Aeon Photo Walk

Published 27th Sep, 2009 | Photography | 38 Comments |

Just a few pictures I’ve taken recently walking around Aeon in Japan. I’m enjoying using my new Olympus PEN E-P1 camera and flexing my creative muscles. I have tested two lenses in this post – the Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake and the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake. Enjoy!

I’m not a professional photographer and still very much learning the ropes, so please give me some constructive criticism! Many of these experimental pictures were taken using the built-in camera filters. They are all out-of-camera Jpegs and unedited except for re-sizing and watermarking.

Exploring Aeon with the 17mm lens

P9120296

Reach for the sky

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Backstreets of Aeon shopping centre

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Grainy pilon

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Posing in the loo

P9120334

Absent

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Japanese drinks

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Aeon before closing

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Floor art

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Lonely customer

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Re-stocking

A few shots with the 20mm lens I acquired today!

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A sleepy me with a new lens

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Holey yen!

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Tsubu-an, the sweet, sweet red bean paste buns. *Drool* (Pop-art filter)

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Jusco elevators

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Night time

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A tree. Illuminated, too.

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Homebound

Alrighty, the last few shots really don’t do the Panasonic lens justice – I’ve only had it a day! But it’s definitely faster than the 17mm and much brighter. Methinks it will be my lens of choice from now on. Expect more pictures soon!

What did you think? Criticise me baby!

P.S – The Gakuranman contest results will be posted sometime this week!

  • Michiko

    if this helps, my favourite is `Aeon before closing` :) but I enjoyed them all!! thanks

  • Michiko

    if this helps, my favourite is `Aeon before closing` :) but I enjoyed them all!! thanks

  • http://www.goddesscarlie.com/ GoddessCarlie

    Your Aeon mall looks just like the one near here. I guess they must all be a copy of themselves.

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Pretty much! But they all have their unique charms ;)

  • http://www.goddesscarlie.com GoddessCarlie

    Your Aeon mall looks just like the one near here. I guess they must all be a copy of themselves.

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Pretty much! But they all have their unique charms ;)

  • http://www.watermelonstudios.co.uk/ Satoshii

    The PEN seem’s to take really soft pictures. Any ways to sharpen them up?

    The self portrait is nice, I like the look of the lens. However, with that and the 50円 coin and a few other pics, you need to be more careful with the light. They’re both back lit, and you don’t compensate for it.

    I’d like to see some more pictures with some decent lighting, during the day outside somewhere.

    I’m also not too fond of those pre set filters, they’re a little too strong for my liking (but that’s just me).

    Show us more! ^_^

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Yea, no built-in flash with the PEN (not that many pictures shot with built-in flash look good anyway), though I could compensate next time. The softness might be more to do with me and the lack of light than the lens – we’ll see!

      I want to take more daytime shots too, but my work finishes around the time it gets dark… orz

      Filters are definitely fun to play with, but I think I’ll keep them for special occasions. Traditional filters worked the same way though – you stick it on the lens and shoot. None of this post-processing malarkey ^^;

      I don’t mind post-processing, but I haven’t the time to mess around in Photoshop with all my pictures, so I’ll be shooting as much as I can in-camera as possible.

  • http://www.watermelonstudios.co.uk Satoshii

    The PEN seem’s to take really soft pictures. Any ways to sharpen them up?

    The self portrait is nice, I like the look of the lens. However, with that and the 50円 coin and a few other pics, you need to be more careful with the light. They’re both back lit, and you don’t compensate for it.

    I’d like to see some more pictures with some decent lighting, during the day outside somewhere.

    I’m also not too fond of those pre set filters, they’re a little too strong for my liking (but that’s just me).

    Show us more! ^_^

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Yea, no built-in flash with the PEN (not that many pictures shot with built-in flash look good anyway), though I could compensate next time. The softness might be more to do with me and the lack of light than the lens – we’ll see!

      I want to take more daytime shots too, but my work finishes around the time it gets dark… orz

      Filters are definitely fun to play with, but I think I’ll keep them for special occasions. Traditional filters worked the same way though – you stick it on the lens and shoot. None of this post-processing malarkey ^^;

      I don’t mind post-processing, but I haven’t the time to mess around in Photoshop with all my pictures, so I’ll be shooting as much as I can in-camera as possible.

  • Kiki

    Hello Mike, we haven’t talked for ages!

    I just wanna know if you were in Aeon Okazaki last night? I was there too with my friends cos I live in Nagoya… Might see you somewhere soon finally!

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Hey Kiki! You’re the Kiki I knew from my first year in University, right? Send me a message via facebook or something ^^

  • Kiki

    Hello Mike, we haven’t talked for ages!

    I just wanna know if you were in Aeon Okazaki last night? I was there too with my friends cos I live in Nagoya… Might see you somewhere soon finally!

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Hey Kiki! You’re the Kiki I knew from my first year in University, right? Send me a message via facebook or something ^^

  • http://www.japannewbie.com/ Harvey

    I dunno none of them really jump out at me. I think your composition is good though so maybe you’ve got “the eye.” Maybe some more time will the camera will turn you into a Japan Photo bigwig!

  • http://www.japannewbie.com Harvey

    I dunno none of them really jump out at me. I think your composition is good though so maybe you’ve got “the eye.” Maybe some more time will the camera will turn you into a Japan Photo bigwig!

  • http://www.electricfirefly.com.au/ josh909

    i’m not even going to try to give you my input on the technical aspects of your photos, but in terms of subject matter and general composition my favourite 3 would be (in no particular order): Grainy Pylon, Restocking and Homebound.

    Looking forward to seeing more!

  • http://www.electricfirefly.com.au josh909

    i’m not even going to try to give you my input on the technical aspects of your photos, but in terms of subject matter and general composition my favourite 3 would be (in no particular order): Grainy Pylon, Restocking and Homebound.

    Looking forward to seeing more!

  • http://caught-redhanded.com/ Ryan

    I like Absent and Aeon Before Closing the best. Have always enjoyed ‘empty’ shots though.

  • http://caught-redhanded.com Ryan

    I like Absent and Aeon Before Closing the best. Have always enjoyed ‘empty’ shots though.

  • Juli

    Hi! I’m one of your twitter watchers, first time posting here =]

    “Absent” is my favorite, I really like the composition! I like the way you used the perspective, and how the objects are repeated, creating an interesting pattern. “Homebound” and “Backstreets of Aeon shopping centre” are very cool too, I love how you played with the diagonal lines.

    I, too, frown upon built-in camera filters… you have no control over their effect, so they can sometimes spoil the photo instead of enhancing it. I had a basic photography course at college, and we had to make a set of black-and-white photos for the first assignment. My teacher advised who had a digital camera not to take the photos using the built-in B&W filter, but to take them in color and then convert them in Photoshop. Also, you may want to use the colored photo someday, who knows?

    A little editting (giving the picture a bit more contrast or sharpness, for example) is always necessary, it’ll make the picture more true to what you saw when you took it. You don’t have to hve Photoshop, free programs like GIMP will also have the necessary tools for doing basic touch-ups. It’s easy to learn, there are lots of nice tutorials around the net… and it’s addictive, I bet you’ll never want to post them straight from the camera again! ;D

    Keep it up!

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Thanks for your comment Juli! Nice to know there are people out there reading :)

      I think I generally tend to agree about the filters – I’ll try to look for the right time and place in the future. I know a lot of the programs you mentioned that can do post-processing work and I have Photoshop myself, but generally I don’t like spending heaps of time editing pictures after shooting, except for outstanding shots (which you can tell don’t happen often). That’s also the reason I gave up shooting RAW, because I had to convert everything to Jpeg afterwards and hated processing every picture – it also took up a lot of space on my hard disk.

      I’m going to keep pushing to be creative with the camera I have in my hands. I kinda like the idea that the image I capture is set, so if I see something that might look good in black and white, I tend to shoot it in black and white rather than shoot colour and change it later. Perhaps there’s a bit of a traditionalist in me ;)

      • Juli

        I see what you mean… As a graphic designer, I seem to like to complicate stuff a bit XD
        For me retouching the photos is part of the fun, so I don’t mind it takes time… but I do recognize that it’s really satisfying when you see that a picture you took need no touching up at all :)

        But I don’t know, I still find the B&W filter of the digital cameras kinda bland, especially comparing to a film camera… It might be, however, just on the cameras I had contact with, that, with the exception of my college’s camera, are all amateur with little or no control of exposition, aperture, etc.

        I’m curious to see more! :D

  • Juli

    Hi! I’m one of your twitter watchers, first time posting here =]

    “Absent” is my favorite, I really like the composition! I like the way you used the perspective, and how the objects are repeated, creating an interesting pattern. “Homebound” and “Backstreets of Aeon shopping centre” are very cool too, I love how you played with the diagonal lines.

    I, too, frown upon built-in camera filters… you have no control over their effect, so they can sometimes spoil the photo instead of enhancing it. I had a basic photography course at college, and we had to make a set of black-and-white photos for the first assignment. My teacher advised who had a digital camera not to take the photos using the built-in B&W filter, but to take them in color and then convert them in Photoshop. Also, you may want to use the colored photo someday, who knows?

    A little editting (giving the picture a bit more contrast or sharpness, for example) is always necessary, it’ll make the picture more true to what you saw when you took it. You don’t have to hve Photoshop, free programs like GIMP will also have the necessary tools for doing basic touch-ups. It’s easy to learn, there are lots of nice tutorials around the net… and it’s addictive, I bet you’ll never want to post them straight from the camera again! ;D

    Keep it up!

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Thanks for your comment Juli! Nice to know there are people out there reading :)

      I think I generally tend to agree about the filters – I’ll try to look for the right time and place in the future. I know a lot of the programs you mentioned that can do post-processing work and I have Photoshop myself, but generally I don’t like spending heaps of time editing pictures after shooting, except for outstanding shots (which you can tell don’t happen often). That’s also the reason I gave up shooting RAW, because I had to convert everything to Jpeg afterwards and hated processing every picture – it also took up a lot of space on my hard disk.

      I’m going to keep pushing to be creative with the camera I have in my hands. I kinda like the idea that the image I capture is set, so if I see something that might look good in black and white, I tend to shoot it in black and white rather than shoot colour and change it later. Perhaps there’s a bit of a traditionalist in me ;)

      • Juli

        I see what you mean… As a graphic designer, I seem to like to complicate stuff a bit XD
        For me retouching the photos is part of the fun, so I don’t mind it takes time… but I do recognize that it’s really satisfying when you see that a picture you took need no touching up at all :)

        But I don’t know, I still find the B&W filter of the digital cameras kinda bland, especially comparing to a film camera… It might be, however, just on the cameras I had contact with, that, with the exception of my college’s camera, are all amateur with little or no control of exposition, aperture, etc.

        I’m curious to see more! :D

  • http://kailahana.blogspot.com/ Kara

    Posing in the loo, absent and homebound are my faves. I’m not a photog, so I have no technical feedback; I just liked the “look” of those three.

  • http://kailahana.blogspot.com Kara

    Posing in the loo, absent and homebound are my faves. I’m not a photog, so I have no technical feedback; I just liked the “look” of those three.

  • http://www.turningotaku.com/ TurningOtaku

    great pics! I’m getting a new camera for christmas and I can’t wait to go nuts like that with the photography :D

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      ‘Tis definitely fun! What camera are you thinking of getting?

  • http://www.turningotaku.com TurningOtaku

    great pics! I’m getting a new camera for christmas and I can’t wait to go nuts like that with the photography :D

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      ‘Tis definitely fun! What camera are you thinking of getting?

  • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

    Thanks for all the comments! I will definitely do more of these photo posts if the response is this good ^^

  • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

    Thanks for all the comments! I will definitely do more of these photo posts if the response is this good ^^

  • Rush

    Met an artist in a department store. His daughter helping him and other artists. Married the daughter and 40+ years later with two married good-looking children and 4 grandchildren I am still married to her. My wife and I are leaving for one of our frequent visits to Tokyo and taking my old Fuji FinePix F10. I will see if I can match your pics or do better. This camera has taken great pics in the past (or was it me?). Cannot wait to get to Tokyo. Wish I was your age and just starting out, again.

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Hi Rush,

      Thanks for your comment! Is your wife Japanese? Am just wondering how you have the connection to Tokyo? It’s great to visit as a tourist and just enjoy snapping away – something I find difficult to do in everyday life, especially photographing real people. Good luck and let us know when you post your pictures :)

  • Rush

    Met an artist in a department store. His daughter helping him and other artists. Married the daughter and 40+ years later with two married good-looking children and 4 grandchildren I am still married to her. My wife and I are leaving for one of our frequent visits to Tokyo and taking my old Fuji FinePix F10. I will see if I can match your pics or do better. This camera has taken great pics in the past (or was it me?). Cannot wait to get to Tokyo. Wish I was your age and just starting out, again.

    • http://gakuranman.com/ Mike

      Hi Rush,

      Thanks for your comment! Is your wife Japanese? Am just wondering how you have the connection to Tokyo? It’s great to visit as a tourist and just enjoy snapping away – something I find difficult to do in everyday life, especially photographing real people. Good luck and let us know when you post your pictures :)