No more photos of redneck photo screens?

[chartle]

It would be nice if they could employ this technology on the dark rides. No flash photography permitted...

If this can be used to stop flash photography on dark rides the positives easily outweigh the negative of not getting a free photo.

It would affect all photography including videos and wouldn't prevent anything, just mess up your pictures. So a flasher will get on a ride and flash away. Its not until they get off that they see their pics are messed up. Might make it worse since now they assume it was the camera, go back on and do it again.

The only thing that they could maybe do is project a big wizard of Oz type head of Walt in front of the offenders telling them to cut it out.

 

[scjo68]

Living in Virginia, we go to Busch Gardens a lot. I have seen employees swoop in on people trying to use their smartphones to take pictures of the screens when viewing the ride photos. A photopass plan would be a great idea for them. I'm sure if Disney goes the route of technology to block taking pictures of screens, other theme parks won't be far behind them.

Yep, happens at Kings Dominion, too. People try to take photos and the workers yell and wave their hands in front of the screen to stop it. I am so used to it, usually I don't even think of taking a photo of a screen after any rides.

This last WDW trip, I noticed cm's didn't seem to care and let guests take photos of the screens. Once I noticed this, I tried it myself. No sneaking, no hiding my camera, not pretending to text on my phone- just took a photo, and no one cared. So I figured they didn't mind.

 

[Josh Hendy]

Do they really think they're going to maximize revenue by yelling at their customers and jumping around waving their arms in their faces to block their cameras?

Everyone can see the ride photos with their own eyes ... everyone is carrying a phone/camera. Everyone takes pictures of whatever they see so they can show their friends ... it's what people do. It's not about safety or enhancing the guest experience, it's about trying to shake people down for a lot of money to pay 'way too much for a picture that's only going to be re-photographed and put on facebook anyways (if that).

Imagine this ... build a storybook castle for paying guests to look at and admire, but yell at them, wave your arms in front of them and tell them that they if they want a picture of the castle they have to buy a framed photo for $25? Sounds stupid, right?

I was never bugged to stop taking pictures of ride photos before, except once at Busch Gardens (on Gwazi, possibly the world's worst roller coaster). If there's a new trend to do it now, it's probably because photo revenues are down. And guess what, if revenues are down it's because PEOPLE DON'T HAVE AS MUCH MONEY, not because your employees haven't been yelling at them and waving their arms in their faces enough!

Instead of yelling at customers "no photos allowed" why not tell them nicely, "If you want a really nice, sharp photo to show your friends then we'll print you one right over there". And then, charge them something reasonable, somewhere in between what it costs for any print at Walmart ($0.25 or whatever) and the $25 or whatever they're charging at theme parks right now. Something in line with costs and perceived value in other words.

 

[RJP77]

I wonder if the technology is transferrable to movie theaters as a way of preventing camcorder bootlegging of movies? I imagine Disney has an interest in protecting their movies also.

 

[k5jm]

This is the same theory behind the technology that prevents police and automated license plate readers. You blast the area with IR and the cameras record only a blown out image since they have a fixed aperture. The only way to defeat the IR is use high speed shutter and very small aperture and light compensation, or use some kind of IR filter.

 

[chartle]

I wonder if the technology is transferrable to movie theaters as a way of preventing camcorder bootlegging of movies? I imagine Disney has an interest in protecting their movies also.

It could be. Video cameras also see IR light. If you point a TV remote at it you can see it light up.

 

[mikek]

It could be. Video cameras also see IR light. If you point a TV remote at it you can see it light up.

But they can filter it electronically. (although unsure if that's possible if you overwelm the sensor?)

the sony "nightshot" digital8 cameras circa the mid-90's used IR to "See at night"

One funny side effect was discovered that if you turned on "nightshot" mode in daylight then it gave the effect of x-ray vision that could see through people's clothes.

Sony quickly sent a firmware update that turned of the camera's ability to "see" IR during daylight and only would allow it under low light conditions.

 

[JoWiJo]

It would be nice if they could employ this technology on the dark rides. No flash photography permitted...

They couldn't use it to stop flash photos, but they could use it to ruin flash photos, eventually discouraging the practice. If they put in the same technology people use to keep their license plates from being photographed, they could blast IR throughout a certain room, ruining photos only for that fraction of a second. Non-flash photography would be unaffected, except when someone takes a flash at the same moment.

I'm not certain but i think some cameras use infrared as a sort of sonar/lidar to determine distances to focus with (and determine if flash is appropriate- if you are focusing on 300 m away then there's no point to flash. IF the camera can't focus it doesn't matter if you put a filter on the lense. Not sure how common it is.

Yes, cameras use IR to autofocus, and they use the same sensor that captures the pictures to help it determine the focus. That means they are sensitive to IR light. If a secondary, stronger IR pulse is aimed at the camera, it will receive a false focus distance and the photo could be blurry.

Infrared wavelengths are also somehow translated to the visible spectrum by the camera. So a blast of IR light could distort or overexpose a photo as well.

You can combat this be placing an IR filter over the camera. But you will have to focus manually. Many cameras these days are fully automatic and don't allow manual focusing. It would still be possible to use these cameras, but it would take a lot of work, often more effort than it is worth.

Simple cameras often don't have the threads to screw on filters, either. You'd have to create your own way of using one.

So basically, if they did so something like this to the common photographer, you'd need a camera with an IR filter and manual focus (and the know-how to focus manually) to take the photos you wanted.

 

[Michelina]

If they sent all of the ride pictures to your photopass, it would be even easier to make a crappy copy. You would just need to open the picture up on your computer or phone or whatever and then do a screen grab and crop.

 

[MagicAddict2178]

We were at WDW last week. I logged on to my MDE account to view my photopass photos, and quite a few of our ride photos were magically on there. I have no idea how. We did nothing to get them there.

 

[scjo68]

They couldn't use it to stop flash photos, but they could use it to ruin flash photos, eventually discouraging the practice. .

I wish ruined photos would be enough to discourage the practice. It is frustrating to sit through Soarin while someone takes flash photos the entire time. There is no way a flash photo of a projection can turn out, so it would have been nice if they had stopped after the first one. They didn't.