Hot Item: Panasonic Lumix FT-2

I recently purchased this camera on a whim while in Kagoshima, but despite my lack of careful deliberation, doing so turned out to be a smart move. The complete radness of this camera is not limited to the orange finish: as one of the latest 'tough' cameras to come to the market, it is shock resistant to 2m drops, waterproof to 10m, and captures 14MP images. Oh, and it shoots some quality HD video.

This is my crew in a sea cave in Miyako. The approach to this cave requires wading through water, so taking my DSLR was out of the question (and I can't afford a waterproof housing).

The images are rather outstanding when shot at close range underwater. Shooting at longer ranges naturally subjects your image to more external circumstances like water turbidity and lighting, so image quality seems to drop off rapidly with distance. My longer range underwater shots from this day are pretty unremarkable, so I'm not posting them here. However, I think that the camera is capable of beautiful underwater photos with the right conditions. That is to say that the camera has not been the limiting factor in my photos so far. I look forward to taking it to the limit next time we have a nice dive.

The excellent HD video capability is the unexpected best feature of this camera. Overlooking the poor quality of YouTube, check out this video:

I didn't wear a weight belt that day, so I kept floating and colliding with the tunnel overhead. Still, pretty cool.

Anyway, having underwater photography (and sweet video) has unlocked a new zone of shareable adventure here in Miyako. Look forward to more stuff.

Movies and music

Yo, I just watched this film, Hotel Venus, and while I'm not writing a review here, I do want to mention that it is pretty interesting in several ways. It's a joint Korean-Japanese production with lots of talent from both countries. In a leading role is SMAP dude and Korea-phile Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as a tap-dancing dude who can't advance his life past a traumatic experience in which-- well, no spoilers (Not because I care, but because I'm lazy.). Anyway, a bunch of troubled, crazy folks with mundanely appropriate nicknames ('Doctor' for the drunk physician, 'Boy' for the young man trying to prove he's tough, etc.) live in this hotel owned by an androgynous old person called 'Venus' (which when pronounced in Korean sounds like 'penis'; my observation was not appreciated by fellow viewers) and generally operated by Kusanagi's character.

Anyway, the monochromatic film is pretty slow at the start, but it does eventually become rather interesting in a hopeless way. Basically, shit pans out for some of the characters, but not all of them (i.e. being unable to change things that are out of their control), and isolation between people is the dominant theme. I don't speak Korean, so I had to awkwardly follow the Japanese subtitles, but my attention was sufficiently captured by the performances of the entire cast. And there was Miki Nakatani.

Also, in other news: We're planning a little live musical performance of sorts for next month, so I have been learning a few new tunes. I mention this now because we encountered a real gem of a song while watching Hotel Venus. It's called "These Days," and it is performed by Love Psychedelico.