South Korea & Japan Holiday
Had been a while since we took a family holiday which always means there is one brewing. This time round we decided to check out South Korea and while we are so close to Japan lets go there after that.
Like most of our family holidays it usually revolves around the Australian school holidays and this trip was no exception with us heading to South Korea first on the 19th of December, thats right it was going to be cold!
You might be asking why South Korea (Japan is obvious if you look at any of my old blog posts or pictures), well it simply comes down to the fact that my wife has been watching various Korean dramas on Netflix over the last year. It started with wanting to eat Korean food regularly and then it was just mentions of it here and there where she would say stuff like “We should go on a trip to South Korea”. Based on the fact that we wanted to also swing by Japan meant that we needed more time on the trip and the Christmas break would be the only time that would facilitate it without having my youngest miss school. This meant that we would be going to South Korea & Japan in the winter, not full blown winter but still winter.
We have done Japan around December/January before and it was cold, but i dont think we knew what we were getting ourselves into with South Korea.
For the rare photo that im in the picture my 11yr old Lucas took those shots which turned out well, i also threw some phone snaps in there.
The Gear
We need to talk about the gear, still love geeking out about specs and nerdy tech things so have to cover what i brought with me on the trip. On this trip i didnt want to take all of my Fuji lenses with me so i left one behind (thats a first for me). Here is what i brought:
Body
Fujifilm X-Pro3
Lenses
Fujinon 16mm f1.4
Fujinon 23mm f1.4
Fujinon 35mm f1.4
I found i gravitated to the 23mm (35mm full frame equivilant) a little more although not much more than the 35mm (50mm full frame equivilant) which was 30 frames behind in my selection list. I do love the 35mm Fuji lens as its probably the sharpest Fuji lens i own, plus it was the only lens i had when i first moved to the Fuji ecosystem so ive come to know it alot better than any of the other lenses. The 23mm has only been a somewhat recent purchase so i havent properly found my way around it, but in saying that i think the 23mm (35mm full frame equivalent) is by far the best lens to take on holidays and i do think i could get away with only using that lens. That would also save a lot of lens anxiety knowing what lens to put on the camera, if you only have one then the choice is easy. The 16mm didnt get much action, mainly used for shots that needed it, tight spaces that needed to capture a wider view.
Along with the digital gear i also took my Contax S2b with the Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2.8, i absolutely love this combination and forgot how much i love shooting with that camera/lens combination. Ive had a roll of Kodak Portra 400 laying around for who knows how long so thought id throw it in and try and capture some moments along the trip.
South Korea
South Korea was as mentioned our first destination, things didnt start of well with my wife not getting on the flight (the downfall of flying standby) and only Lucas and I getting on the flight to South Korea. Sadly due to the fact that my wife didnt get on the flight they decided to take all the bags off the plane when she was pulled off so both Lucas and I arrived in Seoul with nothing but the clothes on our backs and some backpacks with his Nintendo Switch, books etc and my camera gear and laptop. This wouldnt have been a problem if the temperature wasnt -5 degrees celcius when we arrived at 930pm that evening and all we were wearing was jeans and a t-shirt!
Thankfully our Airbnb host was very accomodating and organised for a taxi to be waiting at the bus stop we got off which was a good 12 minute walk otherwise, all was well once we made it to the apartment. We got our bags 2 days later on the same day my wife ended up arriving.
The rest of the trip was exploring Seoul which included some of the main attractions, a DMZ tour and then we finished off with a short time in Busan. Enough of the text here are some of the images from our time in South Korea.
Thought id add some of my favourites shots from South Korea into a larger viewing platform.
Japan
Being that this was our 2nd family trip, my wifes 4th and my 5th visit to Japan meant that it would probably be best if we tried to explore places that we hadnt yet seen. The fact that we were ending our South Korea trip in Busan meant that we could have a short flight to the South of Japan, with this in mind we decided to start our Japan part of the holiday in Fukuoka the southern most city in Japan and then make our way to Tokyo where we would ultimately fly back to Sydney from.
So we started in Fukuoka but we stayed in Kumamoto, we then made our way up to Okayam, stayed in the Mt Fuji region and finished off in Nerima City in Tokyo. Here are some of the images from our time in Japan.
Much like the South Korea images, thought id add some of my favourites shots from Japan into a larger viewing platform.
Film Images
This roll of Kodak Portra 400 ive had has been sitting there for at least 2 years from what i can remember, it hasnt been refrigerated or kept in a cool place for its life so i think thats the reason of the over grainyness i got from it. I shot it at 320 ISO which is what i usually do for a roll of 400 speed film but potentially needed to go more due to how its been stored all these years and might have lost more of its sensitivity compared to a fresh roll. Oh well i still like the results of some of the shots, these are my faves, the rest arent really worth sharing as they didnt turn out the best. 18 out of 36 shots isnt a bad ratio, probably could have added some more but left them out.
Conclusion
By far my favourite place on this trip was our time in the Mt Fuji region, the fact that we had a car and could explore where ever we wanted to was refreshing compared to the rest of the trip. Plus Mt Fuji is just so mesmorising. South Korea was very similar in ways to Japan but way way colder. There was lots we didnt get to do in South Korea which was our own fault as we were poorly organised but it just means we have the opportunity to go back and see more things. As for Japan, we saw a different side of it as the places we went to didnt have many other tourists besides ourselves (Mt Fuji and Tokyo obvsiouly being the exception), we experienced a lot of what was just local life with a lady even asking us why we were in Kumamto as its a smaller town that not many foreigners visit. Japan has always given me great experiences even on the 5th visit.
Overall it was a trip we all had fun on, explored new places, ate new foods, made lots of good memories. The only downfall was that our eldest son couldnt make the trip.
Until the next one.
Thats for visiting.
Japan on 35mm Film
I have an awesome wife! She took me to Japan for my 40th birthday and i shot most of it on my 35mm film camera.
So let’s get it out of the way, i turned 40. The only benefit of this is that i have an awesome wife.
Those who know me know that i don’t like parties let alone one that celebrates me, so when my wife asked me months and months ago what i wanted to do for my 40th all i said was “I don’t want a party” and thats where it begins.
On Friday the 7th of February i went to work like any other day, around 4pm that afternoon i come back to my desk and there is my wife with a box. She brought a cake to celebrate my birthday because i “wasn’t going to be around for it”. Hmmmm that got me thinking, so after the embarrassment of singing me happy birthday with my work colleagues and eating some epic South American cake my mum made, my wife then tells me that we need to get going because we are flying out somewhere that evening.
Let me make it very clear, i had no idea what so ever that this was happening, no clue, no inkling.
So we get home and she’s got a half packed bag for me and tells me to add anything else to it and get all my camera gear ready that i wanted to take.
On a side note, sadly i busted my digital camera (Fujifilm X-T2) which needs repairing so i packed my Contax S2b with my Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.8 and 50mm f1.7. I also threw in my Fuji GW690III and my Fujifilm X-T10 with 1 lens the 35mm f1.4 for those evening shots that i wouldn’t be able to get with my film cameras.
So the question had to be asked, what type of weather do i pack for? Do i pack my boardies to go for a swim? My response “its going to be cold”.
That got me thinking for destinations, ruled out the close obvious destinations that are always hot or currently in summer like Bali, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand. The first country that came to mind was Japan or if not Korea.
So we get to the airport and check in and at this point in time there was no hiding where we were going, and yes it was Japan.
This was the 4th time i had been to Japan and ever since getting back into film ive wanted to shoot film there, japan and film just go hand in hand and after getting my film back im even more convinced. One thing i didn’t have a lot of at the time was film, but i knew i was going to a place where id have plenty of different stocks to choose from.
This trip I decided to try some different film stocks, I already had some rolls of Kodak Colorplus 200 and Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400 that I bought and had in the fridge waiting for me to try but not enough to get me through this 8 day trip. Eventually when I got there I bought some Fujifilm Superia Venus 800, Fujifilm Superia Premium 400 and some more Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. I’ve been shooting with Kodak Portra 400 & 800 for most the year and thought it was time try some other stocks.
While in Japan I also bought myself a Yashica ML 24mm f2.8, wanted something slightly wider than the 35mm. Sadly the Carl Zeiss was a little out of my price range, but the Yashica is in typical Japanese grade.
Japan trips i tend to over plan to make sure we can get the most out of the trip, as i didn’t know it was happening we stuck around the Tokyo area, exploring maybe 1 hour from Tokyo on different days and a day trip out to the Fuji 5 lakes region.
Here are the shots from the trip all shot on the Contax S2b with either the Carl Zeiss 35mm, 50mm or Yashica 24mm. Shots split via film stock.
Contax S2b - Kodak Colorplus 200
I had shot Kodak Colorplus 200 before but was an expired roll, but was keen to give it another try. To be honest another big factor was that they are cheap. Im super happy with how the shots came out with this stock, plenty of detail and colours are nice. Ill be keeping a spare roll of colorplus in fridge i think.
Contax S2b - Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400
First time shooting Superia Xtra 400, and i’m instantly a fan. Ive really been enjoying the greener rather than the warmer which lends itself to the Fujifilm stocks. Also reasonably priced, i think i’ll be switching my Kodak Portra 400 to the Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400 for a while to learn more about this stock. Also got my favourite image of this trip from this stock which is the clothes store with the 2 girls walking past it and the pink neo PIN NAP above them.
Contax S2b - Fujifilm Superia Venus 800
Much like the reasoning behind the Superia Xtra 400, i’m into the green colours at the moment so wanted to try a substitute to Kodak Portra 800. Im not as convinced with the Venus 800 as i was with the Xtra 400, but it’s my first roll. Brought a bunch of these back with me so will have to take it through its paces.
