Can you share your park shooting tips?

[Marseeya]

Would you all mind sharing your tips for shooting decent pictures at WDW, like what settings you use for certain scenarios? (for example, inside restaurants, outside in front of the castle, when it's overcast, on moving rides... things of that nature)

I bought my Canon S2 IS back in March and haven't had any time whatsoever to spend learning it. I'd prefer not to just go and put it on auto, so I'd really love to be able to write down your tips to take with me.

Let me start you out on the tips:

Tip #1: Always remove lens cap before shooting.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Tip #2: Never, under any circumstance, shoot naked. At least wear a bikini, unless you're a man.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

but seriously:

1. Always bring 2 sets of extra batteries

2. Never use the green zone. Use P mode and change your AF point to centre-AF only. The way you deal with it is direct the centre AF point to the subject you want to be in focus, do the half-press (focus lock), hold your finger there, re-compose, then continue that half-press into a full-press. (It sounds difficult, but it isn't at all, my DD7 can do it, so I bet anybody can too)

3. Inside the rides, set to ISO400, it will be grainy, but it's better than not having any pic at all. You can always eliminate the grain using Imagenomic Noiseware Community Edition (it's a freeware) to get rid of the noise. Especially for higher ISO, use Superfine Large JPEG. It'll be easier for the software to get rid of the noise.

4. Inside restaurants or even at dusk and you don't have a tripod, use ISO 400 but now WITH flash. You'll get the foreground object really clean AND the background a bit too. This mode is the exact same "scene" mode called "Night Snapshot" on certain Canon point and shoots.

 

[ducklite]

but seriously:

1. Always bring 2 sets of extra batteries

Kelly--Do you mean for the camera or the speedlight? I always carry at least two extra sets for my SB600, that thing eats batteries like mad, but not for my camera. I can take over 1000 photo's in a day and still have all the bars on the indicator showing. Now that's on a D-70. Your milage may vary.

3. Inside the rides, set to ISO400, it will be grainy, but it's better than not having any pic at all. You can always eliminate the grain using Imagenomic Noiseware Community Edition (it's a freeware) to get rid of the noise. Especially for higher ISO, use Superfine Large JPEG. It'll be easier for the software to get rid of the noise.

Or shoot in RAW and touch up later... As an FYI, I might as well have two options on my camera. RAW, and Large + Fine JPEG. I never shoot anything but.

4. Inside restaurants or even at dusk and you don't have a tripod, use ISO 400 but now WITH flash. You'll get the foreground object really clean AND the background a bit too. This mode is the exact same "scene" mode called "Night Snapshot" on certain Canon point and shoots.

Sometimes using flash even during the day is indicated if there's a cloud overhead. I used my speedlight to help capture detail at the Flower Show at Epcot yesterday at 3:00 in the afternoon.

Anne

 

[Kelly Grannell]

1. The OP uses S2-IS, it drains battery more than dSLR (it uses 4 niMh AA) plus the extra juice extracted for the IS circuitry. In theory you should be okay with one freshly charged set of batteries, but just in case, I always carry redundant backup (hence the two sets)

2. S2-IS doesn't have RAW, so that's not an option

3. True, also sometimes if you're FACING light (or in the shadow), you may want to force the flash (fill-in flash).

 

[ducklite]

1. The OP uses S2-IS, it drains battery more than dSLR (it uses 4 niMh AA) plus the extra juice extracted for the IS circuitry. In theory you should be okay with one freshly charged set of batteries, but just in case, I always carry redundant backup (hence the two sets)

In that case, yes absolutely I agree, at least two sets of back up batteries.

2. S2-IS doesn't have RAW, so that's not an option

Oops, sorry, didn't realize. Then absolutely shoot in the largest, finest format possible.

Anne

 

[Anewman]

During a day at Disneyland the number one cause of bad photos that I see is.

Using the little pop up flash on subjects over 15 feet away from the camera.

 

[makinorlando]

1. The OP uses S2-IS, it drains battery more than dSLR (it uses 4 niMh AA) plus the extra juice extracted for the IS circuitry. In theory you should be okay with one freshly charged set of batteries, but just in case, I always carry redundant backup (hence the two sets)

3. True, also sometimes if you're FACING light (or in the shadow), you may want to force the flash (fill-in flash).

I have the same camera, and I am just starting to venture out of the "green" mode, through reading the tips and suggestions here, as well as continuing to read the manual. This weekend I was experimenting with bracketing.

If I am spending an entire day at a park, I always have the set of batteries in my camera (charged), and two sets of extras - just in case... buying batteries in the parks, is SOOOO expensive. Most times I never have to use the 3rd set.

Make sure you have enough memory cards as well! These two are REALLY expensive in the parks! I don't have large (1GB+) cards, bit I carry 1GB with me each day!) I have had to buy cards twice at WDW when I forgot to put it back in my camera after downloading!

I also alway shoot superfine, large as well, and use the flash up trick if the sun is facing me!

Have fun with the zoom - I like to see how far away I can be from something, and still get a great photo.

Not so much technique tips but...
My other tip is take pics of things other than the "normal" Disney shots that every one takes, different angles, etc. It makes it really fun. If you have enough memory, there is no harm!

I take pics of signs, etc as well that way if you are a scrapbooker or even for online viewing, I will use the picture of the sign for a ride, restaurant, as a "title" to the pics being viewed.

Have fun! I love taking photos with this camera!

 

[eeyoreforever]

2. Never use the green zone. Use P mode and change your AF point to centre-AF only. The way you deal with it is direct the centre AF point to the subject you want to be in focus, do the half-press (focus lock), hold your finger there, re-compose, then continue that half-press into a full-press. (It sounds difficult, but it isn't at all, my DD7 can do it, so I bet anybody can too)

Kelly, or anyone else, I have the Canon A-95. I was playing with mine just now and put it in P mode, but when I went to change the AF point, I have three options: Evaluative, Center Weighted Average, and Spot. Would I use the spot since it focuses on the middle of the screen?

Also, and this is probably going to sound really dumb, when you say recompose, do you mean just move the camera so your picture is different, like whatever you focused on, you could move it to the side of the picture? That probably made no sense, so I hope someone knows what I am trying to ask.

Thanks

 

[Anewman]

"Evaluative, Center Weighted Average, and Spot" refers to metering modes and not AF points.

Note not all cameras can disable focus points and some cameras only have center focus point to begin with. I dont know the details on the A95.

yes you are correct on the second question.

Example. You half press the shutter to focus with the subject in center part of the viewfinder, once focus is locked you move the camera(recompose to put the subject where you feel it would look good and then fully press the shutter to get the picture. Just make sure distance from subject to camera does not change while you are recomposing.

 

[eeyoreforever]

Okay, I better go dig my manual out. Boy, am I embarassed.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I also have A95, I always use evaluative metering, unless it's a concert, then I use center weighted, or if I go close enough to the performer's face I use spot metering.

re: recomposing.
if you don't recompose and you use centre AF, then the subject will always be in the middle, right? Sometimes you have two people with the Epcot ball as the background, so you focus to the person on the left (or right), then recompose so the Epcot ball is in the middle of those two people. The result? the people will be in focus, Epcot ball will be out of focus. If you don't do that, the Epcot ball will be in focus but the the people will be out of focus. I hope it helps. It's kinda difficult to explain.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Here, I found the illustrated version of what I'm trying to explain regarding recomposition

CLICK HERE

 

[eeyoreforever]

Okay, I went and dug out my manual and found that I have to go through the Menu button to find the AF points. (I was looking at the function button earlier). Mine was already set on center.

Kelly-thanks for the link. Thats what I thought you probably meant, but wanted to make sure.

 

[Charade]

The best tip has not been mentioned. It's GO BY YOURSELF!!

Then you won't hear "Would ya hurry up and take the damn picture!" or "Are you taking ANOTHER picture of the castle?!?

 

[Marseeya]

The best tip has not been mentioned. It's GO BY YOURSELF!!

Then you won't hear "Would ya hurry up and take the damn picture!" or "Are you taking ANOTHER picture of the castle?!?

We actually talked about that. We'll probably use our mornings for riding, take an afternoon break back at the resort, then go back to the parks in the evenings for strolling and picture taking. If the girls get antsy and want to ride, DH can take them to ride while I take pictures.

That's my biggest disappointment from last year. I have hundreds of pictures from AKL and the entrances to the parks. Once I got inside the parks, I let the camera dangle and I just walked around with my jaw dropped open and my eyes as big as saucers, taking everything in.