A Melbourne Photographer Traveling In Kyoto

Kyoto is a city that I would very much enjoy returning to in order to capture the changing of the seasons. Our trip last November deliberately coincided with the stunning autumn foliage, having made a ordered plan as to which part of this beautiful country to visit based around the progressive change in colour. It is a city of approximately 1.5 million inhabitants, with countless shrines and temples combined with a very modern vibe; much damaged during the second world war it once served as the emperor’s residence from between 794 up until 1868.

It is a city that can quite easily be explored on foot, although it does have an excellent public transportation system. With only 5 days to explore I really wanted to concentrate my photographic efforts on the temples and architecture. Naturally one of the first that we visited was the famous Fushimi-Inarii Shrine, of which unsurprisingly I have many shots that I will no doubt post at some point. The following images are really more of a celebration of an amazing day spent walking around some of the smaller temples in Kyoto; I still vividly recall the excitement of  photographing in such a beautiful environment, combined with a real feeling of calm and peaceful composure. The weather was quite overcast at the start of our day of wearing through the shoe leather, providing a soft enveloping light, but then brightened to a magnificent afternoon of blue skies with the strong directional sun highlighting nature’s kaleidoscope surrounding the architecture.

The Canon 5DSR as a travel camera

Japan was my second major overseas trip in which my main camera used was the Canon 5DSR, which I had only purchased some 5 months previously. I do intend to do a full review on the camera in a future post, but for now I will say that I continue to be incredibly impressed with the files that I am able to capture. Being honest, I did not immediately fall in love with the 5DSR in the same way that I did the 5D MkIII, in fact I really had to learn to love the camera. I suppose it was more a question of the extra care that must be taken with every shot, since the two models are almost identical in their handling. The 5DSR just demands so much more in terms of technique, particularly when hand holding the 17mm TS-E as I often do, but certainly it delivers so much more in the incredible files in more ways than just the obvious increased resolution. I very much enjoy the expanded dynamic range and the malleability of the files combined with lower noise profiles at most ISO’s (I haven’t shot above 6400, so cannot comment); to my eye the images simply have that extra degree of ‘pop’ on the screen and on my wall as prints when compared to the MkIII.

As usual my lens collection for this particular day included the 17mm TSE, 24-70mm f2.8 L II, 70-200mm f2.8 L II and the 16-35mm f4 L II. More images from Japan can be viewed on my portfolio website – www.michaelevansphotographer.com