[Pics] Two weeks in Cuba

[Scam]

In February the girlfriend and I did 'La Isla Grande' tour around Cuba. Two weeks, or 15 days to be precise. We toured the whole country, as much as you could physically squeeze into that amount of time. Although there were a lot of long drives (7hrs on a few days!) it was well worth it to see the *real* Cuba. We'd wanted to go for a number of years and with everything that Obama did to improve relations (that Trump is now ruining ), we wanted to get there before a Starbucks started popping up on every corner. It wasn't always a "holiday" as such, with the Cuban hospitality a bit lacking sometimes but it was a tremendous experience and I'd highly recommend anyone going -- but making sure to get out of the resorts and see the country The highlight has to be the trek to Castros hideout in the mountains, followed by an enormous spitroast pig in a local farm afterwards.

I managed about 250 keepers so here's a few. The rest can be seen on my flickr. If you want to know where any of them were taken just shout. I've been a bit lazy adding descriptions to the flickr uploads, already done that for FB and Google Photos

Oh, I almost forgot. I bought my Fuji XT10 about a month before we went. All taken on my 35/f2 or the 14/f2.8 I rented.


DSCF0460 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0498 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0512 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0537 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0553 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0586 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0590 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0603 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0620 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0661 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0749 by Scam, on Flickr
(really tempted to airbrush the guy on the right out of this!)


DSCF0774 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0781 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0829 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0888 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF0931_HDR by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1007 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1027 by Scam, on Flickr
(A ration store)


DSCF1035 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1103 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1080 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1087 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1036 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1165 by Scam, on Flickr
(Bad pic but at the Bay of Pigs, this reads something along the lines of "this is the site of the first major military defeat of American imperialism" )


DSCF1166 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1172 by Scam, on Flickr
(The Capitolio building is actually a replica of the USA's Capitol building)


DSCF1173 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1202 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1252 by Scam, on Flickr
(I like this shot for some reason.. ?)


DSCF1296 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1326 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1336 by Scam, on Flickr


DSCF1486 by Scam, on Flickr
(The world-famous La Bodeguita del Medio, where Hemingway frequented. It was tiny! This pic was taken over the heads of people just to get it)

Thanks for looking

 

[And]

Nicely done Robert *thumbsup*

 

[zeam]

wonderful photos, so many places i recognize. Girlfriend and i were there in 2015 but only did the top half and a few of the island. One of the best trip we have ever taken.

you have captured a great sample

 

[Scam]

Thanks guys

 

[currantloaf]

Some great pics

 

[Zaf]

Very nice! How much PP did you put in to them? I'm very much still learning and interested in other peoples workflows and presets etc

 

[Scam]

Depends on the shot. a lot were shot with a polariser and velvia simulation so they didn't really need much apart from maybe straightening and cropping (the white balance is generally pretty damn good). So the landscapes/jungle are pretty much straight out of the camera. Some I worked on a lot, such as the guys playing dominoes, they were very much in shadow so I brought them out a lot and cropped in quite a bit (I shot that with the 14mm and didn't dare stand too close as they were shouting and hollering and slamming down the dominoes ).

The musicians were also standing in the shade (as you would when it's 30c) so getting the white balance right was hard, fair bit of pp on that set. All done in Lightroom, I gave up using Photoshop a long time ago

Really depends what you consider "a lot" of pp. I don't use any presets apart from maybe capture sharpening. My workflow in LR is import, crop, white balance, contrast, brighten/darken areas of interest* and maybe vignette etc. Some would consider that too much pp but for me that's just part of my photography.

*Maybe I do this more than most, it's probably present on most shots but my background in film telecine/grading comes into play. If you think this isn't done on any TV/movies you watch then you're mistaken!

 

[Zaf]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Scam, which polariser do you use? I've been looking at getting a Breakthrough X4 CPL

 

[Buddy]

Cool pics. Interesting set of colours they choose with the cars and internal walls.

 

[Scam]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Scam, which polariser do you use? I've been looking at getting a Breakthrough X4 CPL

I opted for a Marumi DHG cpl, seems to offer good combo of quality and price. I did read a lot of research but it was really a gut choice over anything. There's tons of threads and a lot of reviews kicking around for all the top brands.

 

[Zaf]

Hey Scam have you seen the latest guest post over on Fuji Rumours... http://www.fujirumors.com/fujifilm-x-pro-2-xf-23mm-f2-go-cuba/

I think your set is much much better!! and with X-Trans II over X-Trans III

 

[Scam]

Hey man thanks for the kind words. I did see the set. Strange choice of exposures to be honest, not sure why half of them are so dark and concentrating on shadow in such a bright and colourful country. But hey each to their own