Waking to the sound of pouring rain is not a good thing if you are hoping to see an eclipse. Other campers were already out of their tents patiently waiting for a miraculous parting of the clouds. Some had their eclipse glasses at the ready to protect themselves from the blazing rays of the sun. Unfortunately the miraculous uncloaking of the sun never came. At 10.56 we all stared up at a continuous mass of clouds. Although we couldn’t see the sun, the effects of the eclipse were still very much noticeable. From about 10.56 to 11.00 it was as dark as night, not just a little darker, but as if someone had turned off the light (or blocked it with a large moonlike object). At 11.00 the light returned and the longest eclipse of the 21st century had passed. It was disappointing, but everyone at the campsite was surprisingly upbeat. Only minutes had gone by before people were talking about the upcoming total eclipses at Easter Island in 2010, North Australia in 2012, and …

All accommodation  on Yakushima for the week of the eclipse was completely full months if not years before I tried to book. Luckily I managed to find some space at Jerry’s Campsite – Mandala on the southern coast beside the village of Onoaida. Camping in the summer heat and humidity is not really a great idea,  (the campsite is normally closed in the summer months during which the owner lives in Hokkaido) but luckily we were lent a large well-ventilated tent that made things more comfortable. On the 21st, the weather was cloudy with occasional rain. Left the big camera and took the waterproof point and shoot on the hike up to Janokuchi-taki (Janokuchi waterfall). The trail started at the Onoaida-onsen (hot spring) and climbed up the mountainside for 4 kilometers. Once in the forest the trail was marked by bits of pink ribbon tied to trees. I am not sure if this is also done on the longer hikes into the center of the island, but it made it easy to follow the trail. …

I’m now back in Okinawa. Had an interesting time on Yakushima, and although not everything went as I’d hoped, it turned out to be a very useful trip in terms of planning future visits to both Kagoshima and Yakushima. Learned many  useful things… 1) Kagoshima Airport is not close to Kagoshima City. It’s 45-60 minutes by expressway bus from the airport to the city center and then a 10 minute taxi ride to the ferry port. 2) You can get to Yakushima by plane, slow ferry, or high-speed Toppy ferry.  Plane is a great idea if you are in a hurry and already flying in to Kagoshima Airport from elsewhere in Japan. 3) I had booked tickets on the Toppy. Usually it is around 11,000 Yen for a return ticket from Kagoshima to Yakushima. As this was a couple of days before the eclipse I had to pre-book the tickets months in advance  and they cost around 22,000 Yen return. The Toppy ferry is fantastic.  It is a jet-foil which means it can go up …

On the 22nd of July there will be a total solar eclipse visible from a narrow band across the earth. One place in the narrow band of totality is Yakushima, so tomorrow I’m heading to the island to hopefully witness and photograph the phenomenon. Flights are booked to Kagoshima, ferry is booked to Yakushima, and the camp site is booked in Onoaida. The best information I found on photographing eclipses was at Mr. Eclipse.com I intend to set up the camera on a tripod use 100 speed film and shoot various shots on f8 between 1/30 and 1/250  I am not taking my huge telephoto lens but will instead take my 165, 105, and 45. The lens I use will depend on the location I shoot from, which I am expecting will be the campsite I’m staying at. The big question is what the will weather do? Yakushima is famous for rain, so even more than normal I’m hoping for clear skies. Fingers crossed.

As a follow up to the David Levene post, and the audio-recorders post I thought I would put up a link to David’s audio-slideshow on Tokyo’s Shibuya crossing. You can watch the video on the Guardian website here.

In an earlier post I talked about the construction of the huge Gundam statue in Odaiba, Tokyo. John Burgreen of Okinawa HDR was up in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago and managed to get this fantastic image of the behemoth. What is HDR? HDR stands for high dynamic range. The photographer takes multiple shots of the same subject varying the exposure so that some shots accurately expose the shadows while other shots accurately expose the highlights. Combine all the photographs in Photoshop and you produce a image which doesn’t lose detail in areas that would normally be too dark or too bright. Read more at the Wikipedia page here. HDR is an exciting development in digital photography. Some people love it, some people hate it. In my opinion, it is a technique that is difficult to do well, and can’t remedy an otherwise poor photograph. But, get it right and the images produced can be stunning. John’s Gundam photo is an example of HDR done well.