The following images were captured late October at the beginning of our three week trip around Japan. We had arrived in the early hours of the morning into Narita International airport having passed the night attempting to sleep in the air.

After clearing customs we spent a very long time in the queue for our Japan Rail Passes, during which we nearly lost the will to live, and wondered if we were going to see any of this wonderful country at all. Eventually we were seated on the Narita Express and excitedly on our way into Tokyo.

The immensity of Tokyo is quite simply mind boggling, with a population by day of some 37 million people. Never having visited before, we had booked accommodation at the Citadines hotel in Shinjuku, which was certainly comfortable enough without being too noisy as it is located about 10 minutes walk from the main hub.

Shinjuku is famous for the incredible neon displays, and is in my opinion best experienced at night. Certainly it felt like I was wandering through the set of Bladerunner as I attempted to grab some night shots with the 5DSR in my sleep deprived state. I plan on writing a full review of my new camera in the near future, but suffice it to say that I was impressed by the cameras capabilities at high ISO’s. It IS a tricky camera to just pick up and snap with, as it demands perfect technique, but I was happy with these night shots taken with my workhorse 17mm TS-E and my 16-35 f4.

I have processed all of these images on my incredibly portable Mac Book Air as I continue my travels around Japan, and so have only used minimal noise reduction in Adobe Camera Raw as opposed to my usual Topaz De-noise software. More of Japan to come…