Heymoe

2 hours ago, GVM said:

Lifesaver! I am on the Edge, sea day, between Vancouver and Juneau.

 

I always use OVPN, and indeed, first it didn't work. After switching to TLS Protocol (Port 443) I able to stream my local Dutch television. Needs some buffering every few minutes and it seems that the max quality is about 480p resolution. But hey, beggars can't be choosers! 🙂

 

Thanks for this tip!

You're welcome!  I didn't know Starlink equipped Celebrity ships still did this blocking.  My latest cruise was on the Edge (SYD-HNL) and I was able to use Cloudflare Warp tunneling, which didn't work in 2022.  But Celebrity may be switching onboard purchases of Internet to the faster/unmonitored tier of service (The onboard rate is $33 a day, or $50 for 3 days).

Have a great cruise!

Brad

One solution is to use a backpack and buy a padded camera insert from Amazon.  I use a Samsonite backpack that looks totally generic and a 3 position insert (1 for assembled body with 70-200 attached, 1 position for 24-70 and the last for a camera body).  In the coach I assemble the 24/70 onto the extra body and use it as the default camera (using a hand strap and not a neck strap).  For distant shots the 70-200 comes out and is then replaced ASAP since the white lens tends to attract attention.  It's worked out well for the last 26 cruises.  

And if you buy the onboard Internet, letting it back up your daily shots overnight to Amazon (they allow unlimited RAW and JPG uploads) from a laptop is a decent strategy.

I plan on submitting my best outdoor images to a stock photo site, and the best theatre photos to my site for use by the actors/dancers since few of them have production photos.

A couple of years ago I took my first Alaska cruise and was surprised at the range of subjects.  Not just ice and wildlife, but giant rainbows and mosses growing in chunks of marble.

On the prior Alaskan trip I brought a 70-200mm and 24-70mm lens, and a full frame as well as a crop sensor body just because "two is one and one is none".  To be honest, for outdoor photos taken in the daylight I could have used a current model phone camera.  The automatic processing on the phone does a lot to make captures look really good.  But production work needs a big sensor since there will be cropping, and a fast lens since the light is low.

This time I'm bringing a 38-300mm stabilized lens on the full frame body and a 50mm prime on the backup camera.  It's really tempting to bring my old Canon SX50HS since nothing I have tops its 1,500mm (equivalent) zoom and light weight.

I'm on the Infinity now and can confirm that Celebrity blocks most VPN traffic. Their DNS definitely blocks lookups of sites with "VPN" and it appears they block ports commonly used by VPN programs.

If your VPN provider has an option for using TLS protocol (Port 443), you're in luck.  That's the protocol used to break China's Great Firewall - also used to break the great Waterwall of Celebrity.  It's very hard to stop because websites using "https://" transfer their data over port 443

Most VPN standalone programs don't offer a TLS connection, but one that does appears on StackSocial.com with good discounts.  It's KeepSolid/VPN Unlimited.  Not the fastest, but has quite a few endpoints.  I'm not affiliated with KeepSolid but found it's pretty resilient.

And the cost to bypass Celebrity's 'curation' is $50 a day!!!

The Havila Capella, a ferry, shot in Honningsvag, Denmark - as far North as we go (71°10'21") on the Sky Princess.  Shot this morning.

The DSLR's main advantage, in my view, is that the sensor is much bigger.  So there are more pixels and greater resolution (important if you crop a lot of the photo out) - but also the pixels are larger and less likely to register as random noise (more important if you shoot in low light)

Operationally, if most of your photos are outside in decent light or shot with a flash, noise becomes less of a problem.

If you can zoom to make your subject fill the frame before even touching the shutter, cropping in Lightroom/Photoshop/On1 may not even be needed.  With a good vibration reduction built into the camera and high power zoom built in, this is usually less of an issue than with a phone or even a typical DSLR mid-range (70-200) zoom.

Personally, I still have my old Canon SX50HS superzoom while I traded my Rebel T2's off a couple years ago.  If I wasn't shooting photos for others in a dark environment and need to crop, I wouldn't have bought a Canon 5D4 and a couple of zoom lenses.

The Superzoom is small, light, has excellent magnification for displaying on the web and prints up to about 8x10.  My only recommendation is to buy a lightweight monopod and carry it everywhere.  It's almost impossible to hand hold shots at full zoom.

If you take mostly outdoor photos, a reflector may be an answer.  The spring loaded ones weigh almost nothing and don't take up much space when folded.  But it takes up a free hand (yours or a friend's).

I've taken a metric buttload of photos on cruises and have used the built-in flash maybe 20 times on the older camera (the newer one doesn't have a flash).  The speedlite sounded like a good idea, but its' weight and the extra batteries versus the actual use made me leave it at home after a couple cruises.

But everyone is different.  If you do portraits in overhead sun a flash would be really useful.

On 5/20/2022 at 6:02 PM, Heartgrove said:

If you are determined to stay with the DSLR platform, I would look for slightly used cameras. There are a number of reputable dealers that offer good warranties and excellent products here in the US.

For makers who set minimum prices for their new cameras (Canon), used is a great way to go.  I buy factory refurbs direct from Canon.  They carry a 1 year manufacturer warranty.

Speaking to the quality of their process, a friend who takes a lot of photos on Bahamanian beaches sends his higher end lenses back to Canon for their refurb every few years.

On 4/9/2022 at 4:46 PM, cdwise said:

While primarily designed for DSLR you might find a hand strap stabilizer more useful

I agree, a hand strap is great for taking photos quickly and securely.  For good or bad, the ones that also encircle your wrist make the camera a part of you and allow for fast and more secure shooting.  But they also effectively make your right hand only effective as a camera holder.

Removing the wrist strap portion lets you quickly shift the rig to your left hand.  My usual setup is a little over 5 pounds and I'm comfortable with just a back-of-hand strap.  I tried a cross-body strap but there was too much swing.  A chest carrier was really secure, but they draw too much attention.

Depending on what you want to spend, the Canon 6D is a good full frame.  The 5DMark4 is kind of a chunk (5.2 pounds with a medium telephoto), but has lots more autofocus points, a moire filter, and a CF card slot in addition to the SD slot.

I've been happy buying my equipment at the Canon.com refurbished site.  All cameras and lenses have a 1 year factory warranty.  You won't find many bargains at third party sites on new bodies or lenses since Canon controls the selling price.

Which lenses do you have for your Rebel?  If you have specialty lenses like the super wide angle 10-22mm that are EF-S only, they won't work on a full frame body. Even though it isn't a full frame, I like the 80D because it effectively lengthens the medium telephoto lens and also accepts  EF-S lenses.

Happy shopping!

7 minutes ago, jnicktem said:

I personally really dislike my iPhone photo quality. I mean it’s fine if I just want to snap a photo or two here and there, but if I am taking a picture of something that I want to print, then I would never use my phone. I guess I’ve kind of become a snob that way lol.

 

For medium-wide shots in sunlight an iPhone turns out beautiful results.  Everything else is a computational photo - run through the equivalent of ON1 or Photoshop.  That's neither good nor bad.  I take a phone everywhere and sometimes it's my only camera.

But I'm a production photographer and need to shoot at telephoto in dark environments.  I just can't use something that's 12 MP on a small sensor.  And holding up a phone in the dark is one sure way to please the people behind you in a theatre.  When I can plan, I take my gear (Which is a LOT like yours, minus the 16-35mm lens).

I guess it's a matter of what you're going to do with the final product.  For a good percentage of shots that just end up on 72 dpi monitors I could probably use the phone, but a paying customer might not appreciate the difference between an 8x10 on a cropped initial image taken with a phone and I just don't want to take that chance.

The Majestic Princess in Skagway, AK, September 22, 2021.

Taken on the Majestic Princess' second to last cruise this season.

A bee doing mukbang on a daisy.

Ornamental peppers.

Morning in Prescott, AZ.

Lots of dust in the air in Cabo makes for a nice sunset.  I even had time to change lenses.

22 hours ago, Tahitianbigkahuna said:

 

I was addressing the articles first sentence, "The iPhone 12 Pro Max has wowed us with its ability to take stunning photos that can rival what you might see from a professional DSLR."

 

But then one could say there are pros  .... and then there are better PROS 😁

I agree.  In bright sunlight (and compared only with other phones), the iPhone 12 Pro Max is excellent, but when you get into the shadows and start seeing lots of noise from all those pixels on such tiny sensors, or dimly lit indoors where the small lenses just can't gather the light of a DSLR, the phones suffer.

The powerful processors in the iPhone do a lot of work to reduce noise and boost ISO behind the scenes, but equating that with a professional DSLR is a bit of a stretch in my opinion.

Sunset over the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, MX.

Watson Lake, Prescott, AZ, US.

Troublemakers in the paddock.

"Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you'll live -- at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom" - Bravesheep

Hobby's Yards, NSW, Australia.

Some cruise food is beautiful, some has character.  These olives are like Danny Trejo. -  Independence of the Seas, Diamond lounge.

Park West has been selling on Royal for a long time, but their reputation has gotten even murkier today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/business/peter-max-dementia-cruise-ship-auctions.html

In short, know the value of what you're buying (Google is your friend. A one day Voom pass could save you from a lot of regret).  Buy only what you love, not something the company hints 'might increase in value'.

7 hours ago, jlp20 said:

Last 10 cruises or so, we have taken lap top. Music, movies and the back up of that day's photos.

I've done the same.  A 1TB hybrid system drive is a decent compromise between speed and capacity.  Plus it allows importing and doing some basic editing in Lightroom while on the ship.

Overnight backup to Amazon Photos for the jpgs is also possible with a laptop.  There just isn't enough bandwidth to upload raw files.

I just downloaded my test photo and all of its' EXIF and IPTC were stripped.