At the beginning of the year, I went to visit a Spanish family living in Shirakawa-go, and today I would like to share with you some photos I took with the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II during my visit.
I had always wanted to visit Shirakawa-go with its rows of gassho-zukuri houses, but I had never been there before because I had to take several different modes of transportation to get there from Tokyo. This time, my partner’s friends from Paris were living in Shirakawa-go and she really wanted to visit them, so I decided to go with her as it was a unique opportunity to visit Shirakawa-go.
Scenes of the Japanese countryside on the way from my parents’ house in Tokyo to my friends’ house in Shirakawa-go
First, we took the Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo Station to Shin Takaoka, and then the Jobata Line to the last stop, Jobata Station. We then took the World Heritage bus to Gokayama, where we met up with my partner and his Spanish friend. I had never been on a long-distance trip in Japan before, and I had never spent half a day from my parents’ house in Tokyo to the remote Japan Sea coast, so it was all a new experience for me. The snow-covered mountain ranges of Nagano and Toyama prefectures that I saw from the Shinkansen were truly magnificent and beautiful, and the atmosphere inside the local Johata line was just as interesting as in an animation or movie. I walked from Gokayama to my Spanish friend’s house along the road shown in the photo above.
Impressed by the majestic scenery of the harsh, snow-covered wilderness
The soft evening sun, which turns the vapor rising from the snow orange, is absolutely beautiful.
The power of the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II to capture every corner clearly
With the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM, I had the impression that the image would be washed out at the four corners, but with the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II, the image is clearly resolved from the center to the corners. In urban areas such as Tokyo and Paris, it is fun to take snapshots with only a single focal length lens, but in the great outdoors, a zoom lens that covers a wide focal length is very useful. I would want an all-in-one zoom lens that is a little lighter and has a wider focal length. Then, the 28-200mm F/2.8-5.6 Di III RXD weighing 575g would be very interesting.
Ajidokoro Takachiyo serving wild animal hot pot & Ainokura Gassho-Zukuri Village
Raccoons, foxes, wild boars, and bears are common in this area, and in fact at a friend’s house, raccoons and foxes would wander around the house every night around dinner time and demand food. Also, Ajiro Takachiyo, a restaurant my friend frequents, offers bear, civet, and other wild animal hot pots, so if you are interested, you should definitely try there!
A walk through Tokyo and Shonan with the APO-LANTHAR 50 mm F2