Memories of Hokkaido

[giantcanopy]

# 158

Our bus landed right smack at the doorway of the hotel. There was a nice caucasian porter outside the door of Furano New Prince Hotel, and gave us a discount coupon meant for their hotel guests for a free discount with a " shhhh this is for our hotel guests only , but no one will know ". His service was as enthusiastic as the other japanese staffs. It was a pleasant experience :thumbsup:

The cable ride up the Furano Skii site is a short walk from the hotel. Original intent was to
catch a glimpse of sunset. But too much clouds once again .. Was relatively deserted, quiet, and getting darker, with only the sound of the prevailing breeze. ( we were the only ones up there )

The signage to warn us of bears prevented us from wandering too far off the skii site.

 

[zoossh]

is that a local bus or a tour coach? the passengers looks japanese...

as for the marvellous picture everyone is wowing at, i would have the same good things to repeat about..... except for asking if the originals is much less contrasty with more details?

i'm wondering if it is possible still to have high contrast while preserving slightly more details at the middle of the top of the tree canopy, the bricks pattern on the bottom right and the underneath of the topmost roof. and the clouds just to the left of the base of the building, the gradation of colors is quite hard and perhaps a little polarised. the rest of the high contrast works solid for the picture. crispness and mood is otherwise beyond words. and i'm imagining if the colors of the sky to the right outside your frame is good... becos i think one more vertical frame on the right might add more to the composition from my subjective vision.

as a sidenote, i'm pretty impressed with your efforts of making stitched panaroma, and that many of them. it surely takes a very meticulous person to do that. but i must say, most of the pararomas are taken in weather of overcast and i personally think your still-life and streets is better than the landscape. portraits wise.... not that many yah? (but when they are done, i quite like them a lot) as an odd one out probably, my fav is the simple mauve colored ice-cream, and second your castle shot.

#157

We took a bus ride to New Furano Prince Hotel from the JR station.
We were the first in the queue, and while waiting for the bus doors to open ..

( you can see our Hotel Natulux at the back - a white/grey building )

 

[giantcanopy]

is that a local bus or a tour coach? the passengers looks japanese...

as for the marvellous picture everyone is wowing at, i would have the same good things to repeat about..... except for asking if the originals is much less contrasty with more details?

i'm wondering if it is possible still to have high contrast while preserving slightly more details at the middle of the top of the tree canopy, the bricks pattern on the bottom right and the underneath of the topmost roof. and the clouds just to the left of the base of the building, the gradation of colors is quite hard and perhaps a little polarised. the rest of the high contrast works solid for the picture. crispness and mood is otherwise beyond words. and i'm imagining if the colors of the sky to the right outside your frame is good... becos i think one more vertical frame on the right might add more to the composition from my subjective vision.

as a sidenote, i'm pretty impressed with your efforts of making stitched panaroma, and that many of them. it surely takes a very meticulous person to do that. but i must say, most of the pararomas are taken in weather of overcast and i personally think your still-life and streets is better than the landscape. portraits wise.... not that many yah? (but when they are done, i quite like them a lot) as an odd one out probably, my fav is the simple mauve colored ice-cream, and second your castle shot.

Thx for ur insight zoossh

The bus is a local bus, and the rest are probably japanese ( since Hokkaido itslf is the most toured place amongst japanese themselves ).

The original shot of the Osaka castle was less saturated ( taken and processed from raw, the colors are expectedly more muted compared even to the jpg ) but that particular one pieced online actually had the clouds burnt as well. with the span of almost two hours on the same point waiting for the sunrise, I actually took other shots at various intervals, have not had the opportunity to look through them but I would hope some are less clipped in that respect.

Actually the pan was a tough fit for my 24mm on a DX sensor since it almost occupied the whole frame. I had to climb onto a *restricted* grass patch on the walls to gain the height, and having which i still had to climb a tall ?generator sort of structure to get the required height. Was early in the morning, other than a few glances by the locals doing morning exercises there wasn anyone to ... invite me down. Did not dawn on me to take more space on the right then because the sun was already marginating at the left most frame, any more space on the right will not have space for the sunrise ( as in my subsequent take )

Making more pans was one of the aims of the trip. Abit more work on previsualisation to make the pans might work better for my future trips

Ryan

 

[giantcanopy]

Ningle Terrace

We left the skii site in a huff due to the poor lights, no sunset.
There was a nearby Ningle Terrace, a cluster of cottages selling local homemade arts and crafts. Located just below the entrance of the New Furano Prince Hotel.

We did not have too much time to spare at the place because of our growling tummy and it was getting late.

Here is a documentary take of Ningle terrace in a huff as well, nothing exciting, for you to have an idea of the place. Basically a lot more cottages. But you probably can have a better take a few steps of the entrance to have the cottages taken at various layers.

# 159

 

[giantcanopy]

# 160

Artisan at work.

No photography.

 

[giantcanopy]

# 161

More handicrafts

For sale

 

[zoossh]

but that particular one pieced online actually had the clouds burnt as well.

yah, i would expect the raw to be less saturated, but i thought though the clouds would still be burnt out no matter how reasonably underexposed you try to, maybe the originals offer a softer gradation between the colors and possibly can be preserved, becos the final piece shows very clear distinction between the different colors, ie the purple and the orange, the orange and the yellow. clipping generally isn't that serious at all for your shots as the colors are still showing quite well in the left, ie the light yellow part.

I had to climb onto a *restricted* grass patch on the walls to gain the height, and having which i still had to climb a tall ?generator sort of structure to get the required height.

impressive. but i hope that isn't very dangerous.... not to the camera... but for your own safety. but then, extra efforts has shown its worth.

Making more pans was one of the aims of the trip. Abit more work on previsualisation to make the pans might work better for my future trips

actually for pan, i very much like the work of shuttergraphy which i suppose might already be known to you. but he shot by cropping and that requires some very good estimation through the viewfinder, somewhat i guess like a rangefinder kind of viewfinder

 

[giantcanopy]

I have seen his recent thread , and he got some good pan.

You are probably right that for such a holiday orientated trip, cropped panos are a more feasible and potentially higher yield. But I was actually thinking of making high resolution prints for my own trip documentary purposes and hence decided to try out on stitching panoramas. Might get an A3/2 printer for that purpose in the near future, hence my unwillingness in cropping so far.

In fact I have other plans to take off from my little experiment in making pans for my next major trip, but will probably need a few more fine tuning. So far my technical challenges includes proper placement of GND across the components, reducing motion blur and stitch artifacts, but with better experience I might be able to place more emphasis on composition with good time during a photog trip.

Ryan

 

[giantcanopy]

It turned dark pretty soon, and here is a shot of ladies in yukata ( they are probably the hotel guests , the New Furano Prince Hotel being a stone's throw away )

Shot taken at ISO 800. The focus was on the table contents of the hut to bring a contrast with the oof darker areas. Was pretty dim then, I figure for that moment I would not be able to focus on them anyway.

# 164

Did not buy anything in the end, and we took a short cab ride back to the hotel to hunt for dinner

 

[zoossh]

I have seen his recent thread , and he got some good pan.

You are probably right that for such a holiday orientated trip, cropped panos are a more feasible and potentially higher yield. But I was actually thinking of making high resolution prints for my own trip documentary purposes and hence decided to try out on stitching panoramas. Might get an A3/2 printer for that purpose in the near future, hence my unwillingness in cropping so far.

In fact I have other plans to take off from my little experiment in making pans for my next major trip, but will probably need a few more fine tuning. So far my technical challenges includes proper placement of GND across the components, reducing motion blur and stitch artifacts, but with better experience I might be able to place more emphasis on composition with good time during a photog trip.

Ryan

i think a seaside town on a slope would be great for such high resolution pans, like those of santorini or cinque terre. you got a vast extent of details, near and far objects, and the undulating non-leveled grounds that is more dynamic than flat grounds, giving the chance of shooting a look-down perspective. wow.....

 

[giantcanopy]

i think a seaside town on a slope would be great for such high resolution pans, like those of santorini or cinque terre. you got a vast extent of details, near and far objects, and the undulating non-leveled grounds that is more dynamic than flat grounds, giving the chance of shooting a look-down perspective. wow.....

The possibilites are endless !
Hope i get better results for my trip nxt yr ( in Vietnam if things work out well ).

Ryan

 

[giantcanopy]

Yamadori, a popular grill restaurant near the Hotel Natulux ( also because we were pretty famished to look for anything further )

Cosy restaurant, you will have to wait quite abit if you go during dinner.
Very very nice marinated pork and seafood. Should try the beef too. If we ever go back to Furano, we will eat at Yamadori again. Except maybe to go there a little earlier to beat the queue, or rather join the queue earlier.

Order yourself a huge mug of beer each and your dinner is complete !

#163

 

[giantcanopy]

A mini 3D topo map of Biei, our day two in Furano.
We took a short train ride to Biei to experience the beautiful patchwork / panorama roads and a whiff of something less urban.
Weather was slightly less cloudy compared to the previous days, but still.. cloudy

This was taken at the Tourist information centre, a seperate building from the JR Biei itself that is not too far a walk.
Two ladies manned the center with exuberant smiles. Remember to pick up a map from them. They will also propose a cycling path for the
patchwork road to see most of the attractions ( or if you are driving around )

#164

 

[giantcanopy]

#165

The are a few ways of getting around the patchwork road area. Either by car, or by motorbike, or by bicycles. We rented electrical bikes from a shop near the JR Biei station.
Now these bikes are heavy monsters somewhere betw that of a bicycle and a motorbike.
But very comfortable. Gears to help you climb steeper slopes ( yes there are many there! )
The battery is said to last more than a day.

Rental price depends on the time of return. If it is more than 5 hrs it will be a flat rate of about 70 SGD. Although the price is much cheaper with a non motorised bike, the electric bike really helps. For one we are not the most atheletic, and we saw a couple of people giving up cycling after passing a few slopes, and the entire path is huge.

Although the roads are not the widest, driving and parking by the side of the roads are still not an issue since there arn't that many cars to start with. Advantages of cycling includes the ability to cycle in the smaller beaten paths that cars cannot reach ( of course you can always walk ) I cannot imagine walking the entire area. Normal non motorised bikes will take almost 5-6 hrs with reasonable fitness ( mainly because a few of the slopes can be killers ).

Another option is to take the local touring bus services which can be booked from the tourist information counter at JR Furano.
However they only allow stopping at one or two scenic areas for a short while, while most of the time on the bus. There are taxi rides with various timed packages to travel around the area - for exorbitant fees.

 

[two200]

Ningle Terrace

# 159

Very vivid colours. :thumbsup::thumbsup: Any PP done or original?

 

[giantcanopy]

Very vivid colours. :thumbsup::thumbsup: Any PP done or original?

Thx two200. I did post processing. I shoot raw and work on raw files for all my pictures so and the colors are comparatively less saturated out of camera.

On the other hand shooting jpeg depending on settings of the camera can give you more vivid contrasty shots.

Ryan

 

[edesign]

your photos are very calming.
it give me a very peaceful feeling by looking at them.

 

[giantcanopy]

your photos are very calming.
it give me a very peaceful feeling by looking at them.

Thx edesign

Ryan

 

[giantcanopy]

The rental shop. I did not have a chance to have the old man turn around and look at me though. His son is the guy who runs the shop, and he is a nice chap that will hand draw a map for you, annotating the climbs and downslopes, with houses and landmarks on where you should turn at the junctions

#166

 

[giantcanopy]

#167

Fields of Biei.

I would imagine the place to be charming in winter.
( apologies for the dust spot, will repost with time )