I Saw Fireflies For the First Time!
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
On Sunday, I heard that you could see fireflies in Sasebo. Well, I guess they are probably in Fukuoka too, but I didn't have a car or a license when I was in Fukuoka. So I googled and found out that the last day of his firefly viewing event at Yunoki was on Sunday and decided to go!
To be honest I was actually quite worried that I wouldn't be able to find the place because Google Maps led me through lots of fields and small winding roads. And I ended up getting lost two times because I'm not that good at listening to instructions if there's no human to let me ask clarifying questions.
There were a few stalls and one was selling Firefly Manju! They're basically steamed buns with a raisin on top. I bought a box of 8 for 300 yen and they were delicious (and also made on the day I bought them!)
And this is the spot! It's basically a canal but I found that this area had the most fireflies after sunset.
I did do some research and found out that if I wanted to have a chance of taking pictures of fireflies, I needed a tripod because I needed a fairly long exposure. Unfortunately, I still made a lot of mistakes, and you can read about them in my Dayre but I didn manage to get photos of the fireflies!
Most photos looked like this (I only realised it when I got back, but I really should have had a higher ISO - I was really afraid of noise so mine was quite low)
I did try stacking the photos and got these:
They aren't very good photos and I do wish that I found out about this at the start of firefly season, so that I could have a second chance of seeing them, but at least I got to see them in person! The long-ish exposure meant that I had a lot of free time (plus it was dark so there was no point looking through my viewfinder) and I got to admire the fireflies. They look magical in real life!
To be honest I was actually quite worried that I wouldn't be able to find the place because Google Maps led me through lots of fields and small winding roads. And I ended up getting lost two times because I'm not that good at listening to instructions if there's no human to let me ask clarifying questions.
There were a few stalls and one was selling Firefly Manju! They're basically steamed buns with a raisin on top. I bought a box of 8 for 300 yen and they were delicious (and also made on the day I bought them!)
And this is the spot! It's basically a canal but I found that this area had the most fireflies after sunset.
I did do some research and found out that if I wanted to have a chance of taking pictures of fireflies, I needed a tripod because I needed a fairly long exposure. Unfortunately, I still made a lot of mistakes, and you can read about them in my Dayre but I didn manage to get photos of the fireflies!
Most photos looked like this (I only realised it when I got back, but I really should have had a higher ISO - I was really afraid of noise so mine was quite low)
I did try stacking the photos and got these:
They aren't very good photos and I do wish that I found out about this at the start of firefly season, so that I could have a second chance of seeing them, but at least I got to see them in person! The long-ish exposure meant that I had a lot of free time (plus it was dark so there was no point looking through my viewfinder) and I got to admire the fireflies. They look magical in real life!