Tokyo at night from from the Metropolitan Government Building just hours ago – a free place to get up to the 45th floor, 220 meters above sea level and get a panoramic view across the whole city.

Gives some scale to what  the “most populous metropolitan area in the world” looks like. It’s – obviously – absolutely gigantic. Wherever you look: it’s lights, houses, office blocks, skyscrapers, cars….

From a photography perspective this is quite a tricky spot to shoot from. That’s mainly because the light from inside the panoramic deck reflects badly in the glass windows and therefore makes it near impossibly to get a clear shot without some glare in the frame.

The “no tripod” rule doesn’t help either. I used my gorilla pod for this, which meant I got away with it for quite some time. This shot is a 10s exposure at 100 ISO, 26mm with my favoured Sigma 17.-50mm lens.

Clearly this is not the best view of Tokyo you can get – that one is out to the other side – but it was the best I could get at this point in time.

While I’m complaining about the fact that the observation deck is not necessarily photographer friendly, one has to keep in mind that it is absolutely free of charge to get up there and enjoy the view of the city. So hats off to Tokyo for offering this unique view without charging for it.