We went to Akihabara, the place in Tokyo you go to if you want to buy video games and things like that. They call it “electric Town”.
Nikon F100 / Fuji Superia Venus 800
Nikon FM2 / Lomography F²/400 / 24mm
The day we got lost in Shimokitazawa.
I know everyone loves this neighbourhood and despite how much my contrarian tendencies bubble to the surface whenever I see, hear, go to etc etc anything popular, we did too. The real treat for me was our brief exploration of the suburbs after our brunch in Mixture. We loved the little houses and narrow lanes with no footpaths. It was a beautiful day – full of sunny sunshine with a nip in the air which saves Matty becoming too hot and bothered when he’s working. It was really quite peaceful.
The film is [an entire roll] of Lomography F²/400 which was extremely limited due to it being cut from, and I quote “the last ever Jumbo Roll of original 400 ASA film from some renowned Italian filmmakers.” Lomography then claimed to have let it age for seven years in the Czech Republic which is just stupid. They go on to say that “seven years later, we went back to discover that this fantastic film still produces refined colors with a beautifully unique tone. It’s one-of-a-kind Color Negative with an X-Pro feel.” They also state that this film “gives exciting results also with ISO 200” and recommend storing it in a fridge.
Allow me to translate this marketing waffle for you: It’s Ferrania Solaris 400 that expired 7 years ago. As you’d expect it behaves exactly as such. It needs to be over-exposed but suffers from blown high-lights and doesn’t handle high contrast scenes very well at all as you can see in the shady photos of bicycles. It appears to have lost some latitude. A few of the pitchas are muddy in the shadow areas.
I’ve read a few “reviews” of this film and pretty much all of them have been positive and praised the grain structure. I think grain is a problem as well.
Overall it holds up pretty well though. In future I’ll shoot it one stop over and try to use it for low contrast scenes with lots of sun. I’ve got eight rolls left.
This post was tagged with ‘expired film’.
We took that train to Shimo-Kita – 0ur first train journey in Japan – the Odakyu-Odawara line to Shimo-Kitazawa.
We walked from our little flat in the suburbs of Shinjuku to Shinjuku Station. We were staying approximately 5 minutes walk from Higashi-Shinjuku underground station but decided to walk to get a feel for the neighbourhood, a stroll of around 30 minutes if you’re stopping to take pitchas. Finding the right platform is easy once you’re inside the station as all the signs are written in English. The journey to Shimokitazawa takes about 10 minutes and costs ¥160.
The photos are from around our neighbourhood and the surrounding area towards Shinjuku Station, some of the station, the train and then a couple in Shimokitazawa.
We walked along route 302 all the way to the station. A more interesting route is along 302 past Higashi-Shinjuku and then left along Meiji-Dori (305) where you can find Hanazono Jinja, a small shinto shrine located on the right, and then right along Shinjuku-Dori. You can also continue along Meiji-Dori until the next road where you’ll find the vastly over-rated Miyama Shokai camera shop.
Nikon FM2 / Fuji Industrial 400
Our first breakie in Japan. We stumbled on this lovely little cafe/bakery in Shimokitazawa called Mixture. The place was very cozy and the staff were friendly and it seemed to be popular with locals as we didn’t see any other gaijin/gweilos/farang/whities while we were there. The coffee was actually pretty terrible but the grub was good.
If you want to be like us and go there yourself, here’s the address: 3 Chome-31-5 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tōkyō-to 155-0031, Japan
Nikon FM2 / Lomography F2 400 / 24mm
Another pitcha from the balcony of our airbnb and Emily settling in. Some of our neighbourhood as well.
Nikon FM2 / Fuji Industrial 400