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	And so it began
	Medium format
	35mm SLR
	The Exakta's
	The first Nikon's
	Her
	The kids and the Exaktas
	The Nikkormats
	The FE2
»	Into the land of Nikon
	The MD-12s
	Upgrading ...
	The F4s and beyond
	An endless love story
	Adventures in the Sierra Madre

A very happy family trip to Japan allowed me to continue relearning and complement the FE2 equipment with a second body, a (not so good) catadioptric (mirror) 600mm f/8 Sigma lens and MD-12 motor drives for both bodies.
 

Nikon FE2 - Nippon Kogaku K. K. - Tokyo, Japan .

It was a delight to shoot at 3.2 frames per second; although each time I shot my wife sighted and made calculations from yens to pesos.
 

It was irrelevant to tell her not to make currency conversions if she wanted to have fun; I listened to her muted groans each time after my shots, until I explained to her that I had spent less on photography than for a single night at our suites at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Tokyo (base camp). But Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Kamakura, marveled my family as they had marveled me, several times before in earlier business trips. Its people, culture and traditions, their love for children and the elderly, were a poem to life and occasion to be thankful for ours.

The 'dynamic duo', my 'children', mockingly in the beginning, were my smiling companions to every temple and palace I had known; and with their great mimic abilities, they made private jokes using the voices of the kabuki theater.
 

But later, courteously, patiently and very attentive, they listened to my narration of the history of the Shogunate, of battles such as that of Sekigahara, of the exploits of samurai and warrior monks, the stories of the always misunderstood ronin and more. Fortunately they had a chance to unwind at the flabbergasting discotheques of Tokyo. Tatiana, professional pop singer of great success by then, took the opportunity to visit the Yamaha Foundation with her mother, under the recommendation of Chairman Kawakami. Both became experts of the metro of Tokyo and its four levels and, of course, also experts on shopping at Ginza.

Juan Ramon, formidable table tennis competitive player, bought as many special racket rubber surfaces as he found and we both purchased special attire and boots for motorcycling. Japan had been number one in the world in such matters for some time.

Accustomed to my heavy duty Tamrac gadget bag (almost trunk by now), this trip deserved the addition of an additional and bigger one, for the format in which I had learned to relish photography: the 6X6 (2 ¼ X 2 ¼).
 

With two Hassellblad bodies, one 500 Classic and one 500 CM, there was opportunity to remember and honor Herr Carl Zeiss, through four of his astounding CF lenses: 50mm f/4 Distagon, 80mm f/2.8 Plannar, 150mm f/4 Sonnar and a 250mm f/5.6 Sonnar.