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Mark Barbieri's Disney Trip Thread (All 14 days + slideshow)
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ukcatfan
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Went to DTD today just for the day and wow is that heat something else! I have been living in FL for over six years, but there is just something hotter when you are tromping Disney in it. I can also vouch for last Thursday's storms. We had over 50mph winds in Cape Coral!
MarkBarbieri
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5,212 pics - Mark has a tendency to under-exaggerate things.I'm going in the opposite direction, only 2,512 last drive. Hey Mark, here's a question - how many of those are separate photos and how many are series of burst shots? 937 seems like a lot of shots for one day unless you're really cranking out a lot of burst shots or fireworks shots.
When I shoot non-changing subjects, I usually take my time and take fewer, better shots. When I'm shooting on the run (or ride), I often shoot more in the hopes that I'll get a few good ones. For example, on a single ride of Peter Pan, I fired off 58 shots. From that I hope to get 1-3 keepers. A double ride of Splash Mtn was good for 192 shots. The teacups resulted in 32 shots. SpectroMagic was good for 216 shots.
I upgraded the drive in my old laptop, so I'm familiar with the process. In this case, I think I'm just going to hand the laptop down to the kids and get a newer, better one next year.
We were discussing our summer trip plans with friends recently and they were shocked that we aren't going back to Disney since it's been almost 2 years. Then DH pipes in with "She'd have us there in an instant if it wasn't summertime!"
He's so right! Not being a waterparks person, I will never set foot in Florida during the summer months. I can get all the humidity and heat for free here in the DC area.
But I love hearing about your trip Mark and seeing your pictures; they give me so much to think about and learn from; especially since you were camping this time in all that rain!
Other than going to camp with the Boy Scouts for a week soon I won't be in a tent at all this summer
Can't wait for the pictures!
Living in Houston, I always think of summer as the non-camping season. We do all of our camping between mid-September and mid-May. The only summer camping we do is when we get well away from home. The AC in the tent made nights comfortable, but it was just too darned hot to relax at camp while the sun was up.
Your above report made me so scared to tent camp in October! We were considering it as a really cheap way to stay on property for 2 or 3 nights in October, but now I'm having my doubts!
Can't wait to see some of the shots and glad to hear that even though you had a hot and rainy trip, you still enjoyed yourselves.
October should be great. The summer storms will be over and the heat will be gone. Also, we had one of the worst tent pads (2014). We saw only two others that retained water. The rest were graded so that the water ran off.
My old camera was very weather resistant, so I shot in the rain with no worries. My newer camera is not so rugged, so I kept it under wraps when the weather got bad.
Bugs weren't a problem. I'm not sure what Disney does (am I'm not sure that I want to know), but there weren't many bugs. I didn't use any bug spray and only got a few mosquito bites over the two weeks. The really odd thing was looking at lights at night and seeing no bugs flying around them. Despite that, there was a thriving frog population that kept my little frog catchers busy.
I would have liked a pop-up. We've considered buying one, but I don't know where I'd store it.
Mark,
only 12 pictures on the last friday?
Dave
That Friday was really a travel day. We did run over to Lizard Bleach (as the kid's called it) for a couple of ours of swimming, but it was basically just a day on the road. The shots were of the kids finding a turtle on the way out of Fort Wilderness, the Fort Wilderness sign, and the main WDW entrance sign on 536.
MarkBarbieri
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We arrived at the Animal Kingdom a few minutes before 8:00 AM for early entry.
Here is one of a gazillion sign shots that I took. I like to have sign shots for my slideshows to help set up scenes. I've also found them to be very popular with scrapbookers (see the Signs thread in their forum).
Our first ride (3 times in a row) was Everest.
It was my younger son's first time on it. This was my older son's favorite ride last time we were here. Oddly, that love for the ride is hard to see in his expression.
I shot some video on the ride. I'll go through the video after the pictures, so don't expect to see any for a week or two.
After Everest, we went down to Dinoland. I wanted to get some dark ride shots on Dinosaur, but it was too tough for me.
Later, we hit my wife's favorite attraction - The Festival of the Lion King.
The kids got iPod Touches at the start of the trip. They were very useful in keeping them occupied while we waited for shows and rides.
The fire guy is one of my favorite photo subjects. I like fire. This was shot in shutter priority with a 1/15s shutter speed. The camera picked an aperture of f/3.2 and an ISO of 320. I was at 120mm on a 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens.
Here is one of the few times I played with my new blue/gold polarizer. I bought it more for mountain and river trips, but I thought I'd try it out on this trip. I'll talk more about it when I go over the equipment.
I didn't get any really good shots on the Safari (I never do). We did stop very close to some Giraffes. They were blocking the road. I handed my camera to my wife and she got this shot.
Here is my older son mesmerized by the Flights of Wonder show.
We were celebrating anything (except being on vacation), but they had signs everywhere.
We never saw the parade. The AK parade is my favorite now that they killed off the good Epcot parade. I just couldn't see watching an outdoor parade at 3:00 in the afternoon.
The full set of Day 1 shots are here if you want to see more pictures or want to look at the EXIF on any of them.
Here is one of a gazillion sign shots that I took. I like to have sign shots for my slideshows to help set up scenes. I've also found them to be very popular with scrapbookers (see the Signs thread in their forum).
Our first ride (3 times in a row) was Everest.
It was my younger son's first time on it. This was my older son's favorite ride last time we were here. Oddly, that love for the ride is hard to see in his expression.
I shot some video on the ride. I'll go through the video after the pictures, so don't expect to see any for a week or two.
After Everest, we went down to Dinoland. I wanted to get some dark ride shots on Dinosaur, but it was too tough for me.
Later, we hit my wife's favorite attraction - The Festival of the Lion King.
The kids got iPod Touches at the start of the trip. They were very useful in keeping them occupied while we waited for shows and rides.
The fire guy is one of my favorite photo subjects. I like fire. This was shot in shutter priority with a 1/15s shutter speed. The camera picked an aperture of f/3.2 and an ISO of 320. I was at 120mm on a 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens.
Here is one of the few times I played with my new blue/gold polarizer. I bought it more for mountain and river trips, but I thought I'd try it out on this trip. I'll talk more about it when I go over the equipment.
I didn't get any really good shots on the Safari (I never do). We did stop very close to some Giraffes. They were blocking the road. I handed my camera to my wife and she got this shot.
Here is my older son mesmerized by the Flights of Wonder show.
We were celebrating anything (except being on vacation), but they had signs everywhere.
We never saw the parade. The AK parade is my favorite now that they killed off the good Epcot parade. I just couldn't see watching an outdoor parade at 3:00 in the afternoon.
The full set of Day 1 shots are here if you want to see more pictures or want to look at the EXIF on any of them.
jann1033
<font color=darkcoral>Right now I'm an inch of nat
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Your above report made me so scared to tent camp in October! We were considering it as a really cheap way to stay on property for 2 or 3 nights in October, but now I'm having my doubts!
Can't wait to see some of the shots and glad to hear that even though you had a hot and rainy trip, you still enjoyed yourselves.
weather can always be iffy when we camp ( ie when we pull out the tent it evidently seeds the clouds so it rains every time at least once
) but if you have never stayed at FW it is my favorite place to stay. it is so relaxing and just seems miles away from the hustle of the parks. we used to have a "leisure van"( don't even think they still make those gas guzzlers) when our kids were younger and stayed at fw most of our wdw trips. i really would rather stay there than anywhere else but then again i'm weird. i would do it first though if i were you, the bathrooms are clean ( or were last time we stayed there) but you still have to walk to them and if you don't camp much you might rather have that inconvenience first.( i'm ok with that since their aren't any bears around like some places we might camp) it's kind of like staying at a 5 * hotel first then going to a super 8, the super 8 just looks even worse
MarkBarbieri
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On the second day, we started with Epcot. There, we started by riding Soarin' (no pictures). Then we went over to Test Track.
There have been some threads on here recently about panning to give a motion blur to the background. That's easy to do on fast rides. In this case, I set the camera on shutter priority and told it to use a 1/125s shutter speed. The background was close and fast, so I didn't need a long shutter speed to get the blur. The reset of the EXIF was f/5.6, ISO 200, 17mm focal length.
We followed that with a trip to Mission to Space (or Mission to Puke as well call it). We took the Orange line. Even on Orange, it seems very tame compared with the original. It wasn't good for photography, so I only have shots of the entrance.
After that, we worked our way over to The Land ride (which, ironically, is in a boat).
This was one of my first "dark ride" shots of the trip. It was ISO 6,400, 1/60s, f/1.8, 50mm. I shot in aperture priority and told it to underexpose by 1/3 stop. I'll give more details of my dark ride shooting techniques in an upcoming How To Shoot: Dark Rides thread.
We discussed doing an afternoon backstage tour of the land as something to do to get out of the heat. We never got around to it. I'm curious as to whether it would have been interesting for the kids.
We eventually found ourselves back on Test Track. Here's a shot of the heat test room. My eposure meter varies wildly in this area, sometimes blowing everything out and other times getting things "right". It's a good example of a place that you shouldn't try to white balance.
This shot was 1/20s, f/8, ISO 100, 17mm. It was taken in shutter priority with -1/3 comp. I wanted a somewhat slow shutter speed to get a little motion blur on the lights.
Here is an attempt to get a forward looking shot with an impression of speed. I used shutter priority at set it for 1/25s. That resulted in f/20 and ISO 50. It might be better to use an ND or even polarizing filter to get a lower f-stop (to reduce diffraction) and higher ISO (you actually lose dynamic range at ISO 50). Once again, I was set at -1/3 exposure comp, but I think that was just a holdover from early and not done intentionally. The effect I wanted was a relatively sharp track ahead with increasing motion blur on the sides to give a sense of speed.
On our way out of Epcot, we hit the updated ride in the ball. I'm not thrilled with the changes, but maybe they'll grow on me. I tried some dark ride shooting. These shots have had basic adjustments, but I haven't done any noise reduction. I'll do that for the shots that make it into my slideshow.
Poor composition on this shot. I should have placed him further left. 1/30s, f/2, ISO 6400, 50mm, shutter priority, -1 EV.
1/30s, f/2.5, ISO 6400, 50mm, shutter priority, -2/3 EV.
Early on in the ride, they take your picture. The use the image of the rider's heads and put them on bodies later in the ride. I thought it was really funny that it picked up my camera and flash as part of my head. I wonder if I can get my passport picture done that way so that I can be recognized.
The rest of our Day 2 Epcot pictures are here.
There have been some threads on here recently about panning to give a motion blur to the background. That's easy to do on fast rides. In this case, I set the camera on shutter priority and told it to use a 1/125s shutter speed. The background was close and fast, so I didn't need a long shutter speed to get the blur. The reset of the EXIF was f/5.6, ISO 200, 17mm focal length.
We followed that with a trip to Mission to Space (or Mission to Puke as well call it). We took the Orange line. Even on Orange, it seems very tame compared with the original. It wasn't good for photography, so I only have shots of the entrance.
After that, we worked our way over to The Land ride (which, ironically, is in a boat).
This was one of my first "dark ride" shots of the trip. It was ISO 6,400, 1/60s, f/1.8, 50mm. I shot in aperture priority and told it to underexpose by 1/3 stop. I'll give more details of my dark ride shooting techniques in an upcoming How To Shoot: Dark Rides thread.
We discussed doing an afternoon backstage tour of the land as something to do to get out of the heat. We never got around to it. I'm curious as to whether it would have been interesting for the kids.
We eventually found ourselves back on Test Track. Here's a shot of the heat test room. My eposure meter varies wildly in this area, sometimes blowing everything out and other times getting things "right". It's a good example of a place that you shouldn't try to white balance.
This shot was 1/20s, f/8, ISO 100, 17mm. It was taken in shutter priority with -1/3 comp. I wanted a somewhat slow shutter speed to get a little motion blur on the lights.
Here is an attempt to get a forward looking shot with an impression of speed. I used shutter priority at set it for 1/25s. That resulted in f/20 and ISO 50. It might be better to use an ND or even polarizing filter to get a lower f-stop (to reduce diffraction) and higher ISO (you actually lose dynamic range at ISO 50). Once again, I was set at -1/3 exposure comp, but I think that was just a holdover from early and not done intentionally. The effect I wanted was a relatively sharp track ahead with increasing motion blur on the sides to give a sense of speed.
On our way out of Epcot, we hit the updated ride in the ball. I'm not thrilled with the changes, but maybe they'll grow on me. I tried some dark ride shooting. These shots have had basic adjustments, but I haven't done any noise reduction. I'll do that for the shots that make it into my slideshow.
Poor composition on this shot. I should have placed him further left. 1/30s, f/2, ISO 6400, 50mm, shutter priority, -1 EV.
1/30s, f/2.5, ISO 6400, 50mm, shutter priority, -2/3 EV.
Early on in the ride, they take your picture. The use the image of the rider's heads and put them on bodies later in the ride. I thought it was really funny that it picked up my camera and flash as part of my head. I wonder if I can get my passport picture done that way so that I can be recognized.
The rest of our Day 2 Epcot pictures are here.
MarkBarbieri
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After Epcot, we decided to beat the heat by swimming in Typhoon Lagoon. The shots here are from our Canon G9 in a waterproof shell. Despite the fact that the camera can shoot RAW, I just shot them all as JPGs. Yeah, I could have gotten better quality with RAW, but I didn't want to bother with it for what are essentially just snapshots.
This picture was taken as we entered. You can see that storms were brewing. They pulled everyone out of the water for about an hour when the storm hit about 30 minutes after our arrival.
The waves there are awesome. They were better than anything we saw on our beach days.
This shot is just a crop of a normal 6x4 picture.
Here is my wife getting blasted by one of the waves.
My wife was using my son's Pentax W30. It's been a problematic camera since we got it and it gave up the ghost later that day. It doesn't appear to have had any water intrusion, but it doesn't fire up at all. I think we'll replace it with one of the shock proof Olympus waterproof cameras. When it worked, it was a reasonably good camera. I prefer the G9 in the case, but it's a much bulkier and costly solution. My youngest really wants a camera to play with, so I'll spend the money just to encourage his interest in photography.
Here are Dante and I moments before we were "maytagged" by a wave.
After the violence of the wave pool, the lazy river was a great way to relax. My oldest son wanted us to play tag whenever we were in the river. When I was it, I was sometimes less than vigorous about pursuing others from my floating perch.
Here is my youngest going through the misty section of the river.
Shark Reef was a popular attraction. You swim over very cold salt water and look at fish (including sharks) from the surface.
Other Typhoon Lagoon shots from Day 2 can be found here.
This picture was taken as we entered. You can see that storms were brewing. They pulled everyone out of the water for about an hour when the storm hit about 30 minutes after our arrival.
The waves there are awesome. They were better than anything we saw on our beach days.
This shot is just a crop of a normal 6x4 picture.
Here is my wife getting blasted by one of the waves.
My wife was using my son's Pentax W30. It's been a problematic camera since we got it and it gave up the ghost later that day. It doesn't appear to have had any water intrusion, but it doesn't fire up at all. I think we'll replace it with one of the shock proof Olympus waterproof cameras. When it worked, it was a reasonably good camera. I prefer the G9 in the case, but it's a much bulkier and costly solution. My youngest really wants a camera to play with, so I'll spend the money just to encourage his interest in photography.
Here are Dante and I moments before we were "maytagged" by a wave.
After the violence of the wave pool, the lazy river was a great way to relax. My oldest son wanted us to play tag whenever we were in the river. When I was it, I was sometimes less than vigorous about pursuing others from my floating perch.
Here is my youngest going through the misty section of the river.
Shark Reef was a popular attraction. You swim over very cold salt water and look at fish (including sharks) from the surface.
Other Typhoon Lagoon shots from Day 2 can be found here.
MarkBarbieri
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nice shots again although on 7 in the slideshow it looks like you didn't focus on your wife's eyes....
You're getting ahead. That's my old slideshow. I won't have one from this trip for weeks.
kaffinito
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Those are some great shots! I especially like the one in The Land. That's a tough place for me to shoot so I'm looking forward to reading more in the How To Shoot: Dark Rides thread. The ones of the fire dancer are great too! 
Todd_H
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Here are Dante and I moments before we were "maytagged" by a wave.
Great idea for a shot that turned out perfect. I may have to "borrow" this idea for our upcoming trip
.Thanks for sharing these, Mark. I'm really enjoying them.
jann1033
<font color=darkcoral>Right now I'm an inch of nat
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it was number 7 in the link on first set of epcot photos (yellow shirts)
annnewjerz
If I had a world of my own, everything would be no
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Great shots---I always love looking at your vacation photos because of the importance you place on getting shots of your kids enjoying themselves rather than only focusing on shots of the attractions, etc.
I definitely enjoy a good picture of Expedition Everest as much as the next person, but seeing your sons' reactions to the ride is much more interesting to look at, IMO.
Can't wait for more!
I definitely enjoy a good picture of Expedition Everest as much as the next person, but seeing your sons' reactions to the ride is much more interesting to look at, IMO.
Can't wait for more!
Merrywheather
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Really enjoying your report....I'm glad that you had a good time, despite the rainouts. We considered camping in FW (we have a pop-up), but we were afraid of the heat factor. Your shots always seem to show what Disney is all about - having fun, no matter what your age. Can't wait to see more!
Brad M
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Here is one of the few times I played with my new blue/gold polarizer. I bought it more for mountain and river trips, but I thought I'd try it out on this trip. I'll talk more about it when I go over the equipment.
I really like this one Mark! I look forward to seeing more!
annnewjerz
If I had a world of my own, everything would be no
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Great pics. My only comment is that .. that woman could not wear a bikini bottom that covered her entire behind?
My thoughts exactly! I was like "This is Typhoon Lagoon, not South Beach!" My DH seemed to think maybe it was just riding up........but he made sure to give it a second look juuuuuust in case.
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