WDW time again... complete trip photos finally posted!

[jann1033]

have fun, bet you are missing all the snow.jealous doesn't even begin to cover how much i wish i was at wdw right now. how is Jack doing? grandd (who will turn 5 next summer, think about the same as Jack?) went first time beginning of Jan and hated/melted down/ screamed most of the time while she was there but now says she had fun wondering how much was her age although Jack has been there before so guess he might be used to giant fuzzy creatures approaching him

 

[Alztybrn]

Groucho...as somebody that grew up in upstate NY...I can appreciate that pic of the plane being de-iced. I also love the change in photos from that one to the one on main street. A big reason my wife and I now live in VA and only visit back home

 

[Groucho]

Thanks guys!

Great shots, especially for "just out of the camera"...I can only hope to get some that clear of Spectro when we are there in December.

I just read through your TR from your January 07 trip yesterday (it was snowy and I was bored!) and it was great---hopefully the final TR for this one is just a chock-full-o-photos as the last. For now though, I'll be checking back to see what else you've added here.

Thanks! I'm figuring that I'll probably do a proper TR for this one... hopefully it won't take me months to go through the photos!

I'm off work today, so I won't see you at DHS. I was kind of looking forward to seeing if I could spot someone with so much gear, lol... I love that pic of your stuff. I agree, I might have to show DH what I could be buying, lol...

Don't forget they are doing soft openings of The American Idol Experience. I am not sure what the rules are about cameras....I know flash photography is out. We're shooting pics of the participants onstage - amazing lighting and video screens!! It's a great show - even in technical rehearsals...

We'll be back Friday! As for Amer Idol... frankly, it would be absolutely impossible for me to have less interest in such a thing. I was ambivalent about the Millionaire TV show and never bothered seeing the attraction at DHS, and I absolutely can't stand any "reality" television, from Survivor to Amer Idol and everything inbetween. So, I'll give this one a pass. I may do the DVC preview on the new Kim Possible thing later this week... I'm not dying for it but I'd give it a swing.

I gotta say, on the topic of DHS and where Disney is spending money, I am very disappointed about Disney moving Fantasmic to only two nights a week. We arrived 45 minutes early tonight and were still stuck in the SRO area. If it was every night, I would have just left and tried again earlier the next night we're there. Oh well... at least I knew ahead of time so had scheduled today to be there.

have fun, bet you are missing all the snow.jealous doesn't even begin to cover how much i wish i was at wdw right now. how is Jack doing? grandd (who will turn 5 next summer, think about the same as Jack?) went first time beginning of Jan and hated/melted down/ screamed most of the time while she was there but now says she had fun wondering how much was her age although Jack has been there before so guess he might be used to giant fuzzy creatures approaching him

Jack is doing great, thanks for asking! He's getting close to four (at the end of March) and hasn't had a total meltdown yet. He's actually pretty well behaved once you figure that he's going to do typical 3-year-old stuff - ignore us sometimes, have a hard time sitting still (especially at dinner, though he was very well-behaved tonight), have times where he just won't shut up... ("I wanna do the Toy Story ride. I wanna do the Toy Story ride. I wanna do the Toy Story ride." etc etc) But overall, we're really lucky. He hasn't had any up-close character meets yet but I think he'll do OK. He was too scared to go see Mickey at a DVC event in Rochester a couple months ago but he has said that he'll be fine here, and he usually does OK after the first few times of seeing them in person again.

Hopefully the crowds thin out after today. Enjoy!

HA! You wanna talk crowds? DHS was packed today. I had had this funny idea that being mid-January and a full week after the marathon and with a bad economy, that attendance would be pretty light, even barren (as barren as WDW gets, that is.) Boy, was I wrong! Heck, it took 10-15 minutes for our bus just to get through the traffic light at the entrance to DHS! There were long waits for just about everything. When we did Fantastic, we got there 45 minutes early and the last of the "real" seats was just being taken. Getting out, which is usually bonkers, was completely insane. These are the most crowds I've seen in any trip since at least 1997, if not earlier. Granted, I usually go on the off season... but still!

One thing that I noticed is the staggering number of Brazilians here. There appear to be many huge tour groups of high school kids from Brazil running around, occasionally singing Brazian songs at the top of their lungs. I had to do some quick Googling to find that this is apparently the middle of their school vacation. Strange, I don't remember these groups from my January trips that have been the first week of the year. I have no problem with Brazil or its people, it just seems like a very disproportional number have descended upon WDW at once.

LR is outputting photos now... I'll have a few pics to post maybe in a few minutes. Then in the morning, heading straight out to MK again - a cherry turnover is calling my name!

 

[Groucho]

Gotta get going so not much text, but I'll add some photos. No tweaking as before, a few seem a little "flat" but that's probably a combination of the laptop monitor and the non-existant LR settings. (On my desktop, I have some basic brightening settings done as photos are imported.) Adjusting indoor white balance is certainly going to help, too.

Update: I have replaced the photos with processed versions.

I am sorry to say that I've barely used the fisheye at all yet... it is a lens that likes smaller crowds, IMHO, and we have definitely not been seeing that!

However, I am happy to say that freshly-tweaking K20D seems to be nailing focus more consistently. This is F1.8...

The next 5 photos were taken with a screw-mount Vivitar 200mm F3.5. The first one uses a 2x teleconverter. Not too bad for a lens that you can pick up for $30-40, I'd say!

I only did a couple nighttime tripod shots, here's probably the best one... I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks after a little tweaking!

More updates later!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Nice!

By the way, no trouble getting in the parks with all your gear?

 

[fitzperry]

I gotta say, on the topic of DHS and where Disney is spending money, I am very disappointed about Disney moving Fantasmic to only two nights a week. We arrived 45 minutes early tonight and were still stuck in the SRO area. If it was every night, I would have just left and tried again earlier the next night we're there. Oh well... at least I knew ahead of time so had scheduled today to be there.

Say it isn't so! Fantasmic is my favorite show at Disney by a long shot. That's quite disappointing. And we get American Idol instead? Sheesh. I'm clearly out of touch with American pop culture.

Great pictures of course! Hope the crowds get better. From the looks of it (and the reports I'm hearing from my friends there) everyone seems to be descending on D.C. Maybe that will help. Anyway, you'd think now that the holiday weekend is over, things would improve.

 

[Villainess]

Great pics so far! I hope the crowds thin out a bit for you!

 

[MarkBarbieri]

The crowds are probably high because it was a holiday weekend.

 

[jann1033]

i think the buy 4 get 3 deal must be working as well, daughter said it was much busier than usual for Jan. like the sorcerer mickey/dragon shot esp.. nice angle.

 

[Golf4food]

i think the buy 4 get 3 deal must be working as well, daughter said it was much busier than usual for Jan. like the sorcerer mickey/dragon shot esp.. nice angle.

It is also MLK weekend and many schools were out not only this Monday but also last Friday. Crowds this particular weekend/week are always heavier than the normal January/February crowds, special deal or no.

 

[Disneyfreak92]

Loving the pictures and report so far. Can't wait to see more! I also really like the sorcerer Mickey/dragon shot and also the back scratcher(?) one.

 

[Groucho]

Thanks again folks! I really appreciate all the nice words. Some good news for today... it was much quieter! The Brazilian tour groups must have all been at a different park and the locals were back at school, so MK was relatively quiet. Jungle Cruise was a total walk-on. Pirates was maybe 5 minutes. Even Big Thunder was maybe 20 minutes - probably more like 15. Heck - the Main St Bakery line was shorter at 10 in the morning than it had been at 9 at night two nights before! The longest wait was when I did Space Mt solo early in the evening, that was probably 20-30 minutes. (I did the right side for a change, usually I do left - wow! It's great on that side, I think I'll stick to the right for a while.)

On a technical level, today was a "Takumar Day" for me - I used almost exclusively old screw-mount Pentax Takumar all-manual lenses, plus a few with my Zeiss screw-mount and some fisheyes. It was fun though nailing focus is sometimes a little difficult without a split-prism viewfinder, but the focus confirmation helps. Metering was a little inconsistent though, so I spent some time fiddling with exposure compensations. I may do one more Takumar Day but most of the time I'll continue to use my more modern lenses.

Oh, and the word of the day: *COLD* I think I overheard someone say that today was the coldest day in five years in Florida. It was bitterly nasty cold all day. At one point, I got down to three layers of shirts/jackets, most of the time I was at 4. Brrrr! It will be below freezing tonight...

Nice!

By the way, no trouble getting in the parks with all your gear?

No problem at all. It really doesn't look bad. The tripod is in the bottom of the stroller, there's the camera around my neck, and the camera bag with usually 4-5 lenses. (+1 on the camera +1 in my belt pouch.) I zip right through. Honestly, though, part of me wonders why Disney even bothers. The inspection is so cursory that anyone could sneak through most anything. On the other hand, what's the alternative? Metal detectors? I've been doing a bunch of work at a nuke plant recently and going through the metal detectors every day (sometimes multiple times) gets dull real fast, and wouldn't really feel very "magical", plus it would take all day to get folks through. So, I suppose Disney figures that this is better than nothing. One woman doing checks was saying something about "Homeland Security" - somehow I doubt that Homeland Security has any rules about having your bags checked when go into Disney World.

Say it isn't so! Fantasmic is my favorite show at Disney by a long shot. That's quite disappointing. And we get American Idol instead? Sheesh. I'm clearly out of touch with American pop culture.

That's exactly how I feel. I mean, it's not like it's Americal Idol's fault that Fantastic is being cut back - but that is really a bummer. Heck, you can't even get SpectroMagic every night any more. But I agree - Fantastic is my favorite show also. If they start cutting back on Illuminations, I'm going to really be POed!

 

[Groucho]

Some pics for you... as said before, these are all (except for the fisheye shots) done with old manual-focus Takumar lenses. Mostly an Auto Takumar 55mm F1.8 and a Super Takumar 105mm F2.8, I also had an Auto Takumar 35mm F3.5 and Takumar 135mm F3.5 but I'm not sure if any of those made it in what I'll post here (I know none of the Zeiss 135mm F3.5 photos did.) As always, no corrections/adjustments made yet... The second-to-last shot was done with the Vivitar 200mm F3.5.

edit: the photos are now the edited, processed versions

An Obama Mouse!

We decided to give Jack a haircut... he was getting a little shaggy. He might have been able to pass as a Beatle! This is before.

This is after! He asked for some hair coloring, which we didn't expect, and picked out pink.

We did dinner at Chef Mickey's, which Jack looooved, and of course I hauled the tripod out to the fire escape. Did I mention that it was cold? The things I do for you people.

 

[annnewjerz]

The shots of your son with the pink hair are so cute, he looks thrilled to have the coloring and the little sequin Mickeys and the nighttime shots from the Contemporary are just great. And as always, loving the fisheye shots!

Is this a fire escape you sneak out onto...or is it something that all of us can have the pleasure of shooting from?

I read online yesterday while I was looking through the last set of shots about the weather being the coldest it had in years and was keeping my fingers crossed that you brought warm clothes and lots of layers. I would be miserable if I packed only warm weather clothes, or in the alternative if I had to buy heavy clothes down there and pay WDW prices for them, so I'm packing lots of extra layers for our trip this December juuuuuuuust in case.

 

[Evad]

I saw on CNN today about how cold it is in Fla. right now. Is that effecting you trip at all? Must feel like your back home in NY.

Great pics btw. Please keep them coming!!

 

[jann1033]

love the monorail track going away from the contemp. shot and jack looks cute, even with pink sparkles in his hair

 

[boBQuincy]

Yay, fisheyes!!! That's more like it, that's what we came here for!
Great photos of Contemporary!

 

[Groucho]

The shots of your son with the pink hair are so cute, he looks thrilled to have the coloring and the little sequin Mickeys and the nighttime shots from the Contemporary are just great. And as always, loving the fisheye shots!

Is this a fire escape you sneak out onto...or is it something that all of us can have the pleasure of shooting from?

I read online yesterday while I was looking through the last set of shots about the weather being the coldest it had in years and was keeping my fingers crossed that you brought warm clothes and lots of layers. I would be miserable if I packed only warm weather clothes, or in the alternative if I had to buy heavy clothes down there and pay WDW prices for them, so I'm packing lots of extra layers for our trip this December juuuuuuuust in case.

Anyone can sneak out onto the fire escape. The only "rub" is that, technically, it locks behind you and you have to walk down 11-14 flights of stairs (depending on how high you go - the highest one you can walk out to without needing special access is 11, but you can then climb up to 14.) I just block the door with something - even a park map will probably do it, if you put it over the latch. On one trip, it was already blocked and had been for a while. I don't think the doors trip an alarm or anything. Those shots were from the 11th floor. It was too cold to bother climbing any higher!

For clothes, I did more or less OK I think. I didn't want to wear a winter jacket to the airport and it was mighty cold in Rochester, so I wore the same setup that I've been wearing for the last two days - a t-shirt, button-up flannel-type shirt, warm heavy cotton turtleneck, and fleece zip-up jacket. Also my usual blue bucket hat (great for photography, doesn't block the external flash like a baseball hat!) and a nice warm winter hat.

I saw on CNN today about how cold it is in Fla. right now. Is that effecting you trip at all? Must feel like your back home in NY.

Great pics btw. Please keep them coming!!

Thanks! Many of the stores have been putting out black Mickey winter hats, gloves, and scarves... I think they've been selling like crazy. I was tempted to grab the gloves once or twice... I don't know if the cold has really affected the trip too much. We have skipped Splash Mt and Kali, haven't even considered swimming, have been more likely to come back to the hotel in the early evening... but really, the real plans haven't been affected by the cold.

love the monorail track going away from the contemp. shot and jack looks cute, even with pink sparkles in his hair

He's a cutie, I think we'll keep him. I was going to mention the other day, he said the funniest thing (to me, at least) while we were at 50s Prime Time. Our waiter was "Uncle Tim" and at one point, he was cleaning the table next to us and dropped a fork on the floor. I said, "oh no, Uncle Tim!" and Jack popped out with "oh no, Uncle Tim! Mommy and Daddy are going to be angry with you!" Maybe you had to be there, maybe you have to be used to us complaining when he drops things on the floor, but it thought it was hilarious.

Yay, fisheyes!!! That's more like it, that's what we came here for!
Great photos of Contemporary!

Thanks! The good news is that I did relatively more fisheyes today... though hopefully I'll get a bunch more before the trip is over. I think I mentioned before that I think fisheyes tend to work better in a smaller crowd... well, it was another light crowd today! I was worried after the crush of the first two days, but today... how about, at 10:30am or so, a 5-minute wait for Dinosaur and 20-minute waits for Safari and Everest? Yeah! I did Everest on the way out during Extra Magic Hours and it was literally less than five minutes. Fantastic! Festival of the Lion King even had a bunch of free seats in the back of each section.

Let's hope it stays this way... tomorrow is our first visit to Epcot. It will be a little warmer (63'), then we're looking at 71' on Friday, 73' on Saturday, 75' on Sunday, and 73' on Monday. That is more like it! We might even be able to wear, gasp, shorts at some point on this trip!

I'm waiting for the clothes washer before hitting the sack, so I might get some pics posted tonight.

 

[Golf4food]

Let's hope it stays this way... tomorrow is our first visit to Epcot. It will be a little warmer (63'), then we're looking at 71' on Friday, 73' on Saturday, 75' on Sunday, and 73' on Monday. That is more like it! We might even be able to wear, gasp, shorts at some point on this trip!

Oh, ya'll crazy Yankees and your shorts in winter.

I might... might!... consider wearing shorts on a day that reached 75 during this time of year, but probably only between noon and 4 pm and then I'd change back into jeans quickly because the temps would rapidly drop back into the "no shorts" range. When you are a multiple generation Florida native your cold weather genes have all been removed over years of natural selection, haha.

That is some serious bokeh on the shot of the Liberty Bell behind the HM fence! Love the fisheye from the CR obs deck.

 

[Groucho]

Oh, ya'll crazy Yankees and your shorts in winter.

I might... might!... consider wearing shorts on a day that reached 75 during this time of year, but probably only between noon and 4 pm and then I'd change back into jeans quickly because the temps would rapidly drop back into the "no shorts" range. When you are a multiple generation Florida native your cold weather genes have all been removed over years of natural selection, haha.

That is some serious bokeh on the shot of the Liberty Bell behind the HM fence! Love the fisheye from the CR obs deck.

I did say that we might be able to wear shorts. You're right about it only being good for the afternoon - it'll still cool down quite a bit as the day goes on. And despite being from upstate, I am hardly built for that weather, and have precious little natural protection (in other words, I'm skinny and am always cold!)

The bokeh... yes, those old Takumars have a very distinctive bokeh, as seen in that shot. It definitely has a different "look" IMHO from the more modern lenses.

OK folks - you want new pics, I got new pics! These were all from more modern AF lenses except for a few from the Vivitar 200mm, you can check exif if you're curious. The vast majority are the Pentax 31mm, 16-50mm F2.8, and 50-135mm F2.8. All straight from the camera.

(edit: photos replaced with processed versions)

The first one is a blatant copy of an idea done by a few other shooters here.

I was very sad to see that the yeti destroyed a beautiful old Pentax Spotmatic! This is a camera that I'm actually hoping to pick up a copy of one of these days... guess there's one less of them in the world now.

This was an attempt to show some texture, as well as short DoF.

Off to Epcot in the morning!