I am just finishing up my Japan 2020 trip that I conducted with Paul McKenzie. We had a great group of photographers and everyone got along nicely. Our guides were super and the weather cooperated for the most part. We had two snow days for the cranes. Other than that we had some fairly mild temps. However, on the day we photographed Steller's sea eagles and White-tailed eagles (I’ll be sharing some of those images soon) it was finger burning cold! I was fortunate to have brought the The Heat Company Gloves that I wanted to test. I have the Heat Layer System with Polartec liners and Mitten Shell. I loaded both the liner glove and outer shell with hand warmers. My fingers were saved! They really did protect my hands. Almost all of my clients had them too and everyone agreed they were the best gloves that they have used in cold weather. They are definitely coming with me on my next cold weather adventure.
Since I’ve been to Japan so many times shooting the same venues, I am always trying to create something different—it isn’t easy! I used my Sony gear exclusively for this trip with the Sony 200-600mm and teleconvertor being my longest lens. It worked out fine but with a few glitches. Turns out that everyone on the trip using Sony suffered some malfunctions—most likely from the cold. The issues were small and mostly with the display on the back of the cameras but it is to be noted. I also had a Lexar card failure. I always use Delkin cards with out ever once having an issue but my friend got me this large fast Lexar card. I used on the first day and had an issue with one of the pieces bending out-it needs to go back to the company.
Above:
The lone tree shot with the bamboo in the foreground is an artistic view of what was there. I duplicated the bamboo section and moved it slightly for the movement. For some of these images I chose a bluish tint, I also used a high key capture for the bamboo blur and the chaotic scene of trees overlapping.
Paul and I will be conducting another workshop in Japan in 2022. See my workshop page for details, thank you.