On my way back from Star Wars, Electrical Parade, and Nightastic

[zackiedawg]

Nice work so far - nice to follow along your thread, especially since I was up there at the same time though creeping around different spots than you were at any given time.

Too bad the folks waiting in line for Billy Dee Williams didn't know they could hang around the Boardwalk lobby and catch him several times a day. Funny - I'm not a Star Wars fan so I know very little about it - I actually didn't really connect him with the films at first. I saw him walking through the lobby, thought 'hey, that kinda looks like Billy Dee Williams but older'...then when I saw him again later that evening, he was signing a few autographs and some folks were taking photos with him, and I thought 'I guess that is Billy Dee Williams, I wonder why he's here?'. Only the next day did I piece together that he was in the Star Wars series, and that it was probably related to that.

 

[Groucho]

Now I gotta get a wide angle!!! You have me drooling with the possibilities.

Thanks for posting your attempts as well, its nice to read the thought around the process, and maybe some other Pentaxians may try the shot as well... or DISers :lol:

Love my fisheye. I actually just grabbed a lens correction preset that someone created for Lightroom 3 and the Pentax fisheye - I just tried it quickly this morning and it does a very good job of making a fisheye look like a normal UWA. Maybe I'll experiment with that and post a few of those...

Nice work so far - nice to follow along your thread, especially since I was up there at the same time though creeping around different spots than you were at any given time.

Thanks!

Too bad the folks waiting in line for Billy Dee Williams didn't know they could hang around the Boardwalk lobby and catch him several times a day. Funny - I'm not a Star Wars fan so I know very little about it - I actually didn't really connect him with the films at first. I saw him walking through the lobby, thought 'hey, that kinda looks like Billy Dee Williams but older'...then when I saw him again later that evening, he was signing a few autographs and some folks were taking photos with him, and I thought 'I guess that is Billy Dee Williams, I wonder why he's here?'. Only the next day did I piece together that he was in the Star Wars series, and that it was probably related to that.

Man - that would be cool, but with only three days and with two kids, I doubt we would have taken the time out to hang around the lobby to see him, especially since like I said, I'm not a big autograph hunter. It still would have been fun to get a pic and have him sign one of my Empire Strikes Back trading cards from my childhood.

BTW, my first reaction when you said that you were not a Star Wars fan was "well, why come during SWW then?"... but actually, it probably means that other parks are less crowded. Certainly MK was not too bad Sunday, especially at night. Gay Days meant that it was very crowded on Saturday, though.

 

[mom2rtk]

Gorgeous shots as always!

I'm curious, do you switch lenses around a lot when you're in the parks? Or do you plan a day to do mostly wide angle stuff, and try to avoid too much changing?

This was the first trip I didn't just use an all-in-one lens and found myself constantly wanting whatever lens wasn't on the camera at the time!

I'm guessing this will be easier for me in December when we go for a week. We only had 2 1/2 days at Disneyland.

 

[Victoria3]

Awesome pictures!

Thanks folks! I'm glad you're enjoying.

Omg! There's me in this pic, I'm in the bottom left corner, black shirt, hair in pony-tail.

 

[mom2rtk]

Awesome pictures!



Omg! There's me in this pic, I'm in the bottom left corner, black shirt, hair in pony-tail.

That's cool! Those new-fangled fish-eye lenses pick up everything don't they!!

 

[Groucho]

Gorgeous shots as always!

I'm curious, do you switch lenses around a lot when you're in the parks? Or do you plan a day to do mostly wide angle stuff, and try to avoid too much changing?

This was the first trip I didn't just use an all-in-one lens and found myself constantly wanting whatever lens wasn't on the camera at the time!

I'm guessing this will be easier for me in December when we go for a week. We only had 2 1/2 days at Disneyland.

It depends. This trip, I did quite a bit less lens switching than usual - I mostly used my 16-50 and 50-135mm F2.8 lenses. The 50-135mm was used for all the parade and Hoopla photos. The fisheye got some but not as much as it might usually, and the Lensbaby and the 31mm F1.8 only got a little bit of use. I also brought the 50mm F1.4 and only mounted it once.

On a "normal" trip, I change fairly often but not constantly. It depends on the circumstance. I try to stay with whatever lens I have mounted and adapt my shooting to the lens, but change when I need to, like if I need a low-light lens or a longer or shorter focal length. But I like the challenge of using a specific lens.

Awesome pictures!

Omg! There's me in this pic, I'm in the bottom left corner, black shirt, hair in pony-tail.

Heheh - it's a small world.

 

[zackiedawg]

Love my fisheye. BTW, my first reaction when you said that you were not a Star Wars fan was "well, why come during SWW then?"... but actually, it probably means that other parks are less crowded. Certainly MK was not too bad Sunday, especially at night. Gay Days meant that it was very crowded on Saturday, though.

That's one consideration...but in general I just go whenever I feel like heading up, and don't really pay much attention to whether there are any 'special' events happening. If I happen to coincide with one, I deal with it or work around it. With Star Wars Weekends, I don't notice it being too awfully crowded - the first few weeks in June aren't all that bad despite it, so I often go that time of year. I do tend to just avoid DHS, spending no more than 1/2 day there. Same with Gay Days...the only time it seems to feel more crowded is if you're at the chosen park for the chosen day...if you just go to one of the other parks on that day, it's pretty quiet.

I've gotten used to working around event crowds...I have visited during ESPN weekend, Gay Days, Star Wars Weekends, Food & Wine, Flower & Garden, Pop Warner, Christmas Parade filming, MVMCP, MNSSHP...other than enjoying seeing the F&W and F&G displays, I don't really participate in any of those. I just happen to be there at the same time, and work around the crowds!

 

[Groucho]

I've gotten used to working around event crowds...I have visited during ESPN weekend, Gay Days, Star Wars Weekends, Food & Wine, Flower & Garden, Pop Warner, Christmas Parade filming, MVMCP, MNSSHP...other than enjoying seeing the F&W and F&G displays, I don't really participate in any of those. I just happen to be there at the same time, and work around the crowds!

Must be nice being so close.

Just for fun, and to tide over before I get more shots posted (it's going to be a couple days at least), here's an example of what you can do with Lightroom 3's lens correction. Thanks to "attilaworx", the creator of this profile that I used.

The original 10mm fisheye shot:

After defishing:

Who needs a separate UWA lens?

 

[mom2rtk]

Must be nice being so close.

Just for fun, and to tide over before I get more shots posted (it's going to be a couple days at least), here's an example of what you can do with Lightroom 3's lens correction. Thanks to "attilaworx", the creator of this profile that I used.

The original 10mm fisheye shot:

After defishing:

Who needs a separate UWA lens?

That's awesome Groucho!

 

[Master Mason]

Must be nice being so close.

Just for fun, and to tide over before I get more shots posted (it's going to be a couple days at least), here's an example of what you can do with Lightroom 3's lens correction. Thanks to "attilaworx", the creator of this profile that I used.

The original 10mm fisheye shot:

After defishing:

Who needs a separate UWA lens?

That's not too bad, it does distort the lights at the outer edges, but you have to be looking for it.

 

[Groucho]

Yeah, I think it's pretty serviceable. I tried one or two other shots and it can show a bit of distortion in the far left and right edges, but that's normal for an UWA, too (with varying degrees), so I'm not bothered.

I did notice that there are a huge number of Sigma lens profiles in there - even for unreleased lenses like the 85mm F1.4 (which I have my eye on!) There is a profile for their 10mm fisheye, which produces quite similar results; it does show a little more at the corners. I'll have to try them side by side or at least compare the settings.

Supposedly, profiling your own lenses is fairly painless - I'll have to give it a shot one of these days and see how it does.

 

[MinnieForMe]

Was that really a baby in costume or a doll? I can't imagine doing that to a baby in the Florida heat. We've never been to Star Wars Week but I'm thinking we may have to one day. Thanks for sharing your incredible pictures.

 

[Groucho]

Was that really a baby in costume or a doll? I can't imagine doing that to a baby in the Florida heat. We've never been to Star Wars Week but I'm thinking we may have to one day. Thanks for sharing your incredible pictures.

At the time, I had thought that it was a real baby. Looking at the pictures, my wife declared that it was a doll. I guess that I would hope that it was! I'll have to take a closer look; I got a couple pictures of it.

A doll would make sense - that would be a pretty serious costume to make for a baby who would probably only be able to wear it once.

 

[Quicklabs]

Groucho--Awesome pics! You are the master of the fish-eye Love the pics of your kids, as well. You really captured Star Wars weekend--gave me a mini-vacation. Thanks so much.

 

[Groucho]

Thanks Quicklabs!

I've got the pics from our third day online now and there's a ton of 'em! There won't be many from the fourth (and final) day, so I'll go overboard here...

We started the day with breakfast at Chef Mickey's, which is always fun.

Our first stop was the barbership, to cut down the mop growing on Jack's head. Leila was already ready for a nap.

She eventually got slightly more comfortable.

Jack chose purple again, this time it was a bit brighter than his last cut there.

We headed up to Frontierland and rode Big Thunder... then, of course, what better ride to go on with a head full of purple goop but Splash Mountain... we ended up battling purple drips running down his forehead!

Another defished shot... this place is always closed when we go in January... and now I see they only have "soft" tacos, which I can't stand. Sorry, no sale!

We managed to ride Pirates just after it came back from being offline. (Apparently, a lightning-related power surge took a ton of rides offline briefly.) I was happy that the Davey Jones mist screen was working - it was not functioning when we were there in January.

That reminds me - to jump back to day two's notes - I was curious if I'd see any changes on Tower of Terror for Nightastic, since it was usually mentioned... I didn't notice anything new on the ride, except that in the scene where you go forward through the Twilight Zone objects (the "fourth dimension" scene?) before moving into the ride shaft... there were curtains over all the areas with stars on them, so all you saw was a starfield. The soundtrack was the same, which didn't fit (ticking watch sound, etc)... I was a bit disappointed.

Back to day three... we hopped onto the Jungle Cruise and I got a rather fishy look at the back side of water.

At some point around here, we got our usual lunch from Columbia Harbour House. My wife has been wanting to try the Tomorrowland Noodle Station for a few years now but yet again, it was closed! We took a ride on Buzz and picked up our special Annual Passholder Summer Nightastic viewing glasses for the fireworks "preview" that would show that night.

We decided to stake out a spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade which we still had room. Jack loved wearing the glasses...

I think they were a little over the top for MSEP. Here's the opening Tinkerbell float as we'd normally see it...

...and here it is through the glasses! Whoa!

The kids were very excited to see MSEP. Jack knew the music and right away said "The electrical parade!" Ah, it does a father proud. Leila bopped away in the stroller; she loves the music and watching the night parades.

Unfortunately, I had a number of issues with shutter speeds and exposures. Initially I was using center-weighted metering, then switched to spot - that was a mistake as I was mostly getting underexposed shots. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that was the problem at the time and eventually switched to full manual, picking a good intermediate exposure that worked fairly well - except that the shutter speed was too slow (1/30th) so I got a good amount of blurring. Next time, I'll leave it on center-weighted! Still, I think I got some decent enough shots.

We decided to stay exactly where we were to watch the Summer Nightastic fireworks. Continued in the next message...

 

[Groucho]

...and on to the fireworks! We had a fairly decent view, though there was a lightpole in the way. We were on the sidewalk on Main St, about halfway between the hub and the ice cream shop. I kept my lens pretty wide which means that many of these shots are pretty heavily cropped - but I also got most of the perimeter fireworks, so that's the price you pay. At some point, the tripod got bumped and the shots weren't level, then it got better again. I've tried to straighten out the photos best I can.

Here's how the fireworks looked through the special glasses.

Another glasses shot.

They're blowing up the castle! If you look closely, you can see pirate skulls on the castle, too.

Grand finale.

It was a lot of fun - I'd love to see the show replace Wishes but I suspect that it will end after summer does. I could see MSEP sticking around though but that's just a guess.

We stopped by the bakery to grab some cinnamon rolls and other snacks for the morning, then fought our way out to beat the crowds who'd be leaving after the 11pm MSEP performance.

The final full day... mostly Hollywood Studios and more Star Wars stuff, then finishing the day at MK again.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

As always, great photos! I love the skull and crossbones on the castle. I don't think I captured that.

 

[Groucho]

As always, great photos! I love the skull and crossbones on the castle. I don't think I captured that.

Thanks! The castle projections are sometimes tricky as they are often moving, so they wouldn't show in a long exposure. I think stars are projected on earlier in the show, too - I know they were in Wishes. I was afraid that they wouldn't show in my photos with the angle I was at, but they turned out to be fairly clear.

 

[seashoreCM]

ARGHHHHHHHHHHH excuse me for a moment while I break the laptop in half. I accidentally hit the back button, then hit forward again and didn't realize that my login had timed out, and lost about 15 minutes of entering a message. grumblegrumblegrumble

Submit the half baked (or quarter baked) post. Then edit it and add a bit more and resubmit. Then edit it and ... you get the picture (no pun intended).

Unfortunately, I had a number of issues with shutter speeds and exposures. Initially I was using center-weighted metering, then switched to spot - that was a mistake as I was mostly getting underexposed shots. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that was the problem at the time and eventually switched to full manual, picking a good intermediate exposure that worked fairly well - except that the shutter speed was too slow (1/30th) so I got a good amount of blurring. Next time, I'll leave it on center-weighted!

Looks like you simply need a faster lens or a higher ISO; metering isn't the problem here.

Can you process the underexposed shots on your computer to be better? I forgot who on The DIS suggested intentionally underexposing when the lens maxed out, in order to get a faster shutter speed when taking the picture. Doesn't work with all cameras, though.

 

[DebºoºS]

Love,love,love the pics! Kids are soooo cute!

JMHO, Hoopla is the best outdoor show.

You sure had a great spot for the fireworks. Whenever I setup the tripod on Main St. I get bumped or someone puts their kid on their shoulders right in front of me. Last August they turned around and started the exit stampede before the show ended. Bumping right into me. I was able to pick it all up quickly and move out of their way. How did you manage with the crowds?