Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.

For almost a month we have cruised on the Norwegian Star. We mostly cruise on NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines) because we like their freestyle dining program. We first sailed on the Star in March 2019, a 14-night cruise from Los Angeles to Miami via the Panama Canal. In March of this year, we found ourselves on a 15-night repositioning cruise. The Star finished her South American cruising season in late summer in Rio de Janeiro. We flew to Rio to join her on the journey to Barcelona, Spain where she would begin the summer sailing season in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, the British Isles, and Morocco before heading back to South America for sailing out of Argentina to Uruguay and Chile in January and February 2024.

Unlike some repositioning cruises with many sea days and few port stops, our journey featured only six sea days out of 15. We stopped at three island ports in the Atlantic as well as Ibiza in the Balearic Sea. Our first stop on Portuguese territory found us docked at Funchal, on the island of Madeira. Funchal, the capital city of Madeira, is a vibrant and cosmopolitan destination. It boasts a charming old town, beautiful gardens, modern infrastructure, and a wide range of accommodations, restaurants, and entertainment options. Madeira and Porto Santo are the only two inhabited islands in the archipelago. Though the Azores, Portugal’s other archipelago, is more famous, the Madeira Island archipelago has a near-perfect climate and is located some 750 miles (1200 km) southwest of Lisbon. The Azores are about 600 miles (960 km) northwest of Madeira, so their climate is generally less ideal year-round.

At Funchal, Madeira, our day trip took us on a bus ride high on the mountain above the city where we visited a botanical garden and rode a cable car. From the vantage points high above the Atlantic Ocean, we got several views of the NCL Star awaiting our return at the port.

About the photos: I am still learning all of the features of my new Samsung S23 Ultra (S23U). Shortly before we left on our trip, my S20U decided to cause problems. The USB-C charging port lost its ability to hold the cable in place during charging. I would plug it in to charge and sometimes the cable would fall out of the port if it got moved in any way. A couple of times, it was unplugged when I woke up in the morning. Stress on the cable caused it to uncouple and I ended up with less than a full charge. I considered buying a Qi charger to use wireless charging and forget the cable, but the lure of a new camera after reading about the hype on the latest Samsung model was too enticing for me to ignore, especially since we were just getting ready to head to Rio in less than a week.

The three images in this post were all taken with the S23U from the same vantage point in the Madeira Botanical Garden and processed as described below. On our journey across the Atlantic, we decided to travel lighter than usual so I left my D500 Nikon at home bringing only my Sony RX100V and my cell phone. I will feature images from the garden with both the Sony and Samsung cameras in a future Travel Tuesday post.

The opening image was with the 10X zoom mode selected at minimum zoom. All lens switches are automatic and are not just lens changes. Each lens is paired with a module that puts you in the default minimum zoom mode when you switch. You simply indicate the zoom level between 1X, 3X, and 10X with on-screen buttons. To see the original unprocessed jpeg images, click on the 1X, 3X, and 10X links above. If you need a different zoom level, an on-screen slider or pinch-zoom will get you there. The software in the modules seamlessly switches between modes so you’ll automatically get the best camera module for the zoom level you need.

It hasn’t taken me long to find the compositions that take full advantage of the 10X super-telephoto lens. With my previous Samsung cellphone, I often used the 108MP (megapixel) mode for maximum resolution. I always used the wide-angle mode and then cropped the image. With so many pixels, a crop was as good as a telephoto lens and if I didn’t crop too tight, I was almost always happy with the results.

The S23U has a 200 MP camera, but with the super-telephoto lens at minimum zoom, the 4000×2252 mode provides all the quality I need for my blog and for “downshifting” to 2K HD for my Flickr site. As a result, I choose not to use the 200 MP mode. For the super-telephoto photo above, I cropped slightly to center the subject and remove the bow of the cruise ship behind the Star and other distractions around the edges. I also ran into an interesting perspective issue. Using either Lightroom’s automatic Transform tool or the angle adjustment in the crop tool, what Lightroom considered properly leveled made the ship look like it was leaning “uphill” slightly. I finally manually rotated the ship to what appeared to be level for me. I’d love to read your comments if you happen to think that now the ship appears to be going “downhill.”

I applied a bit of dehaze the camera picked up because we were so far away from the subject, and then sent it off to Luminar Neo for final adjustments with Enhance AI and the Supersharp module in Low mode. All three photos were treated with basically the same adjustments to keep an accurate comparison with image quality. The haze in the air was the biggest problem with the images. The 3X telephoto picked up a solar halo near the ship behind the Norwegian Star. I used Luminar’s erase module to remove the lens flare. If you look at the original on my Flickr site, you can see that lens flare.

Throughout the cruise, I used both the Sony and the cell phone cameras, but as our cruise went on and I got more familiar with the S23U camera system, I started to rely more on the Samsung than the Sony. I posted all three of these images in 2K HD and the original unretouched images in 4000×2252 resolution on my Flickr site in case you’d like to pixel peep. The album is here.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Nightly in the Norwegian Star’s midship deck 7 Atrium, musicians entertain those who are seated in the cafe and other areas of the atrium. Flanked by stairways to deck 8, folks in the O’Sheehan’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill can also listen to the music. When this photo was captured, a three-person group happened to be performing. The group, who shall remain nameless as I didn’t think to inquire, appeared pretty much every evening on our 14-day journey via the Norwegian Star.

About the photo: The image was captured with my Samsung S6 cell phone and minimally tweaked for contrast and clarity in Lightroom. In most browsers you can click on the image to enlarge it for a better view. The rule for Cellpic Sunday is simple. The image must be captured on a mobile device.

John Steiner