Photos will be up as soon as I am done sorting and editing. There will also be some articles on the trip. Keep a lookout for them!

• RAW format has a higher dynamic range which allows you to recover lost highlights and shadows in post processing
• White balance, sharpness, contrast, colour saturation etc can be adjusted and can be reverted back to their original settings without compromising image quality. Any changes made to JPG are permanent.
• Chromatic aberrations (colour fringing) can be corrected when the RAW file is converted to JPG
• Easier to keep the RAW file and convert it into JPG after making adjustments to the same file instead of keeping the original JPG and making a copy every time adjustments need to be made
• RAW takes up about twice as much space as JPG
• RAW requires more processing power from the camera, which means a drop in continuous shooting

What Active D-lighting does is to try and reduce the exposure of over-exposed areas and brighten dark areas such as shadows. You may also find an increase in shutter speed after activating this function. There is also a limit to how much detail Active D-Lighting can recover. Needless to say, the higher the contrast, the less successful it will be in retaining details. For camera bodies such as D90 and D300, there is an option to adjust the strength of Active D-Lighting between Low, Normal and High settings to suit the shooting conditions you are in. However, take note that noise artifacts may become more obvious in dark areas after the image has been taken with Active D-Lighting turned on.

One disadvantage of Active D-Lighting is that more time is required to process each photo after it is taken which means it will take more time before the image is displayed on the LCD for reviewing. Recovery time may be critical where sports or wildlife photography is concerned. Another handicap is that the number of continuous shots (in continuous shooting mode) is reduced. For eg., if the camera is rated to be able to shoot 5 shots at any one time before reaching its limit, with Active D-Lighting on, it may drop to around 3 frames. Turn it off if time is of the utmost concern.

Basically, a Singaporean friend who is familiar with the surroundings will be bringing us around. Obviously, this will be much more fun and excitement compared to joining a group tour.

Equipment that I will be bringing:

D60

16-85mm VR + CPL

35mm f1.8

12-24mm f4 + CPL

35GB worth of SD cards

SB-600

Tripod

This ticket can be purchased at the ticketing machines of most train stations within the 23 wards. Two tickets will be issued to you, one with the date printed in a larger font. Use that first to travel from your current station to one of the stations located in the free geographical area (if your current station is located outside the effective area). When you exit from the station at your first destination, this ticket will not be returned to you. From there, you have to use the second issued ticket as the for travelling within the 23 wards.

This ticket is useful especially when you have many places to visit in a single day, or you need to do shopping at different areas. With this, it means that you can travel to and forth the more popular destinations of Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Akihabara for unlimited times in a day!

Read more on train transportation here.

One way to cut down on your transportation costs is to make full use of promotions offered by each train company. Note that there are a few different train companies running on different lines and each of them come up with concession tickets or special passes every season. So you can be sure that you will more than likely to find at least one type of special pass for the destination you are heading for.

For example, there are all sorts of special train tickets for all sorts of 1-day (or multiple days) passes in Japan. An example is the Tokyo free ticket (Tokyo free kippu) which allows you to travel ride on all the lines of JR, Toei and Metro companies within the 23 wards for just 1, 580 yen. Keep a lookout for posters in or near train stations which states the type of ticket, the prefecture or effective area where you can use the ticket (normally ride-all-you-can within a certain geographical area), and the duration that the ticket is on sale plus its expiration. Obviously, with the correct usage, such tickets can be much cheaper than buying the individual tickets on separate occasions.

Needless to say, this means that you have to plan your route and calculate your expected transport expenses before deciding which alternative suits your needs. Many people tend to have the misconception that special passes will definitely be cheaper no matter what. At the end of the day, they end up not making full of the passes, and may realise that they have forked out more than what they planned for.

Japan is indeed an expensive country to live in, or to travel in. Transportation, food and especially accommodation costs are high. However, there are ways around this. And I don’t mean cheating on your train fare, sleeping in parks or anything close to that. Simply put, with adequate planning and adequate strategies, you will be able to cut down some costs on each of transportation, food and accommodation, which can add up to quite a bit. For example, for travelling on trains, keep a lookout for posters at stations for ongoing promotions on special tickets and concession tickets to certain popular destinations. More of this will be discussed in later posts.

Another problem that backpackers and tourists meet is the language barrier. Although English is studied in schools from junior high school all the way to university, the fact is that not many Japanese are able to hold a conversation in English comfortably, except for a handful who have either lived overseas in English speaking countries due to parents’ work commitments, or have went on exchange programmes in such countries. The trend is slightly changing in recent years, and more and more Japanese are able to converse better in English, especially the younger generation. Even if they are unable to speak, chances are they understand what you are trying to say, but might only have the ability to reply using a combination of short phrases and body language.

For bigger cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, almost all main tourist spots have English signs in train stations and streets. Many people there are also more adept at conversing in English due to the increasingly cosmopolitan population. Travelling and finding your way around should not be a big problem in such destinations. However, note that this is in bigger cities. Once you step out of the main city area and are thinking of going to more remote places on the outskirts or to neighbouring prefectures, the story will be totally different.

One queue is for ordering and another is for collecting your order.

The ingredients are varied and range from fresh tomatoes, green vegetables, mushrooms, seaweed, bean curd, baby corn, okra, fish cake, wanton etc. Each piece costs only S$0.25 which is very cheap in my opinion compared to normal hawker centres which are selling at an astronomical price of S$0.50. A normal meal of 8 pieces with rice costs only S$2.40 whereas food courts are selling at S$4~S$6. Who says school canteen food is unappetizing?

This stall has won the best stall for a few years in a row and is still the best among the students and locals. Try the Laksa, which is some sort of coconut based curry, if you can take spicy food. There are also chilli and sweet sauces to go along with the Yong Tao Fu, and blends in very well in my opinion. It makes for a healthy and satisfying meal and so is definitely  suitable for healthy conscious individuals for its low fat content. Perhaps the MSG could be lesser at times though.

For my personal eating style, I normally order all vegetables like okra, bean curd, tomatoes, and baby corn etc with soup and white rice. As for the chilli sauce, I pour some and mix it into the soup such that it looks a bit like the Laksa soup. Then, dip the ingredients into both the sweet and chilli sauces and tuck in!

Try out this stall if you have not or you will be missing out on a lot!

Ideally, the shutter speed should be 1/F secs where F refers to the focal length of the lens. This guide is generally true for users with relatively steady hands. To be sure, you might want to go with 1/(F x 1.5) secs. For example, the slowest shutter speed you can go with a lens of 35mm would be around 1/35 secs or 1/50 secs.

However, the story gets a little different if you have VR technology on your lens. With this, it is possible to go as low as “2 stops” below what is stated as “safe”. “One stop” refers to multiplying, or dividing the value by “2″. For example, on a 16mm lens and VR activated, I was able to get decently sharp images at 1/4, where “4″ is “two stops” below “16″. VR is very useful as it allows you to perform better in low light. However, this is provided that your subject is stationary, such as an object or building (Read this to find out more).

Another factor is the ISO value. For instance, if you are using a 35mm lens, and your shutter speed reads 1/20 secs, you could increase the ISO value to double the shutter speed to 1/40 secs to prevent blurriness from camera shake. Try switching to Aperture Priority mode before adjusting the ISO to see what I mean by .

With that said, if you are not using the camera handheld, then the minimum shutter speed is of little concern. For general landscapes or in cases where circumstances allow, your best bet is still a good, sturdy tripod.