If you’ve been keeping up with this BBS, you would know that I’ve switched over from film to digital last year. I don’t use film anymore.

It started with a compact Canon PowerShot camera. That obviously was not enough so several months later I got the Canon Kiss Digital (300D or Digital Rebel). Having a D-SLR made me feel like I really switched over. But not 100% yet. I still have to get a professional D-SLR and a few more Canon lenses (since I’ve been using Nikon film SLRs).

But one major sticking point in the digital equation remained: The thousands of pictures I’ve taken with film. They were still in analog mode. I knew that I would have to eventually make digital versions of all my best film shots. And so about a year ago, I started scanning my best film images during my spare time (or during work).

I am happy to announce that the job has been completed. I now have over 21,500 shots of Japan scanned from film. Of course, they represent only a small fraction of all the pictures I’ve taken during my years in Japan. But they are the best, my all-time favorite shots of all 47 prefectures in Japan.

It’s great to have instant access to 21,500 images stored on a 160 GB hard disk (and backup DVD disks) at my beck and call. If you’re a Web-oriented person like me, having a large stock of photos is a real boon.

So now I’m working on a brand new Web site (PHOTOGUIDE.JP) to show thousands of my scrapbook photos of Japan. Through these images, I look forward to sharing my travels, adventures, and experiences in Japan with the world.

Update: From fall 2009, I’ve begun to scan all my film images, even those I scanned before. I’m using a better scanner and taking more time to eliminate dust spots along the way.