SOMETHING IN THE CORNER

Always staying at the same hotel for business trips to Tokyo, I did not tend to walk around hotel area after whole day meeting and the dinner gathering. So I missed something interesting and pretty.

This time because staying at different hotel, I had a chance to take different route in the same area, I found some locations with nice night view which I have seem them in Japanese drama before. Surprisingly they are not far away from the hotel which I used to stay, but I never got closer enough to see them.

I think people always miss something interesting and beautiful because they are lack of curiosity and the passion to explore, so do I.

DO YOU?

WELL PRESERVED HUKOU OLD STREET (湖口老街)

Long time ago when I worked as a commercial film producer, I had a commercial film shot at Hukou old street. Hukou old street was not such a popular tourist site at that time and was a perfect place to tell stories of early Taiwan.

Now Hukou old street became a famous tourist site of HsinChu County. It may not be as the origin, but I still prefer it than other old streets. Because it keeps more original flavour, with less non-sense souvenir shops and less visitors. But what I don't like is they allow cars driving though the old street during holidays.

If you like to see some Taiwanese old streets, don't miss Hukou old street.

More photos

OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE, THEY JUST FADE AWAY

Hukou Township (湖口鄉) is famous of its old streets and the largest army tank base. To show the special history of Hukou Township, the township government requested some decommissioned tanks to be displayed at some tourist sites.

Near the parking lot of Hukou old street, there is a very special military vehicle which is the M733 amphibious personal carrier. According to the description, this vehicle served in ROC Marine Corps, a special model from M116 Husky in 60'.

It is hard to find any information about this special armour vehicle, either specifications and service history. Anyway, it did serve in ROC Marine Corp and be a part of national defence force of Taiwan, now retired and tries to tell its story to visitors.

After taking some photos, I though what General Douglas MacArthur said "OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE, THEY JUST FADE AWAY" is really a good description of this military vehicle.

LENS TEST (SONY A350 DSLR with Nikkor 55mm MICRO)

Last time I talked about how I brought grand father's old Nikon lenses back to alive. Now comes the real test. There are some interesting findings with Sony A350 and Nikkor 55mm micro lens during the test:

• Sony A350 needs to work under "M mod", means manual control aperture and shutter speed, or camera will show "no lens" message. Because Digital camera does not receive any data from traditional lens.
• Adjust aperture from lens, not from camera. No big deal! just like what I did long time ago.
• Luckily, the exposure function still works. So set the aperture from the lens first, then find out the proper shutter speed.
• Now comes the difficult part. It is difficult to use manual focus, because the focusing screen is designed for DSLR, so sometimes I am not sure the camera really focus on the object or not.
• Also, if you choose smaller aperture, it becomes dark in the view finder or on LCD screen. You need to switch to bigger aperture and focus on the object, then switch to smaller aperture you prefer.
• After uploading to Flickr, you will get interesting EXIF data, such as F1.0 for aperture and 0mm for focus length.

Though it is not convenient to use the traditional lens with DSLR, but it really save a lot of money for me. Especially some lenses I may just use once in a while.

BRING OLD LENSES BACK TO ALIVE

Aunt asked me to take care of cameras and lenses which grand father left. Even though I have not used traditional camera for a long time, I still take the responsibility for this work.

Those cameras and lenses do not mean only photography equipment, also a part of our memory to grand father. So we decided to keep all of them, though we hardly to use them any more.

Recently, I found a vendor selling the converter for Sony DSLR to adopt Nikon lens, and it is not too expensive (NTD1,600, about USD48). So I got one for my Sony A350 to fit those old lenses. When Sony A350 works with old Nikon lenses, only can work under M mode and no auto focus function. But I am very happy that I can bring those lenses back to alive. They will not be just displaying items sitting in the dry cabinet.