I’ve been on a little vacation, finally! I was even mostly away from Wifi so I was never tempted to pull out the iPhone and check email and the web. Nice! I’ve been in Japan and had a great time, even if I got really sick at one point and ended up in the emergency room in Iwata. But everyone was nice there and I can now say I’ve experienced a Japanese ER.
Anyway, I saw so many great places on this trip. We visited the Jigokudani Yaen-Koen in Yudanaka. It’s a hotspring where all the snow monkeys get some relief from the cold and snow in winter. I could have spent all day there just watching their different behaviors.
I used the Nikkor 135mm f/2 for most of the photos here. I would have loved to have had my 70-200mm lens here but I would not have loved lugging that thing all over Japan so it stayed at home. Luckily the 135mm ended up being an ideal focal length on a full frame body. It was COLD and mostly overcast. The snow created very difficult shooting conditions as I moved from location to location. I kept my aperture at f/2 and tweaked the shutter speed as needed, which was very often.
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