Today’s first picture is an example of how to not do night photography. I only had my TZ7 with me at the time. Although the TZ7 can accidentally take pictures at night with the correct exposure, it doesn’t usually. I couldn’t get it to take any with an exposure length of more than 1 second or less than 15 seconds, and you can’t manually set it for exactly 4 or 5 seconds, which is what this view needed. The above is the 15-second version, which turns the train into a nearly complete ghost. I’ll get a better picture of the Toden Arakawa Line (都電荒川線) at night with my LX3 (which does allow for any exposure of my chosing) one of these evenings.

The Arakawa Line is the closest train system to our apartment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go where we usually need to go and is slow compared to the Tokyo Metro and other train systems we can choose from. But it is a fun train to ride when you aren’t in a hurry and have no place in particular to go. You can ride it all day, getting off and on as many times as you wish, for just 400 yen. Kids (under 12) pay half price to ride.

This old, streetcar, tram type line feels a bit like riding the San Francisco Cable Car. The controls all seem to be mechanical. There are no computer displays or buttons to push. Instead, levers are pulled and switches are flipped. This is the last of its kind in Tokyo, even though the city was covered with them in the first half of the 20th Century.

There are several interesting neighborhoods near the Minowa end of the line.

Here is a video I took of a little stretch. Unfortunately, no streetcar passed us going the other way while this was being taken. Other than having to wear a tie, I think this would be a very fun job to have–at least for a year or two.

Related posts:

1. Tokyo Skyline from Odaiba I took today’s photo from the outside perch of the restaurant on the top floor of Joypolis. This is the Tokyo Bay with the Rainbow Bridge connecting my location...
2. Yoshiwara – Soaplands in Tokyo The famed Yoshiwara (吉原) red-light district still exists in Tokyo. Even though prostitution is technically illegal in Japan, the law doesn’t seem to be enforced. Or perhaps it is...
3. Tokyo at night Typhoon 18 recently ripped through Tokyo. The rain stopped in the morning, followed by some incredible cloud displays. While the sky was mostly blue, a few clouds seemed to...
4. China’s Tokyo Embassy (The Craziest Place on Earth) Imagine the worst DMV on the planet. Now put that DMV on steroids. And not good steroids, that make things work better, but steroids that do nothing but multiply all...
5. Japan’s trains Soon my kids will be riding the Yamanote-Sen from Takadanobaba to Tamachi on an almost daily basis. It won’t look much like the above. I took the above picture...

Posted on January 28th, 2010 under Japan • Tags: night photography, Tokyo, trains, tz7 zs3, video. • RSS 2.0 feed • You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed