my second panorama of a major place in Japan. Full screen is the best way to view it.

** If your viewing in Lonely Planet then please click the post link to see it in my blog.

Nagoya Castle spherical panorama

steve — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:22:52 +0000

I’ve been practicing my spherical panoramas lately and thought it was a nice day for a Nagoya Castle shoot.

I really like the way these look and so I started to make them of my favorite places.

Just click the flash window below and move the mouse around in 360 degrees and mouse wheel to zoom in. Best viewed when selecting the full screen mode.

** If your viewing in Lonely Planet then please click the post link to see it in my blog.

Spherical panorama – 2nd attempt

steve — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:10:59 +0000

This is my second try taken at the Higashiyama Botanical Gardens in Nagoya. Keep in mind I did this one for practice, it’s done fast and sloppy.

The first big mistake, I forgot to use the aperture “sweet-spot” and everything turned out slightly blurry or soft. I wanted to get the foreground and background in focus so I used f22 (I decided after that I really didn’t need to use such a high stop anyhow) where the effects of diffraction start showing f16 and up on most lenses. I was using the Carl Zeiss 1635 which does have defraction at f22 and “sweet-spot” at around f11. The best way is to focus stack if you have objects you want in the foreground to be sharp along with the background at infinity.

Ultimately I would want to focus stack and use the HDR feature of the StitcherUnlimited to get the photo right. Once I get better at it I’ll put more effort into it.

Second mistake, I didn’t use a remote trigger (I forgot to bring it) which might of caused some blur pressing the shutter button. Even if I used Mirror Lockup the action of pressing the button caused my camera to move some on my light tripod.

Beware that the computer processing power needed for these is tremendous. I have an i7 Intel chip 2.93 with Vista 64bit 8Gigs of ram. The program only runs in 32bit mode (bummer) and takes a very long time even on a current machine. These last 2 took about 2 to 3 hours to create.

Spherical panorama – my first attempt

steve — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:17:41 +0000

This my first attempt at making a spherical panorama. I used Autodesk StitcherUnlimited 2009, Sony a700 at 16mm (24 full frame), and a regular tripod head (worst one to use btw). Now that I’m back in Japan I’ll use my a900 which will give me true 16mm and higher resolution.

That software is really nice to use. It turned my bad photos and alignments into something workable that looks pretty damn good for a first time job. I didn’t take but 10 min on the photos.

This one is of a typical backyard in Southern California. I wanted to remind myself and my daughter of the backyards that just don’t exist in Japan. It’s only a 9meg file and low quality. I have one that went to 80meg.

Bokka-no-Sato – Farming theme park

steve — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:18:01 +0000

Bokka-no-Sato is a farming, flowers, and crafts type park located high up the mountains in 2756-2 Washimi, Takasu-cho, Gujo city TEL 0575-73-2888 website www.bokka.co.jp. Great for children as there are many things to do like make wooden music boxes, ride horses, games, flowers, and feeding animals. During winter time the area turns into a ski town. Driving time was about 2 and 1/2 hours from Nagoya due to road work and accidents along the way.

More photos are in my gallery located at Part 1 – photos.nagoyaphoto.jp & Part 2 – photos.nagoyaphoto.jp.

Bokka-no-Sato fields

Bokka-no-Sato Wood doll museum

Bokka-no-Sato

Jokoji Natural Resort Park

steve — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:46:52 +0000

Just 35 minutes by train from Nagoya via the JR Chuo line is Jokoji Park in Seto. It has camping, a famous temple called Jokoji built in 1236, Shoden Pond, and many hiking trails. It is an amazing forest park up in the mountains.

Just take the JR Chuo line from Nagoya Station to Jokoji Station. Jokoji station is one of those up in the mountain type stops that have no ticket machines. On your return trip you have to check in with the station master at the end and let him know where you got on so that you can pay.

This place is best if you want to experience about 4 hours of hiking through a Japanese forest a top a mountain. Signs with a map are located at various places to guide you.

Nagoya International Center has a Tokai Nature Trail PDF also to guide you here.

My Smugmug gallery photos here photos.nagoyaphoto.jp

One of the many signs with a map of the area

Starting point - View from Jokoji station

Shoden Pond

Tokoname, Japan walk – GPS tracks

steve — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:20:30 +0000

Here are the tracks from my GPS while walking along taking photos in Tokoname which is just outside Nagoya and right next to the airport. They do provide a map at the visitor station but it isn’t to scale. We did the A and B walk on the map. There is also a C walk.

If you haven’t followed my recent posts from my walk then please see my previous posts here – Tokoname posts

My Smugmug gallery from the walk is here: photos.nagoyaphoto.jp

Tokoname Japan