Florida, United States
Walt Disney World Resort
Magic Kingdom
Frontierland
Splash Mountain
While at Walt Disney World in May, Sarah and I participated in D23's 2-day Great Disney Scavenger Hunt. We were initially a little skeptical of it because of the time commitment, but we figured we'd give it a shot. I'll discuss it in more detail later, but in short, it was a wonderful, albeit exhausting time. After we finished our first day in the Magic Kingdom, I felt like I could barely walk.
Once we turned in our books in the MK, Sarah had to use the restroom, and the line for this looked fairly long, so while she was doing that, I figured I'd just rest and enjoy Main Street for a bit. Then I decided to wander up Main Street to capture some photos. I needed to compensate for the photos I “missed” during the day, after all!
As I was taking photos on Main Street, I saw the light. Specifically, some beautiful sun rays peeking out from behind clouds up by Crystal Palace. So I ventured that way. From there, I saw the rays at the edge of Adventureland. To make a long story short, I found myself outside of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad when I received a call from Sarah, asking where the heck I was, as she had just exited the restrooms near City Hall.
I had just wandered to the opposite end of the park without giving it a second thought. Funny how my body no longer realized it was so tired once the prospect of shooting a great sunset was on the table. It’s really a wonder I never got (permanently) lost as a child.
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Three of the top icons of the "Vacation Kingdom of the World" era Walt Disney World: SpaceShip Earth, the monorail, and the classic "D" logo.
One of my "list" shots was to grab a shot of the monorail against SpaceShip Earth with some perspective compression. Sarah's camera had the 18-200 lens mounted when I saw the monorail approaching, so I grabbed her camera and shot this from World Showcase. Of the bursts I got, this was the best. I wish the D40 had the burst rate of the D90, as I could've gotten a better (looser) crop of the monorail with it. With the D40, the shots before and after this didn't have the monorail acceptably against SSE.
If you want tips for taking better photos at Disney, read this article! In it, I share advice applicable for everyone (from amateurs with iPhones to pros with DSLRS) heading to Disney!
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...When we last left this scene, Joe and I were jousting with the Mexico pavilion, most notorious for its near-impossibility to photograph at night. Joe, apparently photographing in a stupor, hit the pavilion with a 3-exposure bracketed set, showing the pavilion who was boss with an interesting composition (somewhat forced by my positioning to take this shot, quite possibly).
As I stated the last time I attempted to conquer the pavilion, this is one of the few examples of photography at Walt Disney World where HDR is actually necessary to capture the shot (this isn't to say it doesn't enhance other shots--but until I see evidence otherwise, I'm holding firm in my stance that it's impossible to show all of the dynamic range in this scene without bracketing).
Although I took several bracketed exposures in August and October, I have only processed a couple of HDR images fully (and I used Photoshop both times). The rest of the time, I've just taken the multiple layers and masked where necessary, which was an absolute pain in the ass. I've tried to use Dynamic-Photo HDR, my HDR processing program, but unless I used a single-JPG for pseudo-HDR, my results looked like garbage. Then I did what every man is loath to do: I read the instructions. It turned out I was skipping a step in the process!
Armed with this new knowledge, I processed this shot last night. Quite frankly, I think I nailed it. That's not to say there aren't issues. There are a couple of obvious spots where the -2 to +2 wasn't even enough dynamic range for this scene, so there are blown spots; the tint and white balance changed in an odd manner after the HDR treatment (which I tried to correct...did I?); and, the HDR grunge is a tad overdone for my taste (and I swear this got worse when I imported this into PS...it didn't look this grungy in Dynamic HDR). I'm sure there are other slight qualms, but I really like the end result, especially in light of the difficulty this shot, and the processing thereof, presented in the first place. Dynamic-Photo HDR, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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This picture demonstrates yet another thing I love about Walt Disney World: those early morning bus rides, where the sun hits your face as it shines through the windows, that awesome music helps build your anticipation as you make your way to your destination, and you look around, seeing the smiles and joy in everyone's faces as they sit on the edge of their seats looking forward to their days, especially those kids who are clearly heading out for the first day of their trip--or perhaps even their first day ever at WDW.
While this morning at Fort Wilderness obviously didn't feature the last component, it did fill me with joy for quite another reason: the tranquility of being all by myself. I had walked all the way from our cabin to the Marina, which was easily a mile, at about 6:30 a.m. to get some pictures of the sunrise over the Contemporary only to discover that: a) you can't see the Contemporary from Fort Wilderness' Marina, and b) the sun does not rise in that direction (I swear I'm not really this stupid...). Still, it was a fun walk over there, and taking pictures of the Fort was fun, but I wasn't looking for another walk back. So when I saw this bus, I decided to take it back to our loop.
The relaxing ride was great, and although it's just a seemingly inconsequential thing, it's a thought that brings a little joy to my day whenever I look through my RAW files to process images. I guess often the memory behind an image makes it good to a person even if it has a lot of technical flaws. This is how I remember that morning, and because of that, I really like this image.
If you want tips for taking better photos at Disney, read this article! In it, I share advice applicable for everyone (from amateurs with iPhones to pros with DSLRS) heading to Disney!
View my Disney Photo Gallery for thousands of Disney photos that aren't on Flickr!
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...SpaceShip Earth once again saves the day for me. As I complained several times here for the past few weeks, I had been in a processing rut as of late. However, SpaceShip Earth broke my spell last night and also helped me make a realization: the real issue isn't a processing lull, it's that I have "the itch."
Yep, that itch. The itch that says I must go back to WDW. Immediately. I realized that although I enjoy experimenting with processing from time to time, realistic processing is my style and personal preference (nothing against any other types of processing, I enjoy seeing different styles, I'm talking about for my own images). The real lull, and where I feel I leverage my creativity the best, is behind the lens. This is because I haven't been to WDW since October, and I keep having these ideas and wishing I could change the way I took particular shots as I edited them. So rather than trying to compensate by going to editing techniques I otherwise wouldn't (this isn't to say I won't experiment from time to time, but I was trying to overhaul my style, which was a bad idea), I decided to just process images based on my normal style and workflow.
In my opinion, the results were much better, and I found myself in a groove for the first time in a while. Even though each one of the shots had flaws that made me think, "damn, I should have done ______ when I took the shot," I am still generally satisfied with the outcomes. Hopefully I am not overconfident about the results...
If you want tips for taking better photos at Disney, read this article! In it, I share advice applicable for everyone (from amateurs with iPhones to pros with DSLRS) heading to Disney!
View my Disney Photo Gallery for thousands of Disney photos that aren't on Flickr!
DisneyTouristBlog | Facebook | Twitter | Photo Gallery | Google+ | ISO 5571 - Podcast
Tags: Epcot Center Epcot 21st Century Began in 1982 technology Future World World Showcase pavilion knowledge learning informative Walt Disney World WDW Disney World Walt Disney Disney Lake Buena Vista Orlando Nikon D90 Nikon Nikon DSLR dslr vacation RAW Imagineering architecture nikkor photoshop wdwfigment figment disneypictures disneyworldpictures waltdisneyworldpictures disneypics themepark disneyresort waltdisneyimagineering wdi WEDEnterprises florida America Photoshop CS3 Tom Bricker mickeymouse mickey characters colorsaturation landscape Vacation Kingdom of the World vacationkingdom magical Iconic orlandoflorida disney photos disney photography wide angle ultra wide angle
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