Left Behind

I left some camera gear back at the party last night, which is 4.2 miles (6.7km) ( away, according to Google Maps, on the route we take. Multiply that by two for 8.4 miles (13.4km) round trip and it's a great way to start the day!

I'm kidding, in case that's not obvious. Bleh.

On the bright side, I found a place that has even betterdango than the soba place I've mentioned. Same price, slightly smaller amount, but they know how to cook them perfectly and you can buy as many as you want instead of just plates of three.

Oh, and I found not only my missing camera bits, but a friend's lens cap. Bonus.

Storm

This is actually the strongest storm we've had yet. It's got decent lightning, thunder, and the rain is coming down in pretty good quantity. My back door is about four feet back from the edge of my veranda and about six back from the nearest open sky.
The light/sound speed difference is ranging between one - make that a third of a second - and about ten seconds, with an average around three. That's 300 feet, half a mile, and two miles, respectively.
I imagine the close one hit Jusco, as the top is covered in lightning rods. I am... somewhat tempted to go over there... Don't worry, I won't. Camera gear is too sensitive to EM since I've got digital.

Japanese and English Camera Terminology Equivalents

Alright, it's been bothering me for a while now, but I can't find any resources online that have Japanese camera terminology. So... while I was down buying my camera bag, I questioned one of the employees until long enough after closing time that they had to reopen to let me out. This list is hardly exhaustive, but it should be a good starting place for anybody having problems with this kind of thing.
If you don't know what the word is, it's probably just the English word, said very slowly. As examples, if you take the first four words, they are pronounced kamera, lenz, frash, and maunto, respectively. Creative, right?

In Kanji (漢字で)	Reading (読み方)	English meaning (英語で)
	カメラ	camera
	レンズ	lens
	フラッシュ	flash
	マウント	mount (する verb)
大きくする	【おおきくする】	to zoom in (lit: to make bigger)
広くする	【ひろくする】	to zoom out (lit: to make wider)
レンズを付ける	【つける】	to attach a lens
明るいレンズ	【あかるいレンズ】	fast lens
露出	【ろしゅつ】	exposure (する verb)
露出不足	【ろしゅつぶそく】	underexposure
望遠	【ぼうえん】	telephoto (する verb)
広角	【こうかく】	wide-angle (する verb)
絞り	【しぼり】	aperture
絞る	【しぼる】	to stop down aperture
半押し	【はんおし】	to half-press the shutter button
立て位置	【たていち】	portrait (vertical) orientation
横位置	【よこいち】	landscape (horizontal) orientation
	ピンぼけ	out of focus, off the point
	ぶれ	camera shake, picture blur
	てぶれ	hand shakiness

This is the fourth post in about four hours, so I'm going to call it a night and let you guys catch up.
[Edit: Thanks to thots about stuff for pointing out a typo.
I'm going to print this out and have a couple pros at the school check over it, if they're willing, so hopefully I can get some more feedback and more terms.]
[Another edit: This guy that's accidentally posing at right checked through the list for me and put up my Japanese for almost an hour. Good man.]

Camera Bag

Finally, an actual picture!

I love my Tamrac Velocity 7x 5767 sling pack, but it's a little too big to bring with me everywhere, and I can't very well carry my camera in the open where it will be exposed to rain and shock (being dropped). And, for some reason, I can't quite convince myself that I should spend $200 on a pocket camera (donations, anybody? Heh...) but I've been thinking about it for a few days.

The solution I came up with is simply to make my uber-cam more portable, so I picked up the Lowepro... "Topload Zoom Mini Camera Bag".
I forgot to include something for scale, but it's basically a foam case for my camera. I'm not sure it's even big enough to keep my telephoto lens attached. It's that small.

But!
But, it has a belt loop, which means one less thing I'm strapping onto my shoulders. In the summer heat and humidity, you really start to notice that kind of stuff, and between my camera bag and three or four other things I might have over my shoulders, it starts to really suck.
No, not in a good way.

Camera Lenses

By email, I received a question on which lens I use the most. In the states, I use all three about equally, but everything here is very compact, so my 55-200 telephoto sees little use, and my prime sees little use, as it's in the same range.

Ironically, the lens that I use the most - again, this is only here in Japan, where everything is about half as far apart from everything else - is the standard, cheap-ass, comes-with-the-camera 18-55mm. It is a rare case where you need any more zoom than that, so for anybody with an SLR who's planning to come to Japan, you should know that you probably don't need to bring your 600mm, gyro-stabilized, heat-seeking, laser-guided, artillery lens. Just have your 18-55 on your camera all the time, 'cause it's almost the only one you will ever use while you're here.