Anyone not do photopass?

[MrRob]

No need for us this year. My buddy is a really great photographer, and I suspect we'll walk away this year with a bunch of amazing candid shots. Then maybe we'll do one big group photo and buy that from Disney.

 

[LSUfan4444]

We only buy the photopass when we can split it with at least one other family. It's too many posed pictires for us. SOme of the best, and our favorite pictures are action or in the moment shots. Theyll even use your camera to take the same photo they do with photopass.

Here are a few of our favorites we never would have gotten with a photopass.

This is one we had them take with our camera at a photopass station:

 

[ttintagel]

We have never gotten it ever for our family trips. The one trip I had a card, we never found a photographer! Besides I think I take decent pictures and I can find always someone to take pictures of us when necessary.

Last summer, every time I saw a Photopass photographer, there were at least four of five other groups waiting for him. I wouldn't want to wait around like that to get a picture.

 

[TandLMommy28]

I personally think Photopass is the only thing at Disney that is reasonably priced. Photographers cost a fortune these days. And yes, you can get pics with your own camera but I found almost every time the Photopass pics came out better. Plus I liked adding the borders and stuff. And the special pictures (the frog, tinkerbell, captain hook, the hitchkiking ghosts). And the pics they take after dark come out much nicer than anything I can take with my DSLR (because it's cheaper to pay for photopass than to buy the correct lenses!).

Maybe it's just because we go in the off season and there's less people but we had them practically begging to take our pictures. And when our kids were with the characters, they took a ton of action shots, not just posed. They took so many pics of the whole encounter, I was freed up to take video. Which worked out really nicely.


Looking at Cinderella, listening to her talk.


Chatting away with Belle.

Coming around the corner and seeing Buzz and Woody for the first time. They got my card from me before he came into the room and starting shooting his reaction immediately.

 

[MomofKatie]

We have never done Photopass. We have taken whole Disney vacations and not taken a single picture, though- we are not big picture taking people. Personally, I don't need a picture to remember my vacation (I realize I am in the vast minority here, though ). Any pics I feel I need to take, I just whip out my cell and snap it myself. Saves a lot of $$...

 

[grandall]

This is a stunner!

 

[jrtoastyman]

And when our kids were with the characters, they took a ton of action shots, not just posed. They took so many pics of the whole encounter, I was freed up to take video. Which worked out really nicely.

This is actually a great point -- some of the PP photographers will really get in there and get photos from angles that you either can't get or might not feel comfortable getting yourself, especially prior to posing for the photo. Some of the best pictures we have were taken of our daughter running up to see the Princesses and interacting with them before the "real" photo -- photos we were out of position to take. We also have some that are way up close that I can't imagine that we could have gotten ourselves.

 

[Pmctn]

I wish we had spent more time getting random photopass pics.

 

[Tiger926]

We did it 1x when it first came out with the GF photo shoot, and we also did BBB that same trip.

Many of those photos were not that great, especially the GF photo shoot. The BBB photos were good, as it was a retired trained photographer CM who took our DD's photos, and even scooted me in there for a few, so we have some great mother/daughter photos.

Hardly any of the Photopass CMs are trained photographers, and you can tell. We see less and less of them throughout the parks, which means that they are even more busy, and the quality shows.

They used to not be able to change the settings on their cameras either, and they also dial down the resolution a lot. We have multiple high end cameras, including waterproof, so we can take photos in any circumstance, and our photos come out better than Photopass photos.

I will not pay for Photopass as I don't think it's worth it at all. Despite many trips since the inception of Photopass, we have never had an awesome shot on Photopass that we had to purchase, but we do get many awesome shots ourselves as amateur photogs, so we won't purchase Photopass. The new price is ridiculous, as is the cost on DCL!

Tiger

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I got it on my last trip at the beginning of May 2012 but now that the pre-order price has gone up, I doubt I'll do CD's anymore.

I figure I'll still get pictures taken and then plan on downloading the one or two that are my favorites and that's it.
Plus there are a couple of magic shots I'm still trying to get so I'd download those if I ever find a photographer who can do them.

I ran into alot of photographers who said they didn't do magic shots this trip.

 

[DeaverTex]

We have never done Photopass. We have taken whole Disney vacations and not taken a single picture, though- we are not big picture taking people. Personally, I don't need a picture to remember my vacation (I realize I am in the vast minority here, though ). Any pics I feel I need to take, I just whip out my cell and snap it myself. Saves a lot of $$...

This, especially the bolded part, pretty much sums up my feelings about Photopass. We take very few pictures ourselves, since we both grew up with film -- that cost money to buy and have developed. We can always pull out a phone, or our camera (not a DSLR but still pretty good as those things go) and take a shot if we see one we want.

YMMV

 

[TiggerTrigger]

We never buy the CD. While we take a few Photopass pics here and there and I sometimes buy singles if I get a good deal and the pics are good...no matter how hard we try, we never take enough Photopass pics to even come close to justifying the cost of the CD. Plus minus 3 or 4 pics total, the majority of the pics are not worth buying.

So, rather than invest $ into Photopass- I usually set aside some of the picture $ for a new camera lens or some other kind of gear. While it may seem excessive to some, I take between 300-700 pictures per day while at WDW and I've found that while I'm no pro photog- I'm much better at being in the right place at the right time to capture those special moments.

 

[AR81]

I thought about this for upcoming trip. On our last trip in 2010, which was my first trip in over 10 years, we did the photopass thing. When I got home and looked at my pictures and wanted some of them.. I noticed the price. I was WAY taken back by that. $14 for 2 4x6. Are they crazy? I ended up purchasing some. For just a few pictures.. I don't think it's worth it.

But, with the photopass +.. We are going to do it. You get the whole cd, plus a cd of over 400 professional pictures from around Disney, plus the ride photos which I know our niece and nephew would want some of those, plus character meals. I think it's a little more worth it.

I guess I am confused on how all this works. In reference to your comment on how expensive the photos were to order, I thought if you paid the 100 or 150 for the cd that you could print off whatever you wanted-- You paid for the cd, the pictures are yours. So even though you pay 100 for the cd, you still have to pay $15 or more per picture if you want them printed? What am I missing?

 

[siskaren]

I guess I am confused on how all this works. In reference to your comment on how expensive the photos were to order, I thought if you paid the 100 or 150 for the cd that you could print off whatever you wanted-- You paid for the cd, the pictures are yours. So even though you pay 100 for the cd, you still have to pay $15 or more per picture if you want them printed? What am I missing?

You can either pre-order the CD for $119.95 or buy it after you get home for $169.95 and get all of your PhotoPass pictures, plus you can edit them with borders, cropping, etc., and then yes, the pictures are yours - you can print them off your computer, or take them to Walmart or do whatever you want with them. But if you only want to buy a few pictures, you can buy them individually for $12.95 per 5x7.

Check out this site for everything you need to know about PhotoPass (well, it hasn't been updated to include PhotoPass + yet ):

http://www.stitchkingdom.com/disneysphotopass/

I think when akclayton said "we did the PhotoPass thing" she just meant getting pictures taken by the PhotoPass photographers, not pre-ordering the CD.

 

[LSUfan4444]

Personally, I don't need a picture to remember my vacation (I realize I am in the vast minority here, though ).

I don't think many people need a picture to remember their vacation either (short of memory loss), but thats not what pictures are really for. Pictures are to share your memories with others. Pictures are to show my two year old daughter snap shots of the trips she went on, but was too young remember. Pictures are there to promote conversation and stories of wonderful times in your life usually shared with friends and/or family.

They certainly aren't for everyone, but they aren't needed to remember your vacation either.

 

[DizzDoll]

I don't think many people need a picture to remember their vacation either (short of memory loss), but thats not what pictures are really for. Pictures are to share your memories with others. Pictures are to show my two year old daughter snap shots of the trips she went on, but was too young remember. Pictures are there to conersation and stories of wonderful times in your life usually shared with friends and/or family.

They certainly aren't for everyone, but they aren't needed to remember your vacation either.

I agree with you. Pictures also contain members of family or friends who have passed on, and those memories are beyond priceless. On that, we used to share the cost of photopass and we never got more than 4 or 5 pictures taken as a group, and when we got the pictures back someone invariably had their eyes closed, or their mouths wide open like they're catching flies, or looking someplace else. I have some good cameras and not only have the PP photographers used my camera to take our group shots but also other park visitors took them as well! Great way to meet people, and the beauty of a digital is if you don't like the shot, you can delete it.

 

[lurkernj]

We've not used it on our previous trips, but did pre-purchase the CD before the price went up, for our next trip. We are going with my in-laws who are in their 70's, and my boys are teenagers(one will be going off to college in 2013), so I am anticipating this being our last trip of all of us together and thought I'd get the CD so I could make photobooks/calendars for christmas gifts etc. I'm also interested in getting some photos with some characters as I'll be solo for 2.5 days before the DH and kids get there.

 

[MommyPoppins]

We always do photopass. We find a group on facebook and never spend more than $20 for our CD.

 

[jesswindsor]

We always do Photopass and to us it is worth it because we take full advantage of it, everywhere we see a chance to get our pictures taken we go for it. We make sure especially to get pics taken at night, I can't seem to ever get night pictures to come out right without some kind of blurr's going on in the pic. We take our own pics as well, but I like the surprise of the "action" shots that they take. I also like that they (most of them) will take a picture with your camera also if you just ask. And if you have kids you can get them holding tinker bell or simba, there are several different things they can do. But If you don't take full advantage of it, I can understand it not being worth the $$$, and to each person "worth" is different.

 

[WillowBelle]

We never do the PP either. I always hand my camera off to one of the photographers. Last time I was there I had a few who were cool enough to let me set up my tripod, at night in the MK (in the TL walkway area and the Rose Garden), and they would press the shutter for me, so I have my own nighttime-castle in the background-photos and it didn't cost me a cent.