Early January Trip

[ukcatfan]

We took a quick trip in early January with my parents and grandmother. As an accountant, I have been pretty busy with work since then, but finally got the energy to finish my pictures.

Here are a few from the first day to get things started.

Kevin

 

[DVC Jen]

We took a quick trip in early January with my parents and grandmother. As an accountant, I have been pretty busy with work since then, but finally got the energy to finish my pictures.

Here are a few from the first day to get things started.

Kevin

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this photo! Very dramatic.

 

[ukcatfan]

On day one, the DW, youngest DD, and I got there a few hours before my parents, so we spent a few hours over at the MK. This trip was more about enjoying ourselves that rides, so we spent more time checking out the decorations that were still up. After meeting up with the parents and grandmother, we went to check out the Osborne lights and ate at the 50's Prime Time, which was great. We got to the park when the sun was setting, and I lucked out with these shots.

Here are a few more from day one.

Kevin

 

[DVC Jen]

Once again I LOVE the sunset photo.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Awesome pictures. Where was the Croc wreath?

 

[ukcatfan]

Once again I LOVE the sunset photo.

Thank you. I was very lucky to have arrived at the park at the perfect time.

Awesome pictures. Where was the Croc wreath?

Thank you as well. It was in the Emporium towards the back of the store near Casey's. That part of the store has a sporting goods type feel to it. It faces the back of the store as well, so you would not see it from outside or the front of the store.

Kevin

 

[DebºoºS]

Awesome shots! Love the sunset

 

[Groucho]

Great shots! Good work. I take it you're shooting Raw - are you still using the Pentax software? I'm still not quite satisfied with the colors I'm getting out of Lightroom.

Where was this shot taken from?

 

[ukcatfan]

Great shots! Good work. I take it you're shooting Raw - are you still using the Pentax software? I'm still not quite satisfied with the colors I'm getting out of Lightroom.

Where was this shot taken from?

The only time I do not shoot RAW is when I want that longer burst rate. Luckily, the lighting was great that day, but I did tweak that shot more than normal. It was from the Swiss Family Treehouse. It is a pretty boring attraction, but does offer some decent shooting spots. Here are a few more from up in it.

Kevin

 

[ukcatfan]

Oops, almost forgot, I use Bibble.

 

[ukcatfan]

Alright, day two was MK in the morning with lunch at The Plaza. We always like that place and it did not disappoint. It is hard to decide if I like taking pictures at WDW more than eating there. Again, we did not do too many rides, but I got a chance to give POTC another try with the 50mm f/1.4. We finished the evening at EPCOT and at at the new Italian restaurant. I think it is called Tutto Italia??? Anyway, it was much better than Alfredo's IMO. We caught a few rides over there as well, but the photographic highlight of the day was an incredible triple rainbow. The third band was too light to come out in the shots, but it was there. Unfortunately, it was raining on me at the time, so my shots were rushed and not perfect, but still decent.

Here you go with day two MK shots.

Kevin

 

[ukcatfan]

And now the EPCOT shots.

Kevin

 

[ukcatfan]

On the last day, we went back to EPCOT and had lunch at the new restaurant in Japan. It did not seem very different from the old one, but was still good. We caught a few rides before lunch and heading home. I did find a really cool hidden Mickey though. Scroll down to see.

Here are a few from that day.

Check out the beak!!!

Kevin

 

[steery1]

Nice shots Kevin. The sunset ones are beautiful.

Is that a couple of dust spots I see in the rainbow photos?

 

[ukcatfan]

Nice shots Kevin. The sunset ones are beautiful.

Is that a couple of dust spots I see in the rainbow photos?

Thank you.

Nope, rain on the lens, but I do have some dust I need to clean. I does not seem to be showing up too bad until f/22 though.

Kevin

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Really nice pictures! Thanks for posting!

 

[Groucho]

Oops, almost forgot, I use Bibble.

Thanks for that info. The results are spectacular. The bloom is starting to come off the rose for me with Lightroom - I love (most of) how it works, but I'm just not really happy with the colors I get out of it, even after a good amount of tweaking. I was just processing some photos of when we went out and cut down out Christmas tree, and even on a very bright, sunny day, the colors are a bit drab. What I see on the Bibble site looks like a big improvement - I'm pretty sure that Adobe ACR is sucking the life out of the photos.

How do you like it? How are the keywording features? That'd be one of the top features for me since Lightroom does that so well.

(The real problem would be that I'd be tempted to go through my 2007 WDW photos for a fourth time, trying to tweak them properly! )

 

[ukcatfan]

Thanks for that info. The results are spectacular. The bloom is starting to come off the rose for me with Lightroom - I love (most of) how it works, but I'm just not really happy with the colors I get out of it, even after a good amount of tweaking. I was just processing some photos of when we went out and cut down out Christmas tree, and even on a very bright, sunny day, the colors are a bit drab. What I see on the Bibble site looks like a big improvement - I'm pretty sure that Adobe ACR is sucking the life out of the photos.

How do you like it? How are the keywording features? That'd be one of the top features for me since Lightroom does that so well.

(The real problem would be that I'd be tempted to go through my 2007 WDW photos for a fourth time, trying to tweak them properly! )

ACR is why I went with Bibble. It just never looked right for me. I believe they have a full function trial version of Bibble. In particular, I like the plug-ins Sadie and Siggy that come for free with it. It is easier for me to fine tune the exposure and saturation with them than with curves. They control at the shadow, mid, and highlight.

I have not seen how Lightroom does keywording, but Bibble does not seem tough to me. <Ctrl>+I brings up the IPTC window where you can apply all that info. For keywords, you can generate your own list by adding it as you put it in for the first time. It then has predictive text when you type it in again on a different image. <Enter> adds it to the image and the "+" adds it to the list.

I actually have been wondering if my method is the best it can be. For example, I will use a WDW trip. I first select all and add "Disney", city, and state. Then I select all of the same location and add say "Epcot". I then select all of the same attraction and add that. From there I select all of the same character and/or family member. And so on... Does that sound like the best method? I am open to suggestions.

Kevin

 

[ukcatfan]

Really nice pictures! Thanks for posting!

Thank you for the nice words.

Kevin

 

[Groucho]

Well, I took a look at Bibble and am reasonably happy with the output... though it does seem to automatically boost the exposure slightly, which I don't necessarily like, but that's pretty minor. One really strange thing is that it pulls more picture information from the edges - it makes a file that's 3032x2016 instead of the usual 3008x2008. I guess there really is a little more info in that Raw file!

I took 19 photos from a trip to the African Lion Safari in Canada - photos that should have some nice colors, and processed them "as is" with Lightroom (using default ACR settings), Bibble Pro, and Pentax Lab (AKA Silkypix).

The Lightroom output was shockingly flat and bland. However, I think Silkypix may have been beating Bibble by just a tad, too.

However, I did a little tweaking and by hand, I was able to fairly quickly make a dramatic improvement in the Lightroom output. I also tried a couple different K100D settings that others have found using actual Gretag-Macbeth charts. I haven't been able to replicate the Silkypix output 100%, but probably get can just as good with maybe a touch more fiddling.

Bibble looks promising but the keywording features are extremely rudimentary compared to Lightroom's - this is the real killer feature of Lightroom for me, not only the great develop module but the keywording features that are just way beyond anything else I've tried.

Maybe Bibble 5 will improve that? I don't know. But at this point, I think I've got too much time invested in learning Lightroom (and the keyword structure I've already created) to start over again. Best bet for me is to probably finish taking the time to tweak the colors once and for all.

Ideally, I'd use a Gretag-Macbeth card myself, but they're ridiculously expensive and I haven't been able to scare up any local photography friends who have one.