Need more ride photos for non-thrill rides (rant)

[Skywise]

As they're now forcing platinum AP members to basically "buy" photo pass - I'd like to see more ride photo opportunities. I finally got to make use of this on a quick trip with a friend a few weeks back and was impressed by the ride photos/videos on ToT and SDMT.

But I just got back from a trip with my family whose older and a sister who won't do "intense" rides so... no ride photos. We did do Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Little Mermaid, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, IASW and Pirates of the Caribbean (but not Splash Mountain because that's "too big of a drop"... >sigh< My family...)

I can see Tea Party not having a good place for ride photos but every other ride has a few places where ride photos would be nice picture of you on the flying boats flying out of the city... Monster Inc Laugh Floor with a picture of you and one of their funny captions, Haunted Mansion final shot where the ghosts are hitchiking with you and their antics super imposed on you in the car; etc.

Sure we do a few photos in front of the castle and such but we're not really character people and I almost never see where those "magic moment" places are (and generally we're too busy trying to make our next FP or ride!)

I think it would also greatly help sales of the photo pass service too.

 

[Ursula's Apprentice]

I know this doesn't help with the no-thrill ride shots, but it's a really nice list of the magic shots and where to find them. http://capturingmagic.me/photopass-magic-shots

 

[Quellman]

I'll present the counter argument:
Here is the issue with some of the tamer rides. Getting everyone to look the same direction at the same time and lighting challenges.
Peter Pan. It is quite dark in that ride. It can be difficult to get non-blurry pictures of the lighted city scape below. You the passenger are not meant to be illumiated through the ride. So you couple the longer shutter speed and a moving ride car, you get a streaky blurred image. A big flash of the light would not only blind you but take away the peaceful flying. Plus people would be looking over each side of the boat and not at the camera.
Dumbo. Other than the fact that you may be at different heights throughout the ride, it isn't a bad idea, other than people would be looking in wonky areas.
Little Mermaid. Another now dark ride. This could be mitigated, and there are some scenes where everyone would be looking in the same direction.
Small World. The seating is not raised so you won't get a whole family in a shot (like Tower of Terror) and the rows are likely to wide and not enough space between rows to capture a family (like on Expedition Everest or Mine Train). Again where is the single focal point on this attraction.
Pirates suffers the Peter Pan and Small World combined.
Laugh Floor. Good luck trying to find your photo out of the hundreds of other people in the theater during each show. And the reason that RFID might have an issue is that unlike mine train, there are no long range transmitters available to sync which mine car you are in with which photo burst you are.
Haunted Mansion. Really should have one, but they just sell you the one where you change ghostly in the gift shop. This one is probably based on lighting.
Toy Story Mania and Star Tours should probably have photos, but the 3d glasses don't make it easy to identify people later on (like if you were looking at the picture years later). But a video of Star Tours wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Vincent405]

Just an FYI on what we once experienced, and yes I know this doesn't help for most of the rides you mentioned.

My DW and DD were waiting to get on the Tea Cups the last time we were there and I noticed a photopass photog taking pictures of people riding. I went and asked if he was doing something special for a family and he said no, he was there taking photos of random guests and then after the ride, he would give them a photopass card with the photo on it (like any other photopass photog). Now, this may have just been a marketing ploy to get people to buy the pics, but then again, I saw one person say they had a card (on their magicband) and he told them they could add the pics to their account.

I asked if he would scan my band and takes pics of DW and DD while they were on the ride and he said sure and we got several good pics that way. So, if you see a "random" photog by a ride, this may be an option to at least get some good shots.

 

[trara1375]

We've always just asked any and every Photopass Photographers what magic shots they can do...they can't do all of them because of locations....but most photographers can do at least one or two as long as they aren't with a character or doing specific ride/set up shots. Never hurt to ask each of the photographers. We even had one photographer walk around Epcot's World Showcase doing different magic shots in the different spots that they'd work.

 

[jenniy122]

Definitely understand wanting to get your values worth, but from the practicality standpoint... a lot of the rides you mention it are dark. To get a high quality picture there'd have to be more light/a flash, even at the extremely slow speed you're moving. Would ruin the experience for a lot of people (I'm sure we've all seen the rants on here about rude people using flash photography on dark rides).