Just back from WDW, 1st Time w/ DSLR, My Thoughts

[WVDisGeek]

First, we got back on Sunday and just got to post now as I have been trying to get caught back up at work. This was our first time at WDW with our new Pentax K200D. I had a problem with my knee that caused the last two days of the trip to be spent in the WL and/or ER. I have a few random (some not so random) thoughts about the trip. Some are even Photography related.

1.) Never wait until "later" in the week to schedule your "photo day". You never know what is going to happen.
2.) If you take a ton of stuff to WDW in your camera bag, give some thought to leaving a little bit of it behind each day. It can get HEAVY!
3.) I love my Tamrack Adventure 7 bag for hiking and landscape shots, but it turns out, it is NOT the perfect bag for WDW.
4.) Always bring plenty of memory cards.
5.) When you are sitting in the condo the night before going on property and you check your gear "one last time" and you suddenly get a "Memory Card Error" on EVERY card you have, it COULD be a bad omen!

I will have more thoughts later but I wanted to throw these out and see what the reaction would be for this DSLR newbie's first trip with the DSLR to WDW. (We have been 20+ times, but with either film or P&S in the past)

Let the discussion begin!

 

[MICKEY88]

First, we got back on Sunday and just got to post now as I have been trying to get caught back up at work. This was our first time at WDW with our new Pentax K200D. I had a problem with my knee that caused the last two days of the trip to be spent in the WL and/or ER. I have a few random (some not so random) thoughts about the trip. Some are even Photography related.

1.) Never wait until "later" in the week to schedule your "photo day". You never know what is going to happen.
2.) If you take a ton of stuff to WDW in your camera bag, give some thought to leaving a little bit of it behind each day. It can get HEAVY!
3.) I love my Tamrack Adventure 7 bag for hiking and landscape shots, but it turns out, it is NOT the perfect bag for WDW.
4.) Always bring plenty of memory cards.
5.) When you are sitting in the condo the night before going on property and you check your gear "one last time" and you suddenly get a "Memory Card Error" on EVERY card you have, it COULD be a bad omen!

I will have more thoughts later but I wanted to throw these out and see what the reaction would be for this DSLR newbie's first trip with the DSLR to WDW. (We have been 20+ times, but with either film or P&S in the past)

Let the discussion begin!

I hope your knee is OK...

what happened with the memory card error ???

 

[KCmike]

Bring on the pictures.

 

[sherry7]

Hope your knee is okay.

Pics?

 

[WVDisGeek]

Thanks for the thoughts about my knee. It appears to be just a bad sprain. The hospital in Celebration took x-rays and there is nothing wrong with the joint itself. My doc back here at home looked at it yesterday and is starting me on a course of steroids for a week. I am still on crutches (yeah!) and if this doesn't help. I will have an MRI done.

As for Mickey88's question about the Memory Card Error, I wish I knew. I was sitting in the condo, reviewing some pictures we had taken just before leaving on an 8GB Toshiba card. Everything was just fine. The 8GB card is a class 4 and I wanted to switch to a faster card for the first day in the parks. I turned the camera off, waited until my little "activity" light went out, and swapped cards. Turned the camera back on and got the Memory Card Error. This is a Sandisk Ultra II card I have had since May when I bought the camera and had just formatted in the camera the week prior. I figured, OK, card died. I popped in another Sandisk card. Same error. Now, panicking, popped back in the 8GB Toshiba. Same Error. Really panicking now. Swapped in EVERY card I brought with me (8 cards). ALL with same error. I had brand new Lithium batteries in the camera. Thought possibly could be batteries, so I swapped out for another brand new set of lithiums. No help.

REALLY angry/worried/generally NOT happy now. Shut the camera off, let it sit for 10 minutes while I stewed. Turned it on, and voila, everything worked fine. Still don't know what happened, and if anyone here has any ideas, especially the PENTAX crew, I would love to know your thoughts.

As for pictures, I have not even had time to download from the 3 cards I did fill. Maybe tonight. Then I have to get a smugmug account before I can post. I still feel that I am VERY amateurish compared to many of the folks on these boards, and when I get the pictures up, I would ask you to be gentle!

Thanks for the replies!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Looking forward to seeing your pictures.

What would you consider the perfect camera bag for WDW? (How heavy are we talking here? What do you carry?)

And how would you decide what to bring each day if you didn't bring everything?

 

[MICKEY88]

Thanks for the thoughts about my knee. It appears to be just a bad sprain. The hospital in Celebration took x-rays and there is nothing wrong with the joint itself. My doc back here at home looked at it yesterday and is starting me on a course of steroids for a week. I am still on crutches (yeah!) and if this doesn't help. I will have an MRI done.

As for Mickey88's question about the Memory Card Error, I wish I knew. I was sitting in the condo, reviewing some pictures we had taken just before leaving on an 8GB Toshiba card. Everything was just fine. The 8GB card is a class 4 and I wanted to switch to a faster card for the first day in the parks. I turned the camera off, waited until my little "activity" light went out, and swapped cards. Turned the camera back on and got the Memory Card Error. This is a Sandisk Ultra II card I have had since May when I bought the camera and had just formatted in the camera the week prior. I figured, OK, card died. I popped in another Sandisk card. Same error. Now, panicking, popped back in the 8GB Toshiba. Same Error. Really panicking now. Swapped in EVERY card I brought with me (8 cards). ALL with same error. I had brand new Lithium batteries in the camera. Thought possibly could be batteries, so I swapped out for another brand new set of lithiums. No help.

REALLY angry/worried/generally NOT happy now. Shut the camera off, let it sit for 10 minutes while I stewed. Turned it on, and voila, everything worked fine. Still don't know what happened, and if anyone here has any ideas, especially the PENTAX crew, I would love to know your thoughts.

As for pictures, I have not even had time to download from the 3 cards I did fill. Maybe tonight. Then I have to get a smugmug account before I can post. I still feel that I am VERY amateurish compared to many of the folks on these boards, and when I get the pictures up, I would ask you to be gentle!

Thanks for the replies!

Zenfolio is another option for a hosting account..they are similar to smugmug,

I chose them over smugmug because they use MPIX as their printing partner,

depending on the level of account you plan on getting they are also less expensive, if you check them out and decide to go with them, let me know I can give you a discount code that will get you 5 dollars off of your first year..

 

[WVDisGeek]

Thanks for the head's up on the other hosting site. I will take a look at them.

As for Pea-n-Me's question, I am not sure about the "pefect" bag for Disney. I just know my Adventure 7 is NOT it. Dodn't get me wrong, I love the bag for just about everything else I do, hiking, landscapes, some indoor portrait work, etc. But those aspect almost always leave me an opportunity to take the bag off and retrieve my camera well before I need to take a shot.

The clamshell design of the bag does not lend itself to opening easily without taking it off. This posed numerous problems getting the camera out/put away at Disney as we were transitioning from walking the parks to riding rides, etc. I am going to have to research some other bags to see if I can find what I am looking for. I wound up spending most of the time with the camera out around my neck and this too was inconvenient as we tend to do Disney somewhat commando style and the K200D is not a light camera to have swinging around as you try to manuever through crowds, especially with the 18-250 lens w/hood on.

As for the heavy comments about the bag. This has more to do with the wife than me. Towards the end of the trip and my knee issues, she was carrying the bag and it was heavy for her. I think the Adventure 7 does a great job of balancing the weight on MY back, but hers is another story.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Thanks for the info, good to know.

FYI if you go with SmugMug, you can get a 50% off the first year coupon by googling Smugmug 50% off coupon. (Not sure I'm allowed to post link here.) I used it, but wound up having to email someone there about it when setting up the account it didn't work right, but all was well in the end.

 

[Steve's Girl]

Thanks for the head's up on the other hosting site. I will take a look at them.

As for Pea-n-Me's question, I am not sure about the "pefect" bag for Disney. I just know my Adventure 7 is NOT it. Dodn't get me wrong, I love the bag for just about everything else I do, hiking, landscapes, some indoor portrait work, etc. But those aspect almost always leave me an opportunity to take the bag off and retrieve my camera well before I need to take a shot.

The clamshell design of the bag does not lend itself to opening easily without taking it off. This posed numerous problems getting the camera out/put away at Disney as we were transitioning from walking the parks to riding rides, etc. I am going to have to research some other bags to see if I can find what I am looking for. I wound up spending most of the time with the camera out around my neck and this too was inconvenient as we tend to do Disney somewhat commando style and the K200D is not a light camera to have swinging around as you try to manuever through crowds, especially with the 18-250 lens w/hood on.

As for the heavy comments about the bag. This has more to do with the wife than me. Towards the end of the trip and my knee issues, she was carrying the bag and it was heavy for her. I think the Adventure 7 does a great job of balancing the weight on MY back, but hers is another story.

I took this bag on our last trip

http://www.amazon.com/Kata-KT-D-3N1...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1229535717&sr=8-1

I was very happy with the bag. I wore it like a backpack, but you can sling it around and take the camera out via a side access panel. I had mine configured into 3 slots so I could carry my camera body attached to any one of three lenses with quick and easy access. I own a closet full of camera bags, but this one definitely gets the most use. It also comes in smaller sizes, but I needed the larger size to accomodate my camera with a 70-200 2.8 lens attached.

 

[Groucho]

REALLY angry/worried/generally NOT happy now. Shut the camera off, let it sit for 10 minutes while I stewed. Turned it on, and voila, everything worked fine. Still don't know what happened, and if anyone here has any ideas, especially the PENTAX crew, I would love to know your thoughts.

Hmm, that's strange. I'm glad it started working again for you. I've never gotten a memory card error on my three Pentax DSLRs and have very, very rarely heard of such issues. Was it particularly humid, perhaps? Perhaps some moisture got in the memory card slot (perhaps from a wet hand picking up a card then putting it in? being weathersealed, it normally shouldn't mind getting wet unless it's put in though an open door) and it just had to dry out? Strange.

I know the feeling, though. My fairly new Fuji PnS (my first digital camera) half-broke on our wedding night, and we were leaving early in the morning for a trip to Romania! Fortunately it "fixed itself" (the lens was stuck out, I think it just came off-track a little) and worked fine every since and I eventually sold it to someone who was very happy with it. I continue to have regular dreams about going somewhere (usually WDW) and having some sort of camera malady, usually leaving it behind.

Anyway, glad that the camera behaved itself afterwards and am looking forward to some pics!