masterdrago

I'm having a heck of a time finding Emerald lake on the maps. Google Earth wants to send me way out west of where I'm expecting it to be - NE of Carcross. It looks like GE is calling it Crag Lake if I use the reference in the little map attached from http://roadtripalaska.com/destinations/emerald-lake/

On 12/18/2018 at 9:44 AM, Oakman58 said:

The smart phones of today take great photos but their limitation is not having a good zoom lens.  Since you don’t want a camera with interchangeable lenses I would look for a bridge camera with a good zoom lens.  As far as I’m concerned it’s the zoom that sets P&S cameras apart from today’s smartphones.  That's just my opinion.

 

 

 

My Wife's recent phone replacement (Samsung S9+) has some improvements on phone camera workings. I hope to have her well trained by our May Alaska trip so that she can augment what I take with my two Nikon DSLRs and GoPro 7 Black.

40 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

I am going to be a bit of a grinch here.  Yes - the bird pictures are good. However, there are 84 of them (I counted them) and most of them were not taken on a cruise but near the OP's place of residence.  CC is a cruising site and not a birding site.  If the OP wants to post a few pictures of birds that they took on a cruise - OK.  If they want to post 84 pictures taken locally, there are lots of good birding sites where they can be posted.

 

I have more than 1000 pictures of hummingbirds that I took one day when we drove from Denver to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Some are very good but I don't plan to post them on a cruising site.

 

Feel free to flame me and if the moderator feels that this comment is not appropriate, feel free to remove my comment.

 

DON

I just now realized that you are completely correct. I was browsing for Alaska glacier exposure photography hints when I came into this post. I thought I had somehow landed on the bird photo forum! I'm sure glad that I did not add my silly pix of the Osprey in my backyard.....

This link might have been chopped

dyeadavetours   dot   com

http://www.*****/

Not sure why that link got ****ed out.

it would be wpyr dot com forward slash excursions slash product slash fraser-one-way-service

computers!! Silly.

https://wpyr.com/excursions/product/fraser-one-way-service/

On 12/1/2018 at 6:44 AM, scubacruiserx2 said:

 

 

You're welcome . Here's some from our property .

 

A flying fish ?

 

 

 

I love all your shots. We have an Osprey that eats on a regular basis in our backyard. He is always in poor lighting and even with the 150-500, I can never get close enough to do a good job. I'm always shooting at iso 800 f/7.1 1/50sec.

On 1/3/2019 at 10:52 PM, Re-tired said:

In the event the sun does come out you might like to have a polarizing filter.  Also, read up on exposure compensation when photographing snow.  The camera will attempt to make all of that white snow into 18% grey.  A bit of overexposure and help move the snow back into white, from grey.

I was having the same questions about taking glacier and Denali pix from the air flights. Most of my default settings lean a bit towards overexposure, sometimes 2/3 stop. I will most likely shoot RAW along with fine jpeg. That gives me a lot of latitude and the great ability to do whatever. Some have suggested just shoot bracket. Living in SE Texas doesn't give me any test areas.

On 1/7/2019 at 9:38 AM, zackiedawg said:

I got a rare chance to take photos in the actual beginning of a weekly thread...but I didn't get around to offloading it from my card until a few days ago, so I'm posting it when I usually do, after the thread's week is up!

Here are some of the bird and bird-in-flight action on New Year's Day here in Florida:

 

A prairie warbler, looking up:

 

I just love your work but was wondering if that could be a Pine Warbler. I was not able to private message you.

The all day jeep rental is ~$250 at  https://www.diyjeeptours.com/       Similar to what Crew News mentioned, Dyea Dave Tours does van tours. Check out the reviews  https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60877-d1555401-Reviews-Dyea_Dave_Tours-Skagway_Alaska.html     We have it booked on Memorial Day since the WPYR does not run the full trip on Monday. They will tour us up to Emerald Lake, then drop us on the way back at Fraser (6-7 hours, 75 miles, $89) where we pick up the WPYR back to Skagway - 28 miles and ~1.7 hours. http://*****/

I've not been on one, so cannot recommend but we'll be in Skagway Memorial Day. Had looked at all day excursions to get up into the Yukon. We had looked at an all day jeep rental  https://www.diyjeeptours.com/  Not available on Monday, the long train ride gets good reviews   https://wpyr.com/excursions/product/bennett-scenic-journey/

I'm sure I'm a bit confused, but can tours even be booked at this time? Has anyone been able to get through on the phone or get an email reply?

I for one have booked as many small boat glacier and whale watch that we could fit in. You never know when one might be cancelled due to wind or mechanical breakdown. Have yourselves some alternate vendors listed for backup purposes. I've heard and read nothing but good about the full day train ride out of Skagway on the White Pass and Yukon Route. Most of the rides are very short. If you are not in Skagway on Memorial Day May 27th, I would look at the longer ride https://wpyr.com/excursions/product/bennett-scenic-journey/

Chesneygirl, All signed up! Do you find that more often than not, you are shooting in mostly one rez and FPS? It looks as if I shoot in the higher frame rates, I'll need to use HandBrake to convert them from HEVC due to my desktop being 3+ years old. I'm not going to let that stop me but was just wondering one rez and FPS most useful.

The bag I'm taking is a Tamrac backpack. 1st time cruiser to Alaska. It weighs 18#. In it are the D5100, D7500, SB-400 flash, 10-24, 18-200, 28-300, 150-600, batteries, chargers, mem cards, GoPro 7Black & its charger and 3 extra batteries & 4 64gig cards, a couple of ways to mount (Ram suction, Manfrotto Pixi, GorillaPod, & 16" selfie stick). Amazingly, all this crap fits. I know, it's way more crap than I should need but I've been clicking since the mid 60s and would hate to say, "danged if I could only see that Grisly better"!! My wife will use her S9+.

6 hours ago, petuniaflower said:

Thanks, thats what I needed, just to see if I was heading in the right direction..

 

After a lot of reading (and if my pocketbook can afford it for 6 of us) I think Im leaning towards misty fjords flightseeing in Ketchikan, Glacier/whale watching tour in Juneau and the short train trip in Skagway.

 

Is there any company that has excursions in more than one location that offers a discount if you book several at different ports with the same company?  That would be handy!

 

 

Interesting. Your plan looks like what we have gotten reserved next coming May. Harv & Marv in Juneau, Island Wings in Ketchikan, & small bus tour with short train ride Fraser to Skagway. I've got a small speadsheet with backup excursion providers w/ph, email, web page in case issues arise. We are also doing a pre cruise set of excursions prior to boarding in Seward.

On 12/4/2018 at 5:10 PM, Chesneygirl said:

This cruise video was shot entirely on a GoPro Hero 5. 🙂  You've shown exactly how I want our new GoPro vids to look. Extremely impressed with your editing ability. I plan on shooting as many short vids as possible and can only hope I can edit 1/3 as well as you have. Amazing!

 

 

 

Like several here, I've just opened my new 7 Black. I've been a still shooter since 1965 and only recently (eclipse of 2017) taken up video. For me the learning curve of the GoPro seems high, but then I've never been a hard core techie. I got the 7 with $100 off when it first hit the market by trading in a D70 Nikon body (didn't use it anymore). My reason for dipping into the GoPro world is our Alaska cruise next May. I wanted a way to easily take time lapse from the balcony while in Hubbard Glacier. So far, I've only scratched the surface on the cameras capabilities but I've got plenty of time to work out the tweaks. And right on spending more than a couple of $$$ on extras. Batteries! Wow, does this thing eat them. Fortunately, they unlike some other proprietary batteries, are not overpriced.

I'm not a big user of PS but I do sometimes use my version 6. I've found better and less expensive editing packages to use. The first example needed some very slight enhancement of the silhouetted colored flowers in the foreground. It was taken in 2008 on Lake Travis at the Oasis Restaurant. In the 2nd example, I needed to get rid of two characters for my Mother-in-law's calendar. PhotoShop worked great but has a sharp learning curve.

Thanks for the heads up, Twintowngirl. I'll check it out. Had not seen it.

We're on southbound Radiance next May. Skagway appears to have a lot going for it so had us in fits trying to plan excursions. We finally settled on doing a private tour and then snagging the train at Fraser back to Skagway. Besides the wpyr train where you might be able to take the full day train to Bennett Lake, there is also a jeep tour company in Skagway that offers full day rentals at a reasonable price so you can drive yourself into the Yukon at your own pace, stop when you like -  https://www.diyjeeptours.com/.

I've been looking at some of those. Looks like a promising way to extend remote imagery if not in a hostile environment (driving rain). That's why the Nikon will be high mounted on the window or door (shielded from harms way). It's FOV will most likely be less than 60 degrees wide. whereas the GoPro will be in wide mode.

Great idea... I've got packed a Joby GorillaPod so just need to pack a small roll of Gorilla Tape. That stuff STICKS! Think I'll do the GoPro out there - it's water proof if it rains and light weight. The DSLR on the sliding glass door with a more narrow field of view. We are at Hubbard Glacier only from 3-5pm so just 2 hours spinning the ship. I plan on being up on deck so I can move around and have max versatility with handheld shooter. This is our 1st and possibly only trip to Alaska - 16 days w/7 cruising. Taking lots of memory cards, batteries and chargers! I asked on the Alaska board for recommended interval on time lapse but still no suggestions. I've looked at several vids of Hubbard and I'm thinking 2 seconds. From my experiments, I think I can get two hours from a fully charged 7 Black battery if I leave several features turned off - 4K off, GPS off, Stabilization off, sound off, and maybe more (WiFi off).

Thanks deepcman. Over 400 pages of clamps at AMZN but those would most likely work well after getting a tripod or GoPro adapter surgically attached. boascobeans, that's the best pix I've seen of the rail. Thanks. I think I'm going to avoid doing surgery on a clamp, then packing it in the already full camera bag and instead use the Ram mount I already have. It looks like the glass is midway under the rail, giving me enough room to "see" over the rail with it mounted to the glass. Also avoids the chance of marring the wood rail. Plenty of places to tether rig.

I want to attach a GoPro or DSLR to take time lapse images. I've been looking at some of the Ram brand stuff but I don't think they make anything wide enough. I may have to custom fabricate something using a c-clamp but I'll want to coat it with rubber like the Ram to protect the railing material which the pix show is made of wood. I do have a Ram suction cup that I can attach to the glass but may have to do that on the window or door since it might not be tall enough to extend above the rail. Can always mount on outside glass panel since I plan on tethering either camera for security - Don't want the Pacific to eat my new GoPro

I'm wanting to know the size of the balcony upper rail in the Grand Suites. I remember what the one on Liberty of the Seas looks like but am not sure if they are the same. A pix of it would help. The one I remember was oblong wood with a glass wall attached to its outside. From some of the images I've found it actually looks as if the glass is attached below the wood rail that might be 2.5" wide or so.