For photos, do you use your phone or bring a camera?

[Sunny AZ Girl]

I also wrestled with this question, but have decided to take my Sony a6000 with the two kit lenses.  I will have to change lenses at times, but the cost of renting or purchasing a new lens will not justify what I do most of the time.  I am an amateur with a decent eye, but I mainly use my a6000 for travel. I then post-process before making my souvenir photo books.  Maybe when I retire (2-4 years) I will have more time for photography, but not now.  I live in a beautiful state, plus we plan to travel more in the USA at that time, so I may change my priorities then. 

 

On the ship and for most indoor shots I just carry my Samsung S8, which does take some pretty nice pictures. It is also great for those memory shots of people  with scenery in the background.  On the ship I won't be carrying my larger camera around with me.  I just keep my cell phone in a small cross-body bag onboard.  Exceptions are some of the shows where I have better luck with action shots with my a6000.

Edited March 13, 2019 by Sunny AZ Girl

[purdo]

Hi Ginny

 

I too have the A6000 only bought it last November, we had intended getting another Canon but changed our minds.  Just bought a  18-200 mm telephoto lens a couple of weeks ago for it so practicing with that before the cruise.   Will  bring the kit lens but this new lens should do the job, it will save me having to change lenses.  The camera is a lovely size and easier to carry  than the bigger camera which hubby will now use.  Just have to buy extra batteries, don't want to run out of juice halfway through an excursion.  I too have a Samsung (S9) and they do take a pretty decent photo.

 

See you on board OTS 13 May!!  If you see a lonely figure hanging over the side of the ship, scanning the horizon for wildlife, it will probably be me.

 

Mary

[Sunny AZ Girl]

17 minutes ago, purdo said:

Hi Ginny

 

I too have the A6000 only bought it last November, we had intended getting another Canon but changed our minds.  Just bought a  18-200 mm telephoto lens a couple of weeks ago for it so practicing with that before the cruise.   Will  bring the kit lens but this new lens should do the job, it will save me having to change lenses.  The camera is a lovely size and easier to carry  than the bigger camera which hubby will now use.  Just have to buy extra batteries, don't want to run out of juice halfway through an excursion.  I too have a Samsung (S9) and they do take a pretty decent photo.

 

See you on board OTS 13 May!!  If you see a lonely figure hanging over the side of the ship, scanning the horizon for wildlife, it will probably be me.

 

Mary

Hi Mary,

 

Is the 18-200 lens a Sony?  If it is strong enough to use for typical whale watching I may look into that.  

[Oakman58]

21 hours ago, PittsburghNative said:

So many great responses! Thank you! After reading the posts, I think my iPhone will be just fine. Please feel free to keep giving advice as other cruisers can benefit from the information.

 

Personally I think you're making a mistake to rely on an IPhone to take photos for an Alaskan cruise.  I would get the Canon SX740 that SuperCrewBear mentioned because of the great optical zoom.  I use my smartphone for taking photos around the ship but for wildlife and scenery I want a camera with a good optical (not digital) zoom.

[purdo]

18 hours ago, Sunny AZ Girl said:

Hi Mary,

 

Is the 18-200 lens a Sony?  If it is strong enough to use for typical whale watching I may look into that.  

Hi Ginny

Yes, its the Sony Lens 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 with Optical Stabiliser, which makes a big difference.  I've only had it out once,  I'm still getting to grips with the camera too.  I'm pleased enough with the lens as I read the reviews before buying it as it cost as much as the camera.  It is quite sharp, especially at the lower and mid zoom, it is sharper then the kit lens 18-55mm that came with the camera. The other advantage is I won't have to change the lens and it isn't too heavy.   I had a 30 day return on it, I'm going to keep it. It is quick to autofocus. I'm hoping it will get me decent photos of Whales.  I'm no expert, but I do like taking photos.  Here are a couple of photos I took.

 

Mary

Edited March 14, 2019 by purdo

[Cruise_More_Often]

Great photos, purdo. Sounds like that lens is a keeper. 

 

We each have new Sony a6000 cameras, but unfortunately we can't afford to buy that excellent lens. We keep weighing using our old Panasonic LX1000 bridge cameras with their 18-400 zoom or going with our new (sharper) a6000 cameras using both of the kit lenses -- 16-50 and 55-200. We change our minds every day.

 

Sunny AZ Girl, check out the optical zoom setting on the a6000. It will get you a bit more zoom without much degrading of your photos.

 

OP, I use my Samsung S8+ camera a lot on cruise, too. I was shocked when looking at our last Alaska cruise pictures to see how many I shot with the cellphone. I don't try to shoot wildlife with it, though.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Cruise_More_Often

[clskinsfan]

Since the topic of cell phones came up in this thread. How is the cell reception in Alaska? I am hoping to be able to avoid getting the internet package on the ship and just text and touch base at home through my cell service. We have Sprint if that makes a difference.

[Cruise_More_Often]

55 minutes ago, Cruise_More_Often said:

Sunny AZ Girl, check out the optical zoom setting on the a6000. It will get you a bit more zoom without much degrading of your photos.

 

Ooops, my bad. It's "Clear Image Zoom," not "optical zoom."

[peety3]

Close your eyes and envision what you're doing on your cruise. My passion is photography, so it's absolutely three DSLRs and probably six lenses for me, and two DSLRs and several lenses for my wife, but to each their own. Some people fret over buying a $400 camera, some people fret over buying a $400 lens, some people don't even fret about spending $700 to rent a $13k lens (that'd be me). Alaska is always my chance to play.

[Cruise_More_Often]

52 minutes ago, peety3 said:

Close your eyes and envision what you're doing on your cruise. My passion is photography, so it's absolutely three DSLRs and probably six lenses for me, and two DSLRs and several lenses for my wife, but to each their own. Some people fret over buying a $400 camera, some people fret over buying a $400 lens, some people don't even fret about spending $700 to rent a $13k lens (that'd be me). Alaska is always my chance to play.

 

When you fly, how do you carry all that gear?

[Tourist1292]

I am actually going to get the $600+ lens for my DSLR so that I don't need to change lens.

[PittsburghNative]

On 3/13/2019 at 7:25 PM, Oakman58 said:

 

Personally I think you're making a mistake to rely on an IPhone to take photos for an Alaskan cruise.  I would get the Canon SX740 that SuperCrewBear mentioned because of the great optical zoom.  I use my smartphone for taking photos around the ship but for wildlife and scenery I want a camera with a good optical (not digital) zoom.

 

It definitely would be nice to have a better option for zooming in on wildlife, but I can’t see myself spending $400 on a camera that I’ll hardly use.

Edited March 15, 2019 by PittsburghNative

[xlxo]

For general travel... I've gotten lazy and use my phone.  Love the compactness.

 

On excursions from boat or bus.... I so love my Nikon 18-300mm zoom lens.  I can capture wildlife effortlessly from long distances with quick autofocus and detail.  Phone can't keep up especially waiting to focus.

 

Another benefit is my DSLR flash when I need to daylight shadows.

Edited March 15, 2019 by xlxo

[peety3]

16 hours ago, Cruise_More_Often said:

 

When you fly, how do you carry all that gear?

One of the luxuries of living in the Seattle area is the ability to do Alaska cruises with just a 40-minute drive. 🙂 That said, the gear travels reasonably well (in my opinion): my wife's backpack can usually carry her stuff and maybe one of my lenses, my backpack can carry all the rest of the cameras/lenses aside from the 600, my carry-on messenger bag handles my laptop/headphones/etc., and then I use a Pelican case to haul the 600, tripods, monopods, etc. I figure the 600 is big enough that if a port worker wanted to steal it, there'd be surveillance footage, and I switch the Pelican case from TSA locks to padlocks when I'm not flying.

[peety3]

16 hours ago, Tourist1292 said:

I am actually going to get the $600+ lens for my DSLR so that I don't need to change lens.

This can be a great reason to rent - if you wouldn't use the lens that often, why lock in to one particular slice of technology?

 

For many folks, optical quality doesn't matter much - they just don't have an awareness of how much better it could be. But for some, they do recognize it, and this is where those "superzooms" lose their luster. The bigger the zoom range (3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, 15x), the worse the optics will be (for a given price point). That's the reason that I take three cameras: so I can have three lenses mounted, that in total give me about 75x zoom range. As an example, I did a small series of shots on a past cruise from the back of the Ruby Princess. I was up on Deck 19 at the jogging path, and set up a tripod that was aimed at the bridge. I shot a series of lenses to show the comparison:

At 11mm, here's an ultra-wide view of the Pacific Ocean: Wide Shot

At 840mm, here's a view of the bridge wing: Tight Shot

From the wide shot, arrow-right to scroll through a series of shots to see a progression. Does everyone need that for Alaska? Nope. Do I enjoy having that at my disposal while cruising? Absolutely. I also (now) make it a point to use my 50mp camera on that super-telephoto, so I have even more ability to crop in on the shots later.

[Oakman58]

On 3/14/2019 at 8:41 PM, PittsburghNative said:

 

It definitely would be nice to have a better option for zooming in on wildlife, but I can’t see myself spending $400 on a camera that I’ll hardly use.

 

I completely understand not wanting to spend a lot of money on a camera that you won't continue to use.  Even so, there are good used point and shoot cameras with good zoom lenses for sale at reasonable prices on ebay or craigslist or refurbished cameras on other various websites.

 

If you want photos of wildlife, having a zoom lenses is a necessity in my opinion.  You might see wildlife up close or 300 yards away or not at all, it's always a crap shoot unless you go to a zoo.  I was lucky enough to see whales breaching on an excursion but without a good zoom lens the whales would have looked more like large black dots on the ocean.

 

 

[purdo]

I took this photo of  a Common Dolphin taken in the Straits of Gibraltar last April, with our old Canon 450D and a Tamron Telephoto lens 18-270.

[cabland]

I mentioned we just used a pocket camera (in addition to our phones) with a decent zoom (Sony DSC-HX80), but it helps to show what that delta looks like:

 

Here are some shots from a trip we took to Seattle:

 

Downtown Seattle w/ Space needle from Columbia Center twoer:

 

 

 

 

 

Baseball anyone:

 

 

 

Cruise Ship:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GUT2407]

Camera for me every time, but then I do have a couple to choose from.

[purdo]

Lovely photo everyone.  Wow, hope I get to see Whales breaching.

[Cruise_More_Often]

Great zoom pictures! Thanks to everyone for sharing.

[SightCRR]

This is a screen shot from grandson's iPhone video. I missed the whole thing with my sony zoom bridge camera that works great for slow moving animals and tails but whales breaches not so much. iPhone works fine for what op needs but read up or watch tube videos on best settings and practice. 

Edited March 17, 2019 by SightCRR

[Mountaineer0313]

I bought a Nikon D3400 DSLR camera specifically for this cruise because I knew that my iphone just would not cut it, and I was right. If you're wanting to get shot sthat are right in front of you, no zooming, color is good, etc. then your phone will be fine. But I knoew I would want to print pictures in large scale. I have a 30 x 40 canvas that I got printed of a view in the Yukon, and there's no way I could've printed that from an iphone picture. I'll be purchasing a 18-400 mm lens before our next cruise, to eliminate having to switch lenses depending on the shot, but I would definitely bring a real camera.

[Tourist1292]

30 minutes ago, Mountaineer0313 said:

I bought a Nikon D3400 DSLR camera specifically for this cruise because I knew that my iphone just would not cut it, and I was right. If you're wanting to get shot sthat are right in front of you, no zooming, color is good, etc. then your phone will be fine. But I knoew I would want to print pictures in large scale. I have a 30 x 40 canvas that I got printed of a view in the Yukon, and there's no way I could've printed that from an iphone picture. I'll be purchasing a 18-400 mm lens before our next cruise, to eliminate having to switch lenses depending on the shot, but I would definitely bring a real camera.

Are we looking at the same lens? Which 18-400 mm did you get?

[Mountaineer0313]

27 minutes ago, Tourist1292 said:

Are we looking at the same lens? Which 18-400 mm did you get?

  I got this one https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1345956-REG/tamron_afb028n_700_18_400mm_f_3_5_6_3_di_ii.html

I tried it out actually in a photo store in Anchorage, but waited an bought it online when we got home since it was our last day.