MemoryMaker photos...not so great... :(

[FargoBear]

I haul about $6,000 in camera gear around the parks all day, so my photos are usually better than the ones from Memory Maker. That being said, we always use the service because it gets all of us into the photo. Plus the handlers for the photographers at the meet and greets almost always volunteer to use my camera to take pictures, so I double-down on the photos with my own gear. It's expensive but worth it, I think.

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

We got MM on our most recent trip (end of May 2015) and I think we have something around 700 pics. Most of them are good, but there are a handful that have issues: a few are framed poorly (ex: good portion of the castle cut off), lighting issues (especially on Hollywood Blvd in the evening), blurry,... Overall, those are a minority of the pictures.

I figure that whoever takes photos, there will be some that aren't very good, which is part of the reason we take so many. And there generally are a lot of opportunities for Photopass pics if you're paying attention.

Most of the Photopass pics are posed, but we do have some more spontaneous pics: our kids hugging characters and getting autographs, some of me and/or DH smiling while watching the kids (we didn't even know the photographers were taking pics of us),... (We also use our iPhones for taking pics.)

I think maybe some of the disappointment with Photopass photography could be that people are used seeing high-quality professional photos, and Photopass tend to look more like normal pics that the average person is capable of taking. It would be awesome if Disney hired well trained, professional photographers, but that's not realistic considering how much professionals can make (we just paid $700 for a newborn session). Rather than expecting professional quality photos, we get MM because it allows us to get family pictures without asking other guests for help, without having to haul a real camera around the parks, and we can get magic shots (and don't have to photoshop characters in ourselves).

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

I have to tell you something funny, I have actually posted this story on here on the dis before, so apologies if you've already read it before. I bet even your bad photos that you got from MM are not as bad as what I had to contend with my 2013 trip. I shall explain. When I was booking my 2013 trip, I was booking it for my friend and I, and I was paying for the whole trip, as a thank you to her, and when she saw the price of Memory Maker, she encouraged me not to get it. She thought it was too much to spend, and that we could just take our own photos, and she would take pix of me, and vice versa. Weeeeeeell what I didn't know, was that she could not take a decent photo. I'm not kidding. At one point, I asked her to take a photo of me at Hollywood Studios, on the street that has the NYC drop in the background, and when she took the photo, I was no where in the picture. She didn't just cut off an arm or head or something, nope, I was no where in the photo! It was painful, I finally just didn't even have her try to take a photo. I love her dearly, and we laugh about it now, but I have like a total of 2 photos of myself from my 2013 trip. Needless to say, when we traveled together last year, I bought Memory Maker. Lol. Got it again for this trip.

My husband is the same way: the man can't take a decent photo. He's not quite as bad as he used to be, but it's like he jerks the camera as he takes a photo, because every picture is horribly blurry. Hence, there are hundreds of pictures of him around Europe/Australia/New Zealand and almost none of me.

 

[a4matte]

I'm really surprised they even gave you the ones with heads cut off. We got photos with Maleficent during Not So Scary a few years ago and we noticed they didn't show up on the site like all the rest of our photos did. We checked the kiosks at the photo store before we left the parks and found out they had been filtered out by Disney because they "Didn't meet Disney Photo quality standards". We ended up spending about an hour having them hunt those photos down in their system (We had to give them an approximate time and details about what we were wearing for them to hunt them down) and had to sign a release saying we wouldn't hold Disney responsible for giving us what they considered sub-par photos.

What was wrong with the photos with Maleficent? The photographer's flash was out of sync so the photos ended up a little dark. Something I easily fixed in photoshop in no time at all.

 

[hobbes4444]

Be glad also that you got all of your photos, fuzzy or otherwise. Our family rode Buzz Lightyear about 15 times in row at the end of a EMH night and had some really great and funny shots. They appeared on the board after the ride and we associated our magic bands with all of them. But when we bought the MM and looked for the shots on our next to last day they were nowhere to be found. We went back to the ride on our last day, went to Main Street photo shop, called after getting back home. No one could figure it out, and Main St and the ride actually saw that there were only like 20 photos for that entire day. Very bummed, they were never recovered. Those were really the main reason we bought the MM.

Compared to what you have to pay on a cruise or at Atlantis for pics, they MM is actually quite a bargain if you get a lot of pics. But yeah, the quality is not much different than those places, which is fair at best, unfortunately.

 

[bc7ate9]

I agree with the OP, the quality of the photos is pretty poor. Just the fact you have the photos is cool though.

Agreed. In 30 years, we will enjoy looking at them and remembering our trip - and won't care at all about the quality. We will just be glad they exist.

 

[AprilDreamsOfDisney]

Oh no! I'm sorry this happened, but you do look great in the photos!

I am seriously considering getting MM for our upcoming trip in January simply because my DH usually takes all the photos and he won't be joining us for this trip. I never even think to take photos, so I thought it would be a good idea to leave it in Disney's hands!

 

[bc7ate9]

I think maybe some of the disappointment with Photopass photography could be that people are used seeing high-quality professional photos, and Photopass tend to look more like normal pics that the average person is capable of taking. It would be awesome if Disney hired well trained, professional photographers, but that's not realistic considering how much professionals can make (we just paid $700 for a newborn session). Rather than expecting professional quality photos, we get MM because it allows us to get family pictures without asking other guests for help, without having to haul a real camera around the parks, and we can get magic shots (and don't have to photoshop characters in ourselves).

In our case, we are comparing the photos we got this year to the photos we have gotten in previous years (which is a pretty easy comparison since we do many of the same photos each year). I definitely don't expect "professional quality" photos - I agree that's unrealistic. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect the photos to look as good as what I can get on my iPhone, though.

 

[bc7ate9]

Oh no! I'm sorry this happened, but you do look great in the photos!

I am seriously considering getting MM for our upcoming trip in January simply because my DH usually takes all the photos and he won't be joining us for this trip. I never even think to take photos, so I thought it would be a good idea to leave it in Disney's hands!

Thanks!

We don't regret purchasing it and will very likely continue using it in the future (granted, we plan to get APs so it's a lot less of a decision.) We were just a little disappointed since so many of the photos turned out badly (I posted less than 1/3 of all of our photos). It's still cool that we have pictures of both of us.

 

[Jadyreen1282]

We got 390 in our batch. There were a couple of duds. Still worth it for the ride pictures. One of our Epcot poses will be our Christmas card. Another we printer 8x10 for gifts. Well worth the price.

 

[MataHari22]

My husband is the same way: the man can't take a decent photo. He's not quite as bad as he used to be, but it's like he jerks the camera as he takes a photo, because every picture is horribly blurry. Hence, there are hundreds of pictures of him around Europe/Australia/New Zealand and almost none of me.

Oh, don't even get me started on my ex. He couldn't take a photo either. While we were on vacation once, and we were in a butterfly conservatory, and I took the camera, and asked him to video tape. This was in the days of film photography, and there was no way I was going to let him have the camera. With the video camera, you just looked through, and tapped stuff. Well, he didn't want to film, he wanted the camera, I kept the camera. It was so pretty, so many beautiful butterflies, he would not film anything. They were all fluttering by my head, because of a hair clip I had on my head. I kept asking him to film, he wouldn't. The butterflies were even landing on my head, and staying there. He still wouldn't film it. Even though I was asking nicely. One older couple came over and was going to ask if they could film for me, because they saw he wouldn't. But, by then, the butterflies are gone. The older lady leaned in and quietly asked me about my ex, "What the heck is his problem?" Her husband, the older gentleman leaned in and said, "He's an a$$ ." Yes, yes he was.

 

[Baklava]

One of the things I discovered using PhotoPass at DL is that they don't edit the shots at all. If a pro took 350 shots of you, they'd toss the 250 bad ones before presenting you with the 100 good ones. I imagine MM is the same way, leaving you to decide what to keep.

When I did photopass it came with the option of changing borders on photos. Does MM do that? It's worth playing with the thing a little- you may find that there are options you like a lot.

 

[tsswatkins]

Well worth the cost IMO with a couple of caveats. The first being you must be willing to use the service (i.e., take time to stop even if it means waiting a few seconds for your turn). If you are impatient and don't want to wait, save your money. Secondly, your expectations can't be too high. Most of these photogs have assigned shots with camera presets they can't change. If you are expecting an Annie Leibovitz portrait session, you will be disappointed. For my family, it is a great value. We get pics that look like we were ALL together on holiday, including me (who would be behind the camera otherwise).

 

[bc7ate9]

One of the things I discovered using PhotoPass at DL is that they don't edit the shots at all. If a pro took 350 shots of you, they'd toss the 250 bad ones before presenting you with the 100 good ones. I imagine MM is the same way, leaving you to decide what to keep.

When I did photopass it came with the option of changing borders on photos. Does MM do that? It's worth playing with the thing a little- you may find that there are options you like a lot.

Yes, I'd say that's also the case with MemoryMaker.

You can add borders and digital stickers to your MemoryMaker photos. That's a big selling point for some people, but I personally don't care for that look.

 

[bc7ate9]

Well worth the cost IMO with a couple of caveats. The first being you must be willing to use the service (i.e., take time to stop even if it means waiting a few seconds for your turn). If you are impatient and don't want to wait, save your money. Secondly, your expectations can't be too high. Most of these photogs have assigned shots with camera presets they can't change. If you are expecting an Annie Leibovitz portrait session, you will be disappointed. For my family, it is a great value. We get pics that look like we were ALL together on holiday, including me (who would be behind the camera otherwise).

I agree with you. It doesn't take us a lot of extra time to stop for photos, but it's definitely a lot easier since we are 2 adults and we are find going at a slower pace. If you are planning to speed through the parks, you probably won't get many pictures.

Some photographers seem to think they are pretty talented and will take more creative photos, but the results are often not so great. At least they try, though.

 

[walker0829]

I think the pictures look pretty good! I know a lot of it is just a luck of the draw with the cameraman/woman. Some have probably been given a camera, some training and sent out into the parks. Others obviously have a passion for photography and likely take better pictures. One of them was able to tell what kind of lens my wife had just by glancing at it. We made sure to get lots of pictures from him!

 

[Colleen27]

I think the pictures look pretty good! I know a lot of it is just a luck of the draw with the cameraman/woman. Some have probably been given a camera, some training and sent out into the parks. Others obviously have a passion for photography and likely take better pictures. One of them was able to tell what kind of lens my wife had just by glancing at it. We made sure to get lots of pictures from him!

That's been our experience exactly... Some of the cameramen we encountered couldn't figure out how to use my DSLR in full auto, while others were obviously hobbyists that knew a little bit about what they were doing. I don't think Disney gives them much (or maybe not any) actual photography training, so it comes down to which ones already know something about it or enjoy their jobs enough to learn on their own time.

We had one trip where the photos we got were so bad that I requested a refund on our Photopass CD preorder, but we've also had two trips where we ran into really excellent photographers that took shots worth framing. On our last trip, we encountered a rather bored photographer at the water park who did a whole mini-shoot with my youngest. I have a triple frame with three different shots from the 15 minutes we spent with her because they look so cute as a collection that I couldn't choose just one to frame.

 

[Boopuff]

Just got back from our trip and used MM. We had 7 adults and everyone had their MB linked. So when we all broke up and went our separate ways the photos are really nice. Love getting the whole family into single pictures and the magic shots are fun (now some interesting little videos too!) We got about 300 pics on a 5 day trip. I also love playing with the boarder and sticker options.

 

[Feralpeg]

Photopass photos are only available as Jpegs.

Jpeg photos can definitely be improved using Photoshop. I do it all the time. I take old photos, in jpeg format, and restore them for people. The only thing you can't fix in Photoshop is blur. It will just never be great.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Great photos there of you both. Congratulations on your second anniversary!!