Category Archive: Alaska 2017

Disenchantment Bay – Alaska Cruise 2017 – Part 2

So, here we are at Part 2 and we’re facing another dilemma. Should I plan on Part 3 or try and squeeze in 85 more photos and 7 more videos all in this post? 

Well, since I won’t post all the photos, it’s actually only 72 so, sure, let’s do it all in one long post. Plan your snacks and bathroom breaks accordingly. 

As I mentioned at the end of Part 1, the weather was clearing and we were much closer to the glacier; both of those things contributed to give us better photos.

There is a gallery at the end of the post and a SmugMug gallery HERE. Photos in SmugMug can be viewed full-size. Note that the SmugMug gallery contains all the photos; those from the previous post (Part 1) and those of this post (Part 2). You can click on these photos to see a larger version but less than full-size. 

As I mentioned in Part 1, there’s a tonal difference in the photos from the D7000 and those of the P900, the latter tending toward a stronger blue hue, probably due to the processing of the camera to produce JPGs as opposed to RAW files.

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Disenchantment Bay – Alaska Cruise 2017 – Part 1

I have been remiss in documenting the September 2017 Alaska Cruise aboard the Coral Princess. 

There are many reasons for this egregious lapse in my blogging duties. Not that I’ll share them here, but know there are bigly reasons, all documented in a memo I may or may not release for public consumption.   

Regardless, it’s all good now because here I am; me and a bunch of photos and even videos. So many photos and videos that one post cannot contain them all . . . and that’s for just one day — September 10, 2017.

There is a gallery at the end of the post and a SmugMug gallery HERE. Photos in SmugMug can be viewed full-size. Note that the SmugMug gallery contains all the photos; those from this post (Part 1) and those of the next post (Part 2, whenever I post it). You can click on these photos to see a larger version but less than full-size. 

We begin with an early morning view — the photo above — from the Promenade deck. Specifically, the back of the ship. Unfortunately, there isn’t an equivalent front-facing opening at the prow of the ship but regardless of that minor disappointment, the Promenade deck is my favorite deck on the ship.  

Why? Because it’s where one finds the International Café. It’s open 24-hours and it serves coffee, teas, and a variety of snacks. I kid; that’s on Deck 6.

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Anchorage to Whittier – Alaska Cruise 2017

It’s been a while since I got back from the September Alaska cruise — 4,441,924 seconds, give or take the few it takes WordPress to put this up once I hit “publish” — and it’s time I continue with the documentation of the experience. The cruise leg of our trip began with our travel from the Anchorage Airport to the town of Whittier. I covered a bit of that in THIS post, but that was using the photos from the phone (the now-deceased Samsung Note II). This post has a mix of a few phone photos and photos from the P900 and the Nikon D7000.  

There is a gallery at the end of the post and a SmugMug gallery HERE. Photos in SmugMug can be viewed full-size. You can click on these photos to see a larger version but less than full-size. 

We begin with the dogs at the airport. I had a fuzzy photo in previous posts, but here are a couple taken with the D7000.

Beautiful dogs but — according to the owner — prone to biting. I did not test the claim. 

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Nikon P900 Trip Report

We were gone from August 30th to September 16th and — as mentioned in THIS post — of the 8,859 photos I shot, 4,273 were shot with the Nikon P900. In fact, up to the very last, I had considered not even bringing my D7000 and associated lenses. 

I compromised by bringing only a couple of the lenses. I did use the D7000 and the individual lenses mostly to compare their photos to those of the P900. I’ll explore those comparisons in future posts about the trip, but this post is about photos that while taken on my way to, or while in, Alaska, are not necessarily tied to the Alaska experience. 

All of the photos on this post are from the P900 (116 photos in all) and they are presented as a service to those who might — as I am — increasingly consider using “less capable” equipment than the prosumer offerings out there. 

Each section will have its own gallery so as to “split up” the onslaught of visual goodness. It should go without mention — but it won’t — this is not a short post. 

Let’s get to it.

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Alaska Cruise – General Thoughts

Edited to Add: I’ve added a gallery at the bottom of the post for them who are just interested in the photos.

~ ~ ~ o o o ~ ~ ~

“Where is he?!” no one asked.

I’ve been back since Sunday evening but other than reading a few blogs and adding my 1.34¢ here and there, I’ve been mostly concentrating on fighting a hitchhiker from my trip. 

Nope, not that very nice dog — although I wouldn’t mind it. The hitchhiker is some kind of bug. 

It’s been a few days of coughing, sneezing, suffering a running nose, getting older, and getting uglier — although, I can’t rightly blame the bug for the last two. Last night I thought I had “gotten over the hump” but it turns out it was only the lull before the big assault. This morning I woke up with a very sore throat and a painful cough that seems to come all the way up from my toes. Yes, yes; also, older and uglier. 

I can tell you about the cruise as a way of getting my mind off the incessant use of tissues, sipping on water to minimize having to cough, going to the bathroom because of the constant sipping, wiping every surface I touch with a Clorox wipe and washing my hands whenever I blow my nose or cough or plan to touch anything in the condo (trying to spare Melisa what I’m going through). And, I can tell you about the cruise in a very long post. Good luck getting through it all. Not a snarky challenge, by the way; an actual wish for the fortitude to finish it all. 

By the way, a little hint . . . well, a couple of hints. Some tissue makers try to sell you tissues with lotion. Don’t bother. Buy Puff’s “Ultra Soft” tissues. Your nose will thank you for it (it won’t get raw from the constant blowing) and they won’t disintegrate in your hands whenever you use them. The other hint is to mix up a solution of water and 10% bleach . . . I dip a Bounty (actually, a cheaper brand paper towel) in it, wring it, and then use it as I grab things like coffee pots or water pitchers. The goal is to irritate the bugs as much as they annoy me.

The photos in this post are a sampling of the 8,859 photos I snapped during the trip. This includes photos from our visit to Illinois, where we touched base with our respective families. 

Yes, 8,859 photos, broken down thus:

1,478 (3.8 GB) from the Samsung Note II using the Open Camera App.
3,108 (28.5 GB) from the Nikon D7000 with either the 50mm or the 70-200mm lens.
4,273 (28.0 GB) from the Nikon P900

In all fairness, many of those are bracketed shots (especially the phone as I used it mostly on the ship) that increase the chances of getting at least one properly exposed shot out of the three, and failing that, perhaps join the photos using an HDR program.

By the way, the photos in this post are presented in the order they were shot and I’m not identifying if they are from the phone, the D7000, or the P900. You can take a guess, and future posts will let you know if you guessed right. Some people claim the ability to tell them all apart (a photographer I met on the cruise). 

Each photo can be clicked for a larger version and there’s a SmugMug Gallery HERE with these same photos in their original size. If you go to SmugMug, your chances of guessing the source of each photo is a bit better as the sizes jump by a factor of two between each one. The photos on this post are all sized the same (1280 pixel for the longest dimension)

That said, I won’t be talking about any specific photo; this post is more about general impressions of the ship, the cruise, and the sights. 

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