Neo's Photo Gallery
Recently I picked up a new camera to replace my aging Toshiba PDR-M4 which has served me well for about five years. When a weak battery corrupted a card full of pictures I really wanted to keep I knew it was time to retire it. The replacement camera is the amazing, stunning and highly-recommended Canon G3. The Canon cost me as much now as the Toshiba did five years ago, so I'm hoping it will provide the same level of quality and durability - and so far it has surpassed my wildest expectations. The following pictures are all taken with the G3 unless otherwise noted. The subject matter is completely random, but will include primarily interesting things I see in Japan, like places, things, and insects. The G3 has so far proved totally unshakable and I hope you'll agree the shots below can be pretty nice indeed.
	Some random pics of Australia, including a lovely primary colour shot of Childers, 3 hours north of Brisbane. Also in Childers, Zumi has a stretch after exploring some railroad tracks. On the insect front there's a cicada shell, and from my aunt here's a pic of a live cicada. While in Howlong I found this giant moth, which is apparently pretty common. Back in Brisbane there was this St. Andrews Spider.
	Driving home from Tokyo tonight as the sun went down. Snapped these pics out the window as we drove along the freeway. Luckily I wasn't the driver! Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5 Image 6
	Japan has a problem with addiction. They cannot stop themselves from paving over their rivers, ostensibly to control water flow and flood damage, based on the results of a water study done shortly after World War 2. They're not capable or interested in preserving the ecology, and the result is a stark wasteland of concrete and garbage-strewn creeks and rivers.
	Today was a real Kamakiri day (Praying Mantis day). Found quite a few, including this incredibly chubby one (I assume she's pregnant). She happily turned to look at the camera for this shot.
	This one was much thinner, and turned away from the camera like she had something to hide. Only one of the six or so we saw was timid enough to run from us, and in fact I was able to tease a few by poking them on the wings, at which point they'd take an angry step or two.
	Two really nice dragonfly pics today. Found them sunning on some rusted old barbed wire near our house. The detail on the wings just astounds me. When there's no alternatives to focus on the camera does an amazing job, especially with the blurred background giving an intense contrast. (zoom in)
	This one is a much more vivid colour, but still the same red/brown hue we get in this area. Down in Izu the colours range into some incredible reds, yellows, greens and blues. Still though I think these laid-back city tombo (dragonfly) are more friendly and willing to pose... (zoom in)
	These two beetles were completely unashamed to be caught percolating on a roadside plant. Notice the gold one down below - is she jealous, or waiting her turn?
	Here's the second-choice beetle. She's about 11mm long, very tiny. Still not sure if she's next in line, or just shagged out... Lovely colour, don't get much besides plain black ones in Canada.
	This monster is about 5-6cm long, and he'd probably throw me over his shoulder if I got any closer than this!! Camera seemed to like focusing on the leaf behind him instead, maybe it doesn't like spiders either?
	She's a cutie this one.
	JAFD. Just another dragonfly. Nice composition though, IMO. Lone strand of grass with an out of focus background... Initially he flew away, but he came back to the same place when I failed to leap into the air after him. A little out of focus, but I'm not sure if it's because I was shaking a little while the camera exposed the image, or if it's because the camera focused on the wrong spot.
	Not quite as clear as I'd have liked, but on an overcast day like this it seems my choices are only slightly-unclear, or overbright-with-flash... Not sure that there's any other option short of flash-freezing the universe and standing there with a tripod...
	Yeah, he's ugly, and just a bit out of focus, but I'd have felt bad not taking his picture when he posed so carefully for me. At first he made to fly away, but tucked his wings back in when I didn't try and eat him.
	Japan has a serious problem with powerlines. You can't escape them. It makes me crazy, everywhere you look there's an aerial rat's nest of wires and shit. Totally stupid politics that keep them from being buried like a civilized nation might do. You'd think, given the Japanese propensity to waste money, they'd come up with a mandate to sink the f**king things and give the construction crews something to do besides tear up and repave my street without reason.
	Just a lousy sunset. It got just lovely later on, but I couldn't find a decent place to take a picture. Once again the Canon just amazed me, staring directly at the sun without a single problem.
	Yours truly. Sorry. Maybe I should put a warning on the page... Just look at the colours and the background instead of me, ok?
	A much larger grasshopper than we're used to.
	Getting this close to a bee isn't what zumi had in mind on our little afternoon walk, but there were no injuries to report. Shame I couldn't get close to the bumble bee that was flying around. He was large enough to cast shadows over large portions of the path we were walking on. Huge. This one's very happy to pose for us though, so here he is.
	This was a surprise - some sort of grasshopper variant, with similar rear legs but front legs (both pairs) splayed out like a beetle, and a head that's decidedly different than your average grasshopper. It tapers to a point, has no visible mouth, and has two strange looking antenna-like extensions that kind of defy description.
	Not such great results on this guy, out of four pics this is the clearest. A very strange black beetle, about 3-4cm long, but with a very unusual red head. Looks a bit like a lumpy tomato. Not sure what he was, but he sure wasn't scared. I was about 10cm from him for this shot.
	Zumi nearly ran over this guy as we were biking on a sidewalk, and when we turned back to see if he was ok he flew into some grass. He was pretty good about having his picture taken and I got the camera to within 15cm of him to take this shot. THe Japanese name for the Praying Mantis is Kamakiri.
	This monster was hanging around in our garden, and he posed happily for a picture. It's hard to tell the size, he was about 5cm long and the hairs were about 2-2.5cm. Quite astonishing for a caterpillar!!
	It's kind of hard to see the shape of the moth here; the head is at the bottom, you can see two antenna-like things hooked around the bottom of the leaf. Gorgeous saturation in the greens.
	Another dragonfly picture. This one is a gorgeous closeup showing incredible detail in the wings. The camera's aperture is wide open for excellent clarity in the relatively dark overcast daylight, resulting in blur immediately ahead of the insect, and on the rear of his body. Excellent focus where needed though. You can count the cells in his wings!
	This is a ten-second exposure looking out my window at about 10pm. The scene was lit by a solitary flourescent tube, but the camera had no trouble making a usable image from the light available. notice the complete lack of noise - the G3 has some amazing noise cancellation.
	Yes, this was a live insect. I got to within about 45cm of him and snapped this before he spooked and flew away.
	Also a live insect, but he seemed totally fearless and didn't run off no matter how close I got.
	Just trying to see how the colours come out. The saturation of the M4 was really poor, greens became very dull, and reds were never as vivid as this. I'd say the G3 has saturation equal to my benchmark - my father's Sony. I've always been jealous of the colour he gets from his camera, but... No more!
	Considering I aimed the camera directly at the sun the results are amazing. The viewfinder was giving some massive vertical light smear, but none of that is evident in the final result.