Camera Observations on Cruise

[gottagoacruzn]

I just use a digital camera, that's all I need. Do have a cell phone that takes pictures an see other folks taking pics an think... but!!

[PurpleHays]

6 hours ago, pierces said:

 

Setting the crop mode drops you to about 10-12 MP, but though this eliminates the ability to crop (already cropped), the images are still pretty good. I strongly suggest that when the time comes, you look at the 24-105 f/4 G. I leave that lens on my A7III literally 99% of the time. It covers a huge slice of what you need for everyday and travel photography and is also very sharp. What really indicates that this lens is a winner is that KEH has no used units in stock. Definitely a keeper.

 

Dave

Funny enough, that's the lens that's marked on the list of "best Sony a7III lenses" that I culled from somewhere on the internet. I have it both circled *and* highlighted. I must have read multiple reviews about it. 

[2BeOnaBoat]

On 5/11/2022 at 7:29 PM, den32837 said:

When we travel, my photos are my souvenirs. The best shots end up as canvas prints on the walls at home. We have Antelope Canyon, Amsterdam, Rome, Washington DC, New York City, Neuschwanstein, Stonehenge, Monument Valley, Zaanse Schans windmills, Bar Harbor Maine, and Alaska whales and eagles on the walls. With 32 up, not much space remains.

I have the cell phone and a compact $100 Canon along, mostly for snapshots on board and shots of friends, while I use a Canon 70D for photographs off ship. Favorite lenses include a Tamron 18-400, which fetched wonderful shots of eagles on blue icebergs in Alaska and the Statue of Liberty on approach to NY harbor,  and a Tokina 11-16 which nailed my all-time-favorite shot at Stonehenge, and comes in handy in museums and other close-quarters venues.

The fact is, though, if you have a decent eye, get a good composition and have the requisite sharpness of image, many different cameras will suffice. Example: during this pandemic, while we were unable to travel, I dug out some old film shots, exposed in 1971 in DC and while stationed in Germany in the early 80s, digitized them , used modern computer photo-editing software and came up with wonderful prints for the wall,  of Washington DC monuments and Mad King Ludwig's castle.  They were originally shot with a Fujica ST-701 SLR. on Kodachrome. 

For the folks satisfied with only a cell phone camera, I will say the most pitiful sight I ever witnessed was my fellow passengers trying to shoot the Statue Of Liberty (at distance) from a cruise ship with a cell phone

 

.

LOL - I shot the Statue of Liberty with my cell phone on a cruise.  But I did it without any zoom to show to relative distance.  I wanted to show people how close or far the ship was from parts of the city.

 

For my next cruise I've rented a 15-33mm for interior shots.  It's a pricey "L" lens and I want to try it out first.

[den32837]

2 hours ago, 2BeOnaBoat said:

LOL - I shot the Statue of Liberty with my cell phone on a cruise.  But I did it without any zoom to show to relative distance.  I wanted to show people how close or far the ship was from parts of the city.

 

For my next cruise I've rented a 15-33mm for interior shots.  It's a pricey "L" lens and I want to try it out first.

The Tokina 11-16 is my go-to wide angle. I bet real estate agents use it. Shoot rooms in a house and the place looks as big as the Houston Astrodome!

 

One thing I like to use the WA for is to shoot a likely outdoor scene (e.g.,Stonehenge) then crop off the top and bottom for a great looking panoramic.

Edited May 19, 2022 by den32837

[Oviedo32765]

For panoranic photos, I use my everyday lens (18-300mm) by taking a series of overlapping portrait photos to stitch together in post processing.

 

Of course before I take the final shots, I do a dry run of the sceen to guage how much of a focal length I want, and to find an exposure setting that will work for the entire pano. 

 

Here is a 13 frame panorama using a focal length of 190mm on a crop-sensor camera.

 

Google free stitching software if you need a program.

 

[den32837]

Too much work

 

[pierces]

18 minutes ago, den32837 said:

Too much work

 

 

The amount of "work" depends on what method you use for stitching. The widely used Lightroom program from Adobe (only $10/mo. including the full Photoshop editor) makes it incredibly simple as long as you have taken care to space your shots with enough overlap for the AI to read and match.

 

Select images and right-click:

 

15-20 seconds later the panorama is automagically created:

 

The advantage of a stitched image is the resolution. Instead of a 24MP 6000 x 4000 image cropped to 12MP at 6000 x 2000, the image above is 40mp at 10822 x 3784.

 

Great for large prints, but also great for zooming in to explore the detail.

 

Crop from 100% view:

 

Since photography has been my primary hobby for most of my life, I don't consider post-processing to be actual work. I consider it to be a lot like putting a few coats of lacquer on a table or cabinet you just built (my other main hobby). 🙂

 

Dave

[den32837]

To each his own.

 

Instead of paying $10/mo for another processing program, taking multiple exposures and stitching them together, I preferred to spend $400 one time for the capable Tokina wide angle, take one shot at f13 and crop top and bottom. Result is easily sharp enough to print an 18x46 print hanging over our couch in the living room.

 

BTW, here is my Cabo:

[pierces]

48 minutes ago, den32837 said:

To each his own.

 

Truly. Isn't it wonderful? So many options out there to satisfy one's preferences.  

 

 

48 minutes ago, den32837 said:

...paying $10/mo for another processing program...

 

Since I use both Lightroom and Photoshop regularly and for far more than simple panoramas, the $10/mo. is very reasonable compared to the past where you had to fork out $500 for the new features that came out in the latest desktop version of Photoshop that they rolled out every couple of years. Lightroom's organizational features has made managing the 190k+ images from the last 20 years of digital very easy and that function alone makes it worth the money.

 

It's a great time to be a photographer!

 

Dave

[billandsue]

Personally, I prefer to use the Sweep Panorama feature on my Sony cameras, so I don't need to bother with stitching at all.  This is a panorama photo of White Horse Pass Summit in Alaska taken with a Sony Alpha a65.

[den32837]

Now, THAT is a neat shot!

[pierces]

4 hours ago, billandsue said:

Personally, I prefer to use the Sweep Panorama feature on my Sony cameras, so I don't need to bother with stitching at all.  This is a panorama photo of White Horse Pass Summit in Alaska taken with a Sony Alpha a65.

I miss the sweep panorama! They dropped it from the newer mirrorless cameras a while ago. Iused it a lot on my Sony compact.

 

...and yes, nice shot!

 

Dave

[ski ww]

I used Window's 10 with Windows Live Photo, that was about 6 pictures.

 

[billandsue]

Dave -- My most recent Sony purchase is a full-frame a7RII, and it still has the sweep panorama feature.  Of course, it is several years old . . .

[pierces]

11 hours ago, billandsue said:

Dave -- My most recent Sony purchase is a full-frame a7RII, and it still has the sweep panorama feature.  Of course, it is several years old . . .

 

My HX5V compact, A6000 and A6300 (the last model I owned with it) all had the sweep pano feature but while I still used it on the A6300, I found I was using it far less than before. Shortly after the A6300 came out, Lightroom added the Merge to Panorama feature from Photoshop to its right-click interface and made creating large-format panoramas very simple (even multi-row stitches are done in a single step). Sometimes I wish it was still available but the panorama feature on the phone fills the bill nicely for casual panoramas. 

 

It's getting to be hard to blame the equipment for a bad shot!

 

Dave

 

 

[zackiedawg]

The sweep pano was indeed a neat feature - I had it on all my Sony cameras up until the A6600, which dropped it.  Do I miss it?  Well, kind of - I admit I didn't use it very often - sort of taken for granted that it was always there.  When I did use it, I thought it was great and very convenient....so I certainly wish it was still offered on the newer Sony cameras - given I probably took 10-15 shots with it per year out of some 30,000 shots a year...it's not something that I can't live without.  And I can still do pano stitching with software if I really wanted to.

[billandsue]

I wonder why Sony eliminated the Sweep Panorama feature?  Did they replace it with some other feature?  Do Canon, Nikon, or Fuji include a Sweep Panorama on any of their cameras?

 

 

Another Sony Sweep Panorama photo, taken in Kaua'i

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by billandsue

[pierces]

The ZV-1 compact and the APS-C ZV-E10 vlogging cameras were released in 2020 and 2021 and both have sweep panorama. Was the feature deemed "too amateur" for the fancy cameras? Was it removed to allow for another function deemed more useful, like the Slow & Quick video mode? Some technical issue with the advanced shutters? Coin toss?

 

Unknown.

 

I guess I'll just thank Adobe for making stitching so easy and Google for the somewhat amazing panorama feature on my Pixel.

 

Stitched sunrise sailing into Bora Bora

 

Dave

Edited May 26, 2022 by pierces

[billandsue]

Beautiful capture, Dave.  Some scenes just beg to be photographed in panorama mode.

[gumby_ng]

On 5/20/2022 at 8:40 AM, Oviedo32765 said:

For panoranic photos, I use my everyday lens (18-300mm) by taking a series of overlapping portrait photos to stitch together in post processing.

 

Of course before I take the final shots, I do a dry run of the sceen to guage how much of a focal length I want, and to find an exposure setting that will work for the entire pano. 

 

Here is a 13 frame panorama using a focal length of 190mm on a crop-sensor camera.

 

Google free stitching software if you need a program.

 

I assume here the post processing does some work here with the movement of the water? The advantage of an ultrawide vs stitching is where movement in the photo is involved.

[Oviedo32765]

2 hours ago, gumby_ng said:

I assume here the post processing does some work here with the movement of the water? The advantage of an ultrawide vs stitching is where movement in the photo is involved.

 

Six-frame stitch

 

My favorite lens for walking about is an 18-300mm. And I usually don't carry multiple lenses, so I make do with what I have. Stitching wide scenes is a technique I use to overcome my short fall for a lack of a ultra-wide angle lens.

 

Movement presents a challenge for stitching photos. It varies from scene to scene. Wind over water, people walking about, and changing light conditions affect the results, but it usually doesn't take a lot of post processing to make corrections. If too much post processing is involved, I just delete the photo. Not all stitches are perfect or work, but I have fun trying and enjoy the challenge.

 

The photo above is a six-frame stitch which presented a challenge because of people moving and walking through the scene. How many of you noticed the woman on the left walking to the right is the same woman with a blue bag on the right behind the two men walking to the left?

 

One aspect of photography I like is that there is more than one way to capture a photograph. And threads like this one allow us to discuss the equipment and techniques we use.

 

The amount of effort or money one puts into a photography is up to each individual. Zoom lens vs prime. JPG vs RAW. Ultra-wide lens vs stitching. No technique is perfect or right or wrong. Options! I like options, and I'm game to try different options. Some work for me - some don't. Your milage may vary.

 

My 2¢.

[pierces]

Eight day Southern Caribbean cruise offered some more insight on the subject of cameras vs. phones. At photo-intensive events like sunrise/sunset and sail-in/sail-away, cameras were more common than the short trip to Cabo we took in April. Still the percentage was small, 5% or so. I took the full kit but still used the phone liberally walking around the ship when I wasn't doing an intentional photo stroll. The cameras went on the tours of Aruba and Curacao but Coco Cay was pure phone. There was a bit of a blast from the past when I ran into one guy with an  old Yashica SLR. He told me about his love of analog imaging and I shared my story about our Panama Canal cruise where 14 of 24 rolls of film were unexposed due to a shutter failure... And my love of usable ISO12800. 😉 

 

Here's a link to the gallery. Take a look if you want and guess at the equipment used. 

 

https://pptphoto.com/galleries/Travel/Cruising/2022 Allure/index.html

 

Dave

Edited June 24, 2022 by pierces

[tommui987]

Great photos - as always!

 

Tempted to “borrow” a few for my sky collection!

[Mum2Mercury]

I've just retired, but I taught high school photography for 19 of my 30 years.  I've taken multiple classes and consider myself a pretty decent photographer.  When we cruise in a couple months, I want photographs, but they don't need to be magazine-quality.  I'll take a mid-point position: 

 

- I won't take (many) pictures with my cell phone; I don't anticipate carrying my phone around the ship.  Cell phone pictures are great for sending to the kids with the caption "About to board the ship!" 

- I will bring a good-quality point-and-shoot.  It's small enough to carry in a pocket, the quality of the images is good, and it's simple enough to use that I can hand it to someone on the cruise and say, "Would you please snap a picture of the two of us?"  

- I own a nice DSL camera, but my goal on our upcoming cruise isn't to capture excellent sunrise pictures, etc.  And I don't want bother /risk transporting /storing that larger /camera with all its pieces.

 

If you're interested in having really good pictures but don't want to spend $$$ on a camera, study composition.  I promise you, by learning to use light /learning to frame your photographs correctly, you can get excellent pictures with a point-and-shoot.  When my students begin with me, their inclination usually is to push the button multiple times in hopes of capturing something stunning by accident; the reality is that they usually just ended up with near-identical multiples.  Something I said over and over and over:  Plan more, think more, push the button once.  

[pierces]

1 hour ago, Mum2Mercury said:

- I won't take (many) pictures with my cell phone; I don't anticipate carrying my phone around the ship.  Cell phone pictures are great for sending to the kids with the caption "About to board the ship!" 

 

In 2014, that was true. Since then and especially in the last 2-3 years, not only the capabilities of the camera modules but the processing power needed to do computational corrections and exposure control on the fly have not only pushed phones past all but the very high-end compacts but have caused a virtual collapse of the point & shoot market and a significant decline in sales of entry-level DSLR cameras. To be clear, the phones I refer to are high-end units like the Pixels, Galaxies and latest iPhones. Granted, they cost in the high three-figures, but so do any of the remaining compacts that can give them any competition as far as image quality. I love using my "real" camera and don't mind schlepping it around on an interesting itinerary, but I have found my last few phones not only more convenient to carry that a P&S, but offer superior image quality, especially the new Pixel 6 Pro with its wide optical zoom range. For that reason, images that make it to the online galleries consist of a mix nearing 50% from the phone. 

 

Even evening shots that were once the downfall of phones are handled with ease these days.

 

Challenging light mixes are aced by the little supercomputers.

 

Portrait friendly optical zoom is a nice feature.

 

Based on my personal shift from the beloved pocket cameras to today's imaging miracles, my advice is to seriously consider a good phone when replacing that ageing P&S.  

 

1 hour ago, Mum2Mercury said:

 

If you're interested in having really good pictures but don't want to spend $$$ on a camera, study composition.  I promise you, by learning to use light /learning to frame your photographs correctly, you can get excellent pictures with a point-and-shoot. 

 

Something I said over and over and over:  Plan more, think more, push the button once.  

 

These words carry weight regardless of equipment and are excellent advice. 

 

On the other hand, I have to respectfully disagree on one part...

 

Pushing the button once with people involved is a crap-shoot no matter how much you plan or think. The younger they are, the worse the odds get... 🙂

 

 

To each their own on equipment choices. All options will give great results if people take your advice and learn more about the difference between photography and picture-taking. 

 

Thanks for adding to the discussion!

 

Happy shooting!

 

Dave