Ebvette

I very recently purchased my very first 3rd party lens' date=' a Sigma 17-50 f2.8 OS. So far I'm extremely happy with it. I'm now considering purchasing a super telephoto zoom for my wildlife photography and am looking at 3rd party lenses as Nikon's 80-400mm VR is just way over my budget. I'm eagerly awaiting Tamron's recently announced 150-600mm to become available and will seriously consider that one.[/quote']

 

 

I purchased the "BIG MA" 120-400mm Sigma lens last year. It is a very good lens, but when pushed to between 300-400 it gets soft. Like most of the 3rd Party lenses, they are good, but when pushed they still lack some sharpness, especially during overcasts or cloudy situations. So I broke down this year and purchased the NikonAF-S NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR. (new one) and immediately the color and sharpness was immediate. Best telephoto lens at that focal length that I have ever used. Going on a cruise in October and place to take this heavy glass, as in Belize we plan to take a river boat ride to some Mayan ruins and that would be an excellent lens to use taking wildlife on the riverbank......very excited to use it.

 

I feel fortunate I was able to purchase the lens, as it is expensive, but certainly glad I did. Here is another idea for NIKON shooters, that works great. Purchase the 70-200mm F2.8 VR ED lens and the 1.7X Tele-convertor, this will provide you a maximum reach of 340mm with 2 f stops, but the lens itself is such a high quality, and if you are using a D800, well you are really out ahead, as you can safely crop 5X on top of that...I shoot Aviation Photography, and yes have used the 200-400 NIKON super lens, but compared to the new 80-400mm Well I will take the later any day, the 200-400 EXCELLENT lens, to darn big, heavy and not worth 7K in my opinion for the amount of time you use it for situational photography.

 

I am very interested in reading more about the Tamron lens, but from many of the preliminary reports I am getting from people who are using this lens in the field, not very good results, too soft over 300, loses even more at 450+

 

My recommendation, if you are a Nikon shooter, save and just buy the Nikon lens, it really is superior glass, although expensive, you do get what you paid for.

 

Another lens I just purchase, and I feel it is remarkable is the Nikon 85MM f 1.4 Portrait lens. All I can say its Remarkably SHARP.... Another great lens.

Great picture! Hopefully novice cruisers will realize why they sometimes pass up ports because it is too rough to tender.

Oh that's a walk in the park, here is a photo of what we use to go through in the Coast Guard....now that's surf...

But we loved every minute of this....

Definitely. We have had a couple of fog cruise out of Galveston. In 2011 our embarkation was delayed until 5:30pm since the ship never arrived until around 3pm. We expected to leave at 8:30pm Sunday, but the fog rolled in again. We finally left Galveston at 3:45am Monday morning. We were only an hour late arriving into Montego Bay, even with almost a 12 hour delay. Carnival extended our time in port an hour to make up for it.

The Coast Guard is very quick to close the ship channels - both Houston and the Galveston channel.

 

We also were delayed at sea an full day once because the port of Galveston was closed due to a tropical storm. It hit down at Matagorda and Galveston had minimal rain and wind, but the Coast Guard shut the port.

 

We sail on the 14th. We wouldn't mind missing Belize since we have no plans to get off. We would love a stop at Costa Maya.

The Coast Guard will only close those channels when life and property is in imminant danger. Unlike some other countries the Coast Guard's primary purpose is to protect life and property at sea.....just a little tip of the hat to my buddies...

Here are a couple I took on our cruise...

This is nearing a sun set...

I do a lot of aircraft photography so here are a couple of mine..

Hope you enjoyed them, can you identify the aircraft?

The lens is supposed to be very sharp and I believe that is why you can crop so well. I have not to crop an image taken from it yet.

 

 

Sent from my iPad

Partially correct. The D800 has a 36.3 megapixel FX-format, the lens is extremely sharp due to fast fixed aperture of f/2.8 across a 24–70mm zoom range, this lens provides both fine resolution and natural representation. A Nano Crystal Coat helps effectively reduce ghost and flare effects under harsh lighting for greater image clarity. So combine the two and you get the result of 10X plus cropping with reduce noise having excellent results. Want to get even better resolution with closer images switch the D800 to DX, smaller file but your lens gains reach without sacrificing noise when enlarged.

Check out the new Nikon Df FF camera announced today. Under $3,000 with 50mm f1.8 lens.

Even though it uses a lot of D4 CMOS, you do not have dual memory card slots, and the controls are up on top making it hard to set when you are shooting. Also no internal flash.

Sorry I shoot D4 and D800, am a professional Photographer, and I will stay with one of those, the Df is nothing but a novelty and an expensive one, few hundred more and you get a real Nikon the D800 or D800E, if you go to the D610 you still will get a great camera and money left over to buy a FX 2.8 lens.....

Here is a couple of mine

Hope you enjoyed these....

I travel with Nikon D800 and Nikon D4 with many lenses, and only way to go is the side sling Black Rapid RS-7. I do a lot of professional work and the side slings save the neck.....:)

My wife and are booked for the CAS Cruise January 2014, and are very excited. Paul Revere and the Raiders are still one of my favorite groups from the 60's and still put on a great show. We have our album covers ready to be signed, and looking so much to having a fun time on this cruise. BJ Thomas is another very exceptional songwriters and singer.... Cowsills, and Mary Wilson, should be fun.

Rock On! :D

Consider a monopod...easy to travel with, stable enough to take decent photos, and much easier to work with...

You'll find that overall, Princess is very similar to Celebrity. I wasn't in an Aqua Class cabin so compared to my standard balcony cabin on the Summit, the standard Crown Princess cabin is larger with far more storage. No couch but there's an open closet that serves as a dressing area. The bathroom door is there, not from the hallway. There's a mini-frig and WiFi in every cabin, unlike my Summit cabin. There's WiFi throughout the ship, which wasn't true on the Summit.

 

You might consider switching to a Caribe deck balcony instead as the balconies on Caribe are much larger at 9'x9' and are half-covered/half-uncovered.

 

The buffet on Princess is fully open from early in the morning until 11pm so you can get a full breakfast at 10:30am or a full lunch at 3pm.

 

The Crown has the International Cafe in the Piazza on deck 5 and it's open 24/7 with pastries, muffins, cookies and other goodies plus breakfast sandwiches, paninis, salads and sandwiches. Didn't see anything like that on the Summit.

 

My favorite lounge is the Adagio Lounge, above the buffet and next to Sabatinis. During the day, it's a great quiet place to relax and read. In the evening, it's a piano lounge.

 

Overall, I thought the food, service and entertainment better on Princess. We had a great waitstaff on the Summit and there was a terrific lounge singer. However, the bar staff anywhere acted like they were too busy to take our orders even though there were few people there.

 

There's no alcohol drink package on Princess but bar prices are significantly less than on Celebrity. There's a soda package and an "Ultimate" package which includes soda, mocktails, smoothies, juice (which is free at breakfast), etc. Here's a link to the packages: http://www.princess.com/learn/onboard/gifts_services/cellars_culinarydelights/princess_cellars/index.jsp

Thank you so much for sharing. I did what you recommened and booked on the Caribe deck balcony, Starbord Side, I believed Room C 1405...might be mistaken, but I think that is it. Thank you for all you other info, greatly appreciated....

After going on several Celeberity Cruises, this is the first time I will be cruising with Princess Line, or as I hear "the LOVE BOAT". OK, so it took a Rock and Roll theme cruise with Paul Revere and the Raiders, one of my favorite 60's bands, to get me off the Celebrity Line, and onto Princess. So a couple of things, I am sure there will be a culture change going from the pampered life of Aqua Class to the Princess Crown ship. I know that I will miss the BLU, and all the other little perks, but my question to all you folks who have sailed both, is there really a world of difference?

I am looking very very much forward to this cruise as my wife and I will be celebrating twenty years of a wonderful marriage, and my wife REALLY likes Rock and Roll, so we thought we would give it a try.

I have the Aloha Deck with a balcony, startboard, amidships, any throughts on that from experienced Princess cruisers?

Fill me in on the life at sea on Princess Crown, understand its a fairly new ship. Anything I should be aware of? Please any info would help me pepare.

Its a seven day cruise....Jan 18-25...called Where the Action is..... Love to hear from fold who have gone on previous Rock and Roll Cruised with PR and Raiders etc.... Love to hear from you....