Shooting in all weathers brings rewards but it also brings some interesting challenges.
Typhoons, rain, snow: you’ll find me out shooting in all of them and it’s always great to be out when, generally, others have tucked their cameras away somewhere dry and warm. The shots you can get in extremes of weather, when people are often dashing to get out of the very weather you have put yourself purposely into, are some of the most rewarding street shots you can get. But, they come at a price.
There are lots of ways to protect yourself from the weather when you are shooting. I don’t currently use any of them but I probably should; raincoats for the camera [and myself for that matter] are readily available and some of the best are great at not impeding your shooting much. I am hoping, with the help of a now friendly retailer in Japan, to showcase some of this gear soon. For now, though, I will be out with the minimum of cover: a coat, hat, gloves and my wonderful – so far – weatherproof Nikon.
The weatherproofing of cameras is a mater of debate. Manufacturers tell you one thing, users another with some fearing to take their cameras – laden with electronics – out into any adverse weather. I’ve so far found both the Nikon D300 and D700 to be extremely well catered-for in the weatherproofing department and believe me, I have put them most definitely to the test.
This week’s snowfall promised to be an opportunity to get out and shoot some unique shots. It’s not often we get proper snowfall in central Tokyo and I was not about to miss it. So, Monday night came and with it the snow. I left the house planning to shoot just in my local neighbourhood but quickly found myself on a train to Shibuya, something told me that was the place to be and I was right.
As I am sporting a broken rib at the moment, I travelled light – which for me meant a non-photographic shoulder bag and inside it a small photo bag with my 85mm f/1.4, blow-brush, lens-cloth, extra battery and memory cards. The D700 had my manual-focus 50mm f/1.2 on it. For my own protection I had a pair of warm gloves, a woolly hat, polar-neck thermal top, polar-neck jumper, my trademark red vest and on top of all that a thick cotton black jacket. Nothing waterproof. Mistake. But the mother-in-law’s pink waterproof trousers and jacket [which I had worn for last year's typhoon] seemed a little gauche for my tastes. Not what I fancied wearing in Shibuya. I get spotted around town as it is…. having pics of me appear on Flickr, decked-out in pink, was one idea too far. My vanity on Monday almost won me a case of pneumonia. Muppet!
I didn’t even have an umbrella as, until I design and patent the umbrella-hat, I find it difficult to shoot properly with one hand on the umbrella. Doable if you are using an AF lens, but the manual fifty I had would not work under such circumstances. But snow is sort of dry, yeah? Not Monday’s snow.. which was very wet, I found out to my cost.
Arriving at Shibuya I set up shop on the crossing for a while, on various sides; shooting people actually crossing the road and also waiting. Got some good shots here. The snow let up for a bit, turned to rain for about ten mins and I decided to hole-up in my usual 300yen standing-bar – Tatsuichi – until it resumed, which it did one beer later.
By now the flakes of snow were huge and were piling down at some rate. As I neared the crossing the most obvious position to shoot in seemed to be the bit of street by Tsutaya. The big lights on the store and above it were perfectly illuminating the snow with a heavenly backlight. Snow looks great when you look up at it through strong lights and around Tsutaya the street was a sea of light. Great.
I’d been shooting a little beforehand with the camera up to my face and had then switched – for some of the ‘people waiting at crossing’ shots – to using the DR-3 right-angle finder. It’s a great tool for anything that requires getting down low or looking up, and looking up at people with the snow above them and the city lights was working out great.
Now at Tsutaya, I was using the DR-3 exclusively and it was also helping me keep the viewfinder of the camera from fogging, which can be a big problem in cold, wet weather. My low position on the street and the superb lighting made for some dramatic shots but I was getting very wet and cold.
Some kind soul offered me their umbrella but by that stage it was too late really, I was soaked. Around 11pm I finally called it quits; the camera was drpping wet, I was dripping wet, the viewfinder was fogging badly [even using the DR-3], the lens was getting wet [even with the deep lenshood I was using], my hands were numb [not good for focusing manually] and I knew that if I stayed out any longer I would almost certainly catch my death.
On the train home I dried the worst of the wet from the camera with a cloth but it was all so cold that the warmth of the train was making moisture condense straight back as quick as I wiped it off. As soon as I got home, I got the camera, lens, DR-3 and everything else that had been in bag [now wet-through as well] into the sealed plastic boxes I have for drying stuff out. Inside each box is a large puich of silica-gel, the type you can get from the 100Yen store which turns to gel when it has soaked-up its fill of moisture. I don’t have drying cabinet and my methods work fine for keeping my gear in good condition.
The main thing is always to keep your lens on in these conditions. Don’t take it off until the camera has come back up to room temperature, as condensation will form in the camera’s throat and then you’re potentially looking at a world of trouble.
All my clothes and my two bags were hung up to dry and I retired to bed a very happy man…. after having downloaded the shots.
A great night out, despite the conditions.
Enjoy the gallery below. All the shots in it are straight out of the camera and were shot thus:
Nikon D700, Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 Ai, 1600ISO, straight to mono and JPEG FINE in-camera using my own, modified monochrome picture control.
Shibuya in the Snow: photos by Alfie Goodrich from the night of 1st February, 2010.
.
February 28th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
cool, i missed that opportunity