Archive for the ‘photos’ Category

Homeward

Saturday, August 25th, 2007

So the time has come to return to ye olde homecountry.

I’ve spent a good 25 days in Japan now, my longest stay yet. Right about now the idea that this will be my last night in Tokyo slowly sinks in. This is also when the nostalgia kicks in and I feel that I’ll miss this place terribly.
I’ll miss narrow streets, conbinis, vending machines (although my teeth wont miss them!), passnet, cheap good food, trains that come often, izakayas etc… I wont miss the bikes on the sidewalk and trains that stop going at midnight. Nor will I miss the bugs, cockroaches and creepy dying things falling out of trees (sometimes landing way too close for comfort, or in the case of Nisse: on you). I think I’ll miss the bugs least of all! hehe

This trip has been rockier then the last two. There have been days here when I would have killed to be home in Sweden. I think it might have been the heat. I have handled it much worse then I expected. Next time I’ll come during colder times. I’ve also been annoyed at some aspects of Japanese society like the drone culture and male domination which has at times caused what I might call “annoyance attacks”. The annoyance attacks are very annoying.

Sometimes when I am in Stockholm I have days when I’d kill to be in Japan or New York or something, and when I am in Japan I have days when I want to return home. So the end result is that I look forward to coming home, but still some kind reflex nags in the back of my head and begs to stay longer.

Life in Stockholm seems much simpler. Except maybe when it comes to finding good and cheap places to eat. Something about Japan makes me tired at times, maybe it’s the need to constantly process Japanese or the large crowds or perhaps even the long distances between places, hard to tell.

The idea that Karin will not be home when I get back is also making this harder. Quite a bit harder in fact. At least the Vlad will meet me at the airport, hehe.

They say the grass is always greener on the other side and for me this is so true that it sometimes makes my life a total bitch.

I’ve uploaded some photos to make my nostalgia even worse. Head over to here and see.

Camera business

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

I finally took the plunge and got a digital SLR camera. It was a long and painful journey of contemplation. In the end the decision was made more or less spontaneously at the store, holding each of the candidates in my hand (for the nth time…).

I settled for a Canon EOS 350D. I admit my biggest argument against it was that it is too mainstream and some have also said that it is not too comfortable in your hand.

I held the Nikon D50 and D70 in my hand, and their size surely did feel better, however I kept feeling that they were slipping out of my hand, especially if it was a little more sweaty.

So in the end I chose the 350D and as I have used it a bit, I am happy with most of the purchase. The unhappy portion is the lens.
I bought the 17-85mm IS USM lens in a kit along with the camera, and the lens cost almost as much as the camera itself. After using the lens a little, I am disappointed by the lens vs price ratio.
Surely the lens is good, but at it’s widest angle it is waaay too blurry for my tastes, the Image Stabilizer does not work as well as I hoped, and the maximum aperture of f4.0 (or f5.6 most of the time, since it’s widest angle sucks) is just not enough. At least for that price. I would rather have spent an extra 3k on an L lens of almost the same dimensions, but without IS (which I so far have not learned to use correctly). Although at 50mm, the lens produced almost the same quality as my EF 50mm f1.8 II lens, so there is potential there.

In any case, I am very happy that I can finally close that chapter and move on to actually take the pictures instead of trying to decide what camera to get.

Anyway, enough ranting, check out the pics I took today (with my EF 50mm f1.8 II lens).

Link

Assorted Tokyo

Wednesday, April 13th, 2005

Assorted Tokyo

Originally uploaded by zeraien.

This is a neat pic I took in Tokyo.
Posting this mostly to test Flickr’s “blog this” function which streamlines the process of posting pics to your blog directly from Flickr.

A neat feature.

At last, the pics from the USA

Thursday, March 3rd, 2005

You know I went to the USA a few months ago. Well I forgot the photos from that trip on the computer of our host in New York, and up until a few days ago I have been too busy or too lazy to call him and fix it.
He’s not very good with computers, and I loathed the idea of trying to arrange it.
In the end, it went easier then expected, and also completely differently. But that’s not important.

The important thing is that I finally have the pictures, and that means that YOU have them too!

Here they are. Oh, and there are videos too. Download the pics as a zip file here.

New Year Spirit

Saturday, January 8th, 2005

While I am not into parties and celebrations (in this case, the New Year), I am into nice pictures. So I share these with you. Enjoy.

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The New Year

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

I had the pleasure of spending the coming of the new year with my closest friends. The evening started with a visit to the parents for some food and mingling, both areas in which my skill levels are low. I quickly ducked out and proceeded with JohnJohn, as planned over to Bigmac’s place. There, we ate tacos and then watched Star Wars Episode IV. DVD Edition. On a projector.

Halfway through the movie we realised that the time had come for the thing that we were planning, and so we set off in the car to the place of the event.

The “thing” was a flight over Stockholm during the moment of New Year, to observe the fireworks from high up in the sky.

The sight was extraordinary and even JohnJohn, who is NOT easilly impressed, expressed awe and wonder at what he had seen. This is something that happens less then once a year.

I did some films for your enjoyment, but I have not yet cut them together into a presentable movie, nor have I had time to upload the uncut versions. I will do at least one of the aforementioned actions tomorrow. For now, enjoy these pictures taken with my mobile, because the battery on bigmac’s camera, ran out before I had a chance to snap good photos.

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update: movies posted

The black toad fears no load!

Thursday, May 27th, 2004

A few days ago I bought new speakers and an amplifier for my flat. Since they were big, and my car was small, I just had to take pictures of the transportation process to prove to everyone that to this day, I have never had a load that did not fit inside its tiny carapace.

Click-a-roo!

Pictures New and Old

Friday, May 7th, 2004

Here you will find photo albums of the various trips and other stuff that I have done. Listed chronologically