by Ayako | Mar 09, 2012 | Everio Video Hunters!, GZ-E10

Hello, it’s Ayako.
Winter in Japan this year was harsh, cold and long, and by now we can hardly wait for spring. The streets of Tokyo are as dreary as ever, but flowers in pastel pinks and yellows line florists’ windows. When I asked around, I learned that you can already pick flowers at Minami-Boso in Chiba, about two and a half hours by car from the center of Tokyo. I grabbed the Everio GZ-E10 and set off to capture spring vistas a bit ahead of schedule!

Minami-Boso takes advantage of its mild climate to cultivate flowers. The general flower season begins in May or thereabouts, but here you can enjoy picking flowers in January. Since you can capture flowers with the blue sea in the background, it’s also the perfect spot for a location shoot. This time, I traveled along the Boso Flower Line, which runs from Chikura to Shirahama. I plan to snap all sorts of flower- and ocean-themed shots and enjoy the drive!

Every year, the Everios keep on evolving. The GZ-E10 model uses a high performance F1.8 KONICA MINOLTA HD LENS, and although it’s an entry-level model, you can feel JVC’s meticulous attention to high resolution. In this season, changes in the weather are drastic, but I left everything to Intelligent AUTO and concentrated on getting beautiful high-resolution captures.

Capturing Flower Fields against the Ocean!

It wasn’t long before I arrived at Shiramazu Flower Field. There was a little wind, but the weather was terrific. Beyond the outdoor flower fields, the vast ocean spread as far as the eye could see. It was a stunning location. I wanted to capture the wonderful relationship between the flowers and the ocean, so I set up a tripod and panned as I shot; I shot the field mustard growing by the side of the road from the “tele” side’s shortest distance, about a meter, with the ocean several hundred meters behind it. I tried blurring the ocean in the background to capture the yellow flowers swaying in the wind more vividly.

Next I took some low-angle captures. By fixing the tripod so that it was on eye level with the flowers, the flowers’ presence in the shot was emphasized. Clouds did cover the sun at times; as you’d expect, flowers are at their most vivid and colorful in sunlight, so timing is important. Some scenes turned out backlit due to where I was standing, but Intelligent AUTO corrected for that, and the captures came out nicely. In bloom: stock and snapdragons, poppies and garden marigolds. Incredibly colorful!

Last, I tried some telemacro capturing. With the telemacro switched on in the manual settings, you can get as close as 50cm to your subject with the telemacro and shoot from there. (On the “wide” side, as close as 5cm.) It created a beautiful blurred effect, and the freshness of the flowers came through in the shot. I used the zoom to shoot the scene with the bees, with the telemacro turned off. The bees are also hard at work carrying nectar in preparation for spring.

This post focused on flowers, and the next will focus on the ocean. I’ll capture in various styles for that one, too. Keep an eye out for the next post!

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