Next July, my wife and I are doing a "Land/Sea" vacation (Princess Cruises) in Alaska. We'll spend 5 days in the Denali National Park area followed by 7 days of cruising, stopping in Anchorage, Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan and Vancouver.

At each port, there are a myriad of available side excursions ranging from guided town tours to whale watching boats to bush plane landings on glaciers. I'm sure I'm not the first Hogger to go on one of these trips so I'm asking for your advice: What might be some good photography opportunities? Photo equipment concerns? Are these canned excursions worth the cost or should we strike out on our own? Is the Botanical Garden in Vancouver a good choice (we're spending an extra day there)?

Our only limitation, is that my wife has a bad foot so hikes over a mile or two are difficult for her.

A technical question.
I know that the more pixels you squeeze into the same area, each pixel gets smaller and at some “smallness” or other, you start to get an increase in noise.

Obviously, a full frame camera has more pixels just due to the larger size.

I shoot a cannon 80D crop sensor.

Keeping this all in mind my question is.

When I shoot with the same focal length on crop vs full frame and then crop my final product, it seems logical I need to crop less close with the smaller sensor than the larger sensor to get the same ultimate size since the same, say 50mm lens, is effectively longer on the crop camera getting me closer to my subject. Because of this full frame envy and pixel envy aren’t all they seem to be?

Yeah, I have full frame envy but to be honest, I get pictures I like with my current camera but the above question has just always bugged me and figured a few in here can provide an answer. I still want a full frame but want to learn more tech details anyway. Also partially my effort to learn and understand pixel's better.

I try always to carry a camera with me, at least the one in the cellphone. Yo never know what you can find.

I also like to take long walks on weekends, on which I carry my trusty Sony RX100M3 in a belt pouch.

Last Saturday I took one of my walks at dusk, and forgot to take the camera with me. I had a second opportunity 2 o 3 blocks from home, but for no reason I decided not to go back ad grab it... after all, I was about to complete the same circuit as ever, and there should not be anything new, right?

Wrong.

Big, BIG, mistake.


As I was 5 o 6 kilometers from home, I discovered an unexpected food-truck fest on the riverside with live music, classic cars and even two restored vintage firetrucks !

They started to light fireworks !!

And I didn't even carry a crappy cellphone !!

And worst of all, because of my schedule, I knew that I had no time to WALK home and DRIVE back to take any pictures.

So, I learned the hard way: always, ALWAYS carry a camera, or whatever thing capable of taking pictures.

Next time, I might just miss that one historical UFO landing with aliens willing to pose for the camera :-)

I belong to a small photographers club. The question arose about taking photographs in which people are in public places and participating in public events, (e.g., athletic events, public parks, local fairs, street scenes, etc.). Turns out almost everyone had her/his own "ethical" standards. We did a little online research and found that, in the US, there is quite a bit of state-to-state difference in what should be considered both legal and ethical standards.

Since I tend to prefer photos without people, I'd never really given the matter much thought. When I've taken pictures of people, the photos are of family members or friends attending parties or fun events. Now, though, I'm more confused than ever.

This leads me to asking, what ethical, legal, and just old-fashioned good manners should be considered for folks who are basically hobbyist photographers and love the creative outlet of taking photographs?

Most folks agree a "model release form" is necessary if they are photographing someone that may end up in an ad or involve commercial use for the photograph. Even more were adamant about not taking photos of children.

Would appreciate discussion of this issue, information, or specific protocol suggestions on this matter.

I subscribe to PhotoShop CC and pay my monthly fee. I can't say I'm happy about it but it does keep me up to date with the latest versions of PS and Lr. I can afford it. Today when I opened a file in PS it informed me that I do not have connection to the Internet and then refused to continue until I established connection to the Internet. I live on a mountain top out in the boonies. Often I do not have connection to the Internet. That's why I prefer to store all my images on hard-drives and make two independent backups to hard-drives in my own home.

I was able to fire up my iPhone and make a hot spot that let me get onto the Internet. Then PS relented and let me continue with my work. I resent that much intrusion!