Any first hand reports of Photo Pass box with Tink?

[Tiggerlover91]

Does anyone have anymore information or reports on how this is going? Anymore photos to share?

 

[m&m_mom]

We just got back from our trip today. We saw Tink with the box, no photographer. The pictures are ok and there are some of the greeting, hugs, and autograph along with the posed pics. Nothing zoomed in and all in the same spot. We saw a ton of characters at all of the parks and that was our only box experience. I did notice that there seemed to be fewer photographers out and about in general though.

 

[FoxC63]

I did notice that there seemed to be fewer photographers out and about in general though.

Well that's not good! Sounds like Universal, BOOOOO!!!!

 

[Kae]

Some of our pictures with tink are hysterical, so bad. Like a 3 yr old took them. But some are good there were quite a few.

 

[Chrisizzle]

I got pics with Tink and the box in early April.

As a photographer myself, I get it. The pics are automated and consistent. It probably saves work on the tail end. I was chatting with a Disney photographer and was told a human reviews every single picture that goes out. That’s madness... impressive but madness.

I only got three pics with Tinkerbell (vs the typical 6 to 10 a human photographer would take of me as a solo guest) and only one of those was worth keeping.

I couldn’t tell if the machine took photos on a timer, or if there was a guy in a booth pressing a button.

May also be worth noting that I’m sure I saw two lenses. One at adult level and one at kid height.

 

[Chrispy97]

Just got back from Orlando last week and met Tinkerbell Tuesday night.

There was a pretty sizable delay as we were in the FP line for Tinkerbell. Not sure if it was a scheduled break or an issue with the photobox.

When we got in, there were some issues with getting the photobox to ID Tinkerbell and my DD8 for pictures. Tink even stated "it's like I'm too short for it to see me!". Not sure if that was ad lib or frustration. After the delay, I was leaning toward frustration with the Photobox.

The primary issue we had was that scanning the MagicBand spot on the way out didn't show up with our PhotoPass for a while. We ended up going to PhotoPass on Thursday to get that fixed before we left. I've never had that issue with the photographers, but I'm sure some have.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

Sorry I'm late posting this. My son and I were in Disney from June 2-June 6th. I unfortunately cannot post pictures from my Memory Maker as the site tells me they are too large. With that though, the photobox actually took some VERY nice photos of our greets with Tink. We went to see her twice. Once on Monday and then again Wednesday evening. No, there were no closeups and yes she had to remain in certain spots, but the pics came out better than I expected.

 

[Phicinfan]

Sorry I'm late posting this. My son and I were in Disney from June 2-June 6th. I unfortunately cannot post pictures from my Memory Maker as the site tells me they are too large. With that though, the photobox actually took some VERY nice photos of our greets with Tink. We went to see her twice. Once on Monday and then again Wednesday evening. No, there were no closeups and yes she had to remain in certain spots, but the pics came out better than I expected.

We were there the exact same week, and we too got some really good pictures from this.

 

[SaharanTea]

Bumping an old thread. I've been meaning to post for a while.

Trip was in mid-July.

We did Tink with the box. It was terrible. Tink actually had to waste time trying to get the box to even trigger. Many of the pictures were of backs or walking around. The percentage of even usable pictures was far less than what we got with human photographers. It was so bad we went across the square to inform guest services of the difficulty. The lady there didn't even know about the photo boxes, but she was understanding about it. Tink, herself, was great though.

Without outing anyone, more than one cast member remarked their displeasure at the practice of replacing the photographers with boxes.

We had the same thing with our Chewbacca meet. Pictures of backs, etc. It also missed what would have been some great shots. The Kylo Ren meet wasn't as bad with the pictures we got, but I wasn't in that meet to see what, if anything, it may have missed.

To compare, we got great pictures where humans were involved. Stitch was a great meet. A photographer in front of France did a fantastic job (though I doubt this type of photopass location is in much peril).

The humans know when to get shots of hugs or "embarrassing" moments or when a character does something really funny, and when the whole family is in the shot, we can't be back to take the photo ourselves.

 

[Tumbles10]

We met with Tink this past week. The box was taking pictures and ended up with over 70! Tink went on a tangent with something DD said. Some were good and some bad. What was funny is that I was sitting off to the side taking pictures and the box made sure that I was in the pictures.

 

[dlavender]

Here’s a Kylo picture taken by the box. My son is hidden behind his sisters since the box is obviously stationary.

Our Chewbacca pictures are fine. I hope this doesn’t come to the Elsa and Anna meets. The zoomed in pictures of my kids were great. A box just can’t capture it.

 

[dwbrewster]

Our pictures with Kylo Ren and Chewie from the box were a mixed bag and I blame it on the lack of a human knowing where to focus at times. The worst of them won't upload unfortunately...

 

[mom2rtk]

Here’s a Kylo picture taken by the box. My son is hidden behind his sisters since the box is obviously stationary.

Our Chewbacca pictures are fine. I hope this doesn’t come to the Elsa and Anna meets. The zoomed in pictures of my kids were great. A box just can’t capture it.

The case of the missing kid! Seriously though, that's ridiculous. I can't believe anyone thought this would be OK.

Our pictures with Kylo Ren and Chewie from the box were a mixed bag and I blame it on the lack of a human knowing where to focus at times. The worst of them won't upload unfortunately...
View attachment 427755View attachment 427756

Those can easily be cropped. But Disney should be embarrassed to be putting that into the hands of their guests. I know some get these "free" with their AP, but a lot of people are paying $150-$200 for this.

 

[Unvoiced_Apollo]

I didn't even know about the photo box until I saw this. I am so glad my last trip was filled with REAL photographers instead of these boxes (went in February)..

And keeping Tink in specific spots is an antithesis to her character. She needs to be able to flit around. That's the last place a box should have been put.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Just wanted to add to some other recent posts here as we just got back and met Kylo ren (who I understand will be replaced with Darth Vader soon) and had the photo box, and it resulted in ok pictures - we were just two adults though and think the humans photographers make and even bigger different when kids are involved, to get shots form lower angles, and stuff

So, guess this reduces chance of horrible pictures due to human error but really reduces chance of those "special" photos


Also, we had to scan our magic bands to a machine outside after the Kylo Ren meet and it took longer for those photos to show up in our account

 

[SaharanTea]

We met with Tink this past week. The box was taking pictures and ended up with over 70! Tink went on a tangent with something DD said. Some were good and some bad. What was funny is that I was sitting off to the side taking pictures and the box made sure that I was in the pictures.

I wish we had gotten 70+. Better chance of getting some good shots.

We also noticed what looked like a box in the Main Street Mickey meet, but they weren't using it at the time. It was hidden in the "bookshelves."

I actually think boxes would work fine in a place like BB-8 where the "character" doesn't really do much and you can't really physically interact with them at all. Or maybe if the boxes had some cool effect like 3-D or something like that, it might be worthwhile. As they are, they are definitely a downgrade from human photographers.

 

[OSUZorba]

The case of the missing kid! Seriously though, that's ridiculous. I can't believe anyone thought this would be OK.

Those can easily be cropped. But Disney should be embarrassed to be putting that into the hands of their guests. I know some get these "free" with their AP, but a lot of people are paying $150-$200 for this.

The photos aren't that high of resolution. So if you crop in, they are going to be very low res if you actually want to do anything with it besides post it on facebook.

 

[OSUZorba]

And keeping Tink in specific spots is an antithesis to her character. She needs to be able to flit around. That's the last place a box should have been put.

I was the first report on her with Tink. She did not move. We got like 20 pictures and her feet are in the same spot in every picture. It was literally the worst character experience I've ever had, and I 100% blame the box. Luckily at that point she was the only meet with a box. It is this type of just in your face, middle finger, cost cutting that makes me kind of hope SW:GE is a flop just to show them there is a line and they can't just keep cutting while jacking up prices just because they are Disney and they'll have Star Wars.

I love photopass, but as more locations go to the box, there is no way I'd pay extra for it.

 

[BattyKoda]

I love photopass, but as more locations go to the box, there is no way I'd pay extra for it.

Are you there now or still a bit away?

For others that have used it recently; do you think it's 'worth' (I know it's subjective) the $170-200 cost?

We were thinking of getting photopass (we've done it every previous trip), but these, and other comments have made me rethink it.

My thought against are two fold; First the boxes and then, secondly, the report that there are fewer wandering photographers... some of our best cast-member interactions have been with the photographers.

 

[OSUZorba]

Are you there now or still a bit away?

For others that have used it recently; do you think it's 'worth' (I know it's subjective) the $170-200 cost?

We were thinking of getting photopass (we've done it every previous trip), but these, and other comments have made me rethink it.

My thought against are two fold; First the boxes and then, secondly, the report that there are fewer wandering photographers... some of our best cast-member interactions have been with the photographers.

I'm going back next week, but I was last there at the end of January. I get photos through my AP, so it is hard to say what is worth it. I will say, for me, the character meets aren't fun if one of us has to take pictures and the photos from the box are worthless. So I will be skipping any meet that I know is using the box.

When I was there in January I didn't notice a drop in roaming photographers, but things could have changed.