From Aktia I took the train north to Aomori. Nebuta Matsuri is one of Japan’s most famous festivals. Giant floats depicting scenes from ancient fables are dragged along the streets of Aomori City.
Before the parade started I got some shots of the participants, then I turned my attention to the floats.
Nebuta Matsuri Portrait, Aomori City, Japan
Nebuta Matsuri, Aomori City, Japan
Nebuta Matsuri, Aomori City, Japan
Nebuta Matsuri, Aomori City, Japan
Digital Discovery #3
It is very easy to fool yourself into thinking an image is badly exposed by quickly reviewing the image on the rear monitor. What looks completely underexposed when standing in bright sunlight may actually be accurate. Better to use the histogram to check exposure. I often used my Sekonic light meter to get an accurate incident light reading.
Digital Discovery #4
I hardly used the auto focus on my new 55mm lens. Auto focus worked fine, just used to doing it by myself. When shooting portraits at F2.8 the depth of field is shallow so you need to be very accurate with the focusing. If you don’t focus perfectly on the eyes, the larger files really show your mistakes.
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 
I tend to use my light meter with my digital camera too. Measure once, set the camera and you have completely consistent exposure for all the images taken at the same scene. And incident metering seems better than reflective for getting the exposure correct.
And no, the display is no good for evaluating exposure. Be aware that the histogram tends to fool you too. It’s a weighted average of all color channels, so you can blow out the red channel without realizing it. And the histogram shows you the result using the color balance you’ve set, so if you take the raw file and change the color balance you may suddenly be overexposed – or slight overexposure may disappear.
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