New Fantasyland Dusk-hour HDRs from last week

[zackiedawg]

I just got finished going through all my photos from last week's trip to Disney World. I decided this trip, with a friend along and the heat and crowds of summer, to leave the DSLR home and just bring my NEX mirrorless...I used 4 lenses this trip - 18-55mm kit, 16mm F2.8 with .75x adapter, 55-210mm zoom, and manual 35mm F1.4.

One of my favorite times of day are the few hours around sunset and dusk - three very different types of light, but all interesting - the reddish/yellow glows of sunset, then the weird midtones and glow of dusk, followed by the electric 'blue hour'. While roaming Magic Kingdom, I found myself in New Fantasyland right around the dusk hour, just before blue hour, and decided that the odd, flattish light would be enhanced by using in-camera HDR set to 3 stops for some handheld scenery - it helps capture that 'glow' that dusk hour can produce, and that a single shot doesn't seem to capture. Here we go:

The landscape next to Beast's castle, which you really only get a good look at when heading over the bridge to Be Our Guest restaurant:

Be Our Guest entrance doors:

The bridge and castle backdrop:

Belle's storytime cottage:

Village Haus restaurant, as seen from the newly opened Fantasyland area that Dumbo once occupied:

Carousel and castle:

Little Mermaid building:

New castle walls and castle:

 

[mom2rtk]

Lovely shots as always Justin. What a great time of day to shoot!

 

[zackiedawg]

Thanks mom2rtk. I like dark and night shots, so it's a great time for me. Some wouldn't like the photos to have such a dim, dark or 'creepy' look, but I've always loved the failing light and the strange minor glow of colors in the dim light and wanted to try to capture that.

 

[wiigirl]

Wonderful pictures.

 

[havoc315]

Great pictures. Just wondering, you said they are HDR--- In-camera HDR or did you post-process?

 

[zackiedawg]

Thanks both.

HAvoc - all are in-camera HDRs...I was manually set to 3 stops most of the time (I never use 'auto') for these, whereas I usually stick to around 1-2 stops...here, I didn't want to make the exposures bright and daylight looking, so I kept the HDR at the point where it could give me nice highlight glow to the colors, but leave the overall metering darker. I metered the camera off the brighter parts of the scenes (sky or lights) then let the 3-stop HDR rebuild shadow detail.

No processing on the photos other than what was in the camera.

 

[sjs314]

Beautiful pictures!

 

[zackiedawg]

Thank you.