Rodney Campbell's Blog

Today we were travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto by Shinkansen. Operated by Japan Railways (JR) these high speed trains (bullet trains) are called shinkansen (新幹線). The network of high speed train lines that connect Tokyo with most of the country’s major cities across the islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Hokkaido.

Shinkansen Views

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 52 mm, 1/2000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1250

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

The shinkansen is known for punctuality (most trains depart on time to the second), comfort (relatively silent cars with spacious, always forward facing seats), safety (no fatal accidents in it’s history) and efficiency.

Travelling along at speeds up to 320 km/h I wasn’t really expecting to take many usable shots. The foreground flies by in a blur even to the naked eye, let alone through the viewfinder. Even the background passes you by very quickly.

Pushing the shutter to very fast speeds was the call of the day. Which meant pushing the ISO as well to maintain such a fast speed.

Every now and then you managed a decent shot out the window as above.

Tokyo is a wonderfully frenetic city of lights, sky scrapers and concentrated insanity. It’s Blade Runner, The Fifth Element and every good sci-fi movie mashed together. No trip to Tokyo by an IT guy and self confessed gadget nerd was going to be complete without a trip to Akihabara.

Akihabara

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/30 sec at f/5.6, ISO 160

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

For years, Tokyo’s Akihabara district was the place to score cheap electronics. Think JB Hi-Fi, Best Buys, The Good Guys and every other electronics and camera store you can think of. Then multiply them each ten fold so they fill ten story high department stores. Now put hundreds of them together so there’s a whole suburb dedicated to electronics and you’ll start to get the picture.

I still remember coming here as a teenager oh so many years ago and buying my first huge boom box. It had dual tape decks and massive speakers all in one “portable” unit. I mean the thing was massive – probably a metre wide. It was however the coolest thing I’d ever seen and it was the height of tech in it’s day. It was years ahead of it’s time back here back in Australia.

With the advent of the Internet Akihabara became just another place to snag gadgets, albeit one with a lot of cool stores. It still has that electronics vibe running through it’s DNA but it has transitioned to the home of Manga (Japanese Comics) and Anime and Japan’s Otaku (diehard fan) culture.

My girls weren’t interested in lingering so it was unfortunately a brief visit to this shrine to all things electronic.