NoahtheRed

Not a troll. I have an opinion even it doesn't jive with yours. I asked a question, what is the purpose?

Aesthetics. Sometimes people like the way something looks. That's the purpose.

OP makes it sound like they aren't hanging it like a flag, but instead putting it against the side of the plexiglass sort of like a window decoration.

Never hung one and never will. I see no purpose.

That is a purposeful and useful response.

OP: I've seen folks hang them using those 3M removeable tab hangers. I can't imagine a reason there'd be a problem, though perhaps ask your steward when you get onboard if he/she has any problem with that.

I don't know if I would ever be comfortable making plans with people before meeting them. Especially on something as confined as an excursion. I could see meeting up for a drink or two on the ship and going from there. But setting up beforehand just seems very risky.

No different than doing an excursion with a dozen strangers, really.

Getting familiar and making plans together in the rollcall before the cruise really does make a huge difference. On my our last cruise, we did both of our excursions with other members from the Roll call and it was amazing. We ate and drank with other folks from the group and were just super active.

Highly recommend being active in the thread and plan stuff together. It's one thing to go to a M&G and say Hi, but you'll really enjoy things more if you actually do things together.

I'm in the same boat as you (heh), but realistically we aren't going to know anything solid until the first passengers get off. Even then, it could change as time passes.

Two things: It's curved and it's the hardest couch in the world. Even sitting on it is uncomfortable....so be ready for that :P

The only hope you have, going from Miami, is that the Getaway introduced local Wynwood Brewing Co. beer last year on board...ok, it was only their blonde, and it was only available in some bars on board. BUT, the Escape has unveiled a huge partnership with Wynwood that will bring more of their lineup on board. So MAYBE the Pearl will also reap some rewards with this partnership.

 

As a craft beer fan, for our past cruises, we just go in knowing that we'll likely need to be happy with the Sam Adams, Bass, Newcastle, and Guinness. We about fell over with happiness when we found the Wynwood on the Getaway. But for our Jan. 2016 cruise on the Escape? Expectations raised.

We're doing the Escape as well, partially for that reason. I'm fine drinking SA seasonal all week (especially since it'll be Winter lager during our cruise), but am really looking forward to the first pics of the on-tap list at The District.

I know it's early and still very much in flux, but has anyone heard anything about how this will work with the gastropub on the Escape?

Correct, which is why I didn't say 'fresh squeezed'. It does, however, include juice as stated. It also doesn't cover specialty coffee, but the poster I was responding to has a Lavazza coffee machine in the suite and some have reported getting after-dinner Irish coffee etc. without extra charge.

Irish Coffee is a mixed drink, right? Isn't that why they'd get it without charge?

What are the apertures of your lenses? I'm assuming the 18-55 is a faster lens than your longer zooms. That would make it a good lens for shore excursions where you might be inside and don't want to use a flash. Then I'd take the 55-200 if you want to shoot some wildlife or take pics ship to shore.

This is your best option, the 18-55 is sharper than the 18-105 and the long end of the 105 is slower than the short end of the 55-200, so that extra reach the 105 gives you is mostly lost because you'd be better off using the 55-200 at at 55-100mm at f/4ish than you'd be using the 18-105 at 55-105mm at f/5ish.

Overlap isn't a bad thing, but I think given your combination....taking the 18-55 and 55-200 is your best bet.

Kind of proud of this one. I took at while in a car going 60 mph.

I think HDR will exacerbate some of the issues with shooting in low light, on a moving boat, with a crop body camera.

Best bet, as Pierces pointed out is perhaps try to lock the camera down to get the boat to be solid/focused and take a slightly longer exposure to blend the movement of the water and light. The result should look pretty good. And take lots of pics. There's no penalty for taking 10 shots of the same thing with digital. SD cards are cheap.

If you don't mind spending money, a faster lens (50/1.8, 40/2.8, 17-55/2.8, Tokina 11-16/2.8, etc) will help somewhat....but won't full solve the challenges.

I find it funny that this situation is blamed on "Spring Break".

 

Based on the verbal "skills" of the VAST majority of the people in that video the closest any of them ever came to a college was driving past one.

Heh, you'd be surprised at the "verbal skills" of a lot of college students, especially the ones who spend their spring break drunk on a cruise ship.

Haha, what's scary is I worked with a teacher who wouldn't accept papers or essays written in pencil. It wasn't that she didn't like getting lead dust on her hands....she just lived by the axiom that pens were for writers and pencils were for mathematicians and artists and that anyone who deviated from that was both wrong and an idiot.

Some people are weird.

Here's the great thing about photography: there's no right or wrong way to do it. You can approach any subject a dozen different ways and get a dozen different pictures that all say or do something differently. You can do a lot of post-processing and adjustment, or just a little, or none at all if you want. You can shoot for accurate colors, contrast, and exposure....or you can shoot for a stylized or artistic effect. You can set up scenes with extra lighting and composition, or do it "street style" and try to capture people as if they aren't being photographed.

A camera is like a pencil. The only limit to what you can do with it is you.

Ran into this early this morning. Gives a pretty good overview of why RAW is popular.

Also, I shoot in manual the majority of the time, but almost always have ISO set to auto (max at 6400) and still regularly use Ap Priority as well. Also, RAW lets me set or adjust white balance in post, so that's pretty nifty as well. But to get to my point, regardless of what mode you shoot in normally...I highly recommend you at least learn how the exposure triangle works. It can go a long way to helping you achieve some shots that your camera wouldn't do on its own.

Thanks for reminding me!

Here's an example of a picture I took using RAW+JPEG.

This first example is one that came directly from my camera as a jpeg. It's not a bad picture by any stretch, but there's some detail lost in the shadows and perhaps some color that could be brought out...especially in the clouds. My camera did a pretty good job of handling the processing.

This is the same file, but edited in Lightroom from the RAW file. Ignoring the fringing in the upper right, there's a lot more color and detail going on. Why? Because I was able to edit it to bring those colors out more. I brightened the shadows and blacks, darkened the whites, increased the clarity and vibrance, and did some mild noise filtering in certain areas.

Then there is this. This is a picture I took as jpeg, changed to black in white in the camera, and cropped on an Ipad.....but, it was one of like 20 shots that I sorted through and played with until I got what I wanted.

RAW = Baking using raw ingredients

JPEG = Baking using ready mix with eggs, milk, and frosting

You have a better chance of succeeding with the JPEG, but it's not going to have your own personal touch like editing the RAW file will. Try both. See what works.

In my article I also noted that editing a JPEG and saving to a copy nets the same result which is to leave the original untouched. Lightroom is very helpful in this as it will let you create an editing copy on the fly if you need to do heavy editing in an external editor or if you are simply touching up color, noise or cropping it will do the edits non-destructively and you can export a copy with the changes.

 

Lightroom has actually closed the gap between JPEG and RAW for me by letting me process RAW more easily when necessary and allowing adjustment of a JPEG with all the same tools it uses for RAW.

 

I say this a lot and it applies to software as well as hardware: It's a great time to be a photographer!

 

Dave

Yeah, Lightroom is probably one of the best options for any kind of processing. It's one of the few things that Adobe got right (and this is coming from a guy that uses InDesign and Framemaker on daily basis).

Regardless of whether you shoot in RAW or Jpeg or some squirrely third party proprietary format, you should get familiar with the post-processing photography. Not only does it of course improve the quality of your photos, but it also helps you learn how light interacts with subjects. I've learned more about what I'm doing right and doing wrong when I shoot by editing than I could have on my own.

Plus it of course opens up whole other realms: HDR, astro-photo stacking, selective coloring, etc.

After reading your article I am more than a little curious about raw photos. Do you have a before and after picture that you can post? I would love to see the differences.

 

Thanks

You won't necessarily see a huge difference without knowing what the difference actually is.

RAW files are exactly that....that raw, un-processed photo data. What your camera, any camera for that matter, produces when you snap the shutter button is essentially a RAW file (or something like it). Now, in 99.9% of cases, your camera then applies a small suite of processing elements. This processing suite will apply white balance adjustments, maybe some contrast/highlight balancing to try and develop the best dynamic range and such. Additionally, it applies a certain amount of compression. An 18 megapixel RAW file might be 17-25 mb in size, which after processing comes down to less than 10 mb. The end product of that is a JPEG. Essentially, your camera made (most of) the processing decisions for you. The results can range from "Great" to "ugh, let's try again".

NOW, if you set your camera to produce just the RAW file, you are basically cutting out that processing. The camera saves basically the entire data package, leaving all of the processing up to you.

This CAN be advantageous, but does not necessarily mean RAW = better. With some time and effort, you can really draw out some great pictures using a RAW editor (like Lightroom or Rawtherapee). The best comparison I can make is that a RAW file is like making pasta from scratch vs buying pasta. You CAN produce some great results from it, but theoretically, so can buying pasta. There is still quite a bit of customization you can do with a Jpeg, but there are certain elements you can't change or improve on that you can do with a RAW file.

One of the reasons I recommend it is because as the article pointed out, editing a RAW file is non-destructive. When I get my editing how I want it, I export it as a JPEG or PNG or whatever and have that....as well as the original RAW file. I can go back later and maybe change some of the color balance or clarity without losing anything in the process.

The nifty thing is A LOT of modern DSLRs can save your pics in both RAW and JPEG simultaneously. Wedding and sports photographers frequently use this combination so they can quickly get a small gallery together for final approval.

Things to keep in mind:

• RAW will not automatically make your pictures better. It just gives you the ability to do all the processing yourself.
  
• JPEGs are not inherently inferior to RAW. One of my favorite pictures that I took was in JPEG.
  
• RAW files are friggin big. An 18mp RAW file will be between 17 and 25mb. If you plan to shoot in RAW or Jpeg AND RAW, prepare to get some memory.
  
• RAW files require special editors. RAWtherapee is a fantastic free option, but others include Photoshop and Lightroom.
  
• Nothing can fix not taking a picture, or bad composure, or out-of-focus.
  
• A well exposed JPEG is better than an under or overexposed RAW file.
  
• Instagram filters are the devil
  

When I get home from work, I'll post an examples of good comparisons between a JPEG and an edited RAW file. Both good and bad.

Unless you are directly violating some law, I find most people are pretty accommodating of photographers. I don't have direct experience with NCL's photography policies (which is to say, no one has ever told me I couldn't do something while on an NCL ship) but generally speaking, as long as it's not a potential safety or regulation hazard, you'll probably find that NCL is more than happy to go with it. Afterall, the best advertising is customer generated.

Also, just a friendly photography tip: I don't know what you are using equipment wise, but I can't emphasize the value in shooting in RAW and editing in a program like Lightroom or Photoshop. It can turn flat looking shots into really interesting pictures. Also, tastefully done HDR can got a really long way with what you were shooting. The color and varying focus points could really make for some great shots.

I was testing my wife's ring flash. Surprisingly effective :P

I had gone out to take pics of a collier, but ended up taking pictures of this guy as well.

On a 7 day cruise I would honestly have a hard time spending $950.00 in OBC unless there were 3 or 4 of us in the room. Glad you got it though! Happy sailing.

Now I feel like a hedonist. I could blast through that easily in 7 days. I think my last cruise had a $1700 tab at the end. Felt that one pretty hard :P

The 70-300 is notoriously fuzzy at the long end, so you have to be particularly mindful of your setup. Generally, for moving objects, turn IS off. As Janmcn pointed it, it can essentially try to track focus on something that's moving too fast.

Shooting wildlife requires 2 things: Speed and Speed.