WDW time again... complete trip photos finally posted!

[Groucho]

I'm actually not much of a rice crispie guy - those will be going to Jack and Mommy. But those turnovers are *MINE!*

 

[Disneyfreak92]

I'm actually not much of a rice crispie guy - those will be going to Jack and Mommy. But those turnovers are *MINE!*

Oh, I'd prefer the turnovers, cookies, and chocolate croissant, but by the time I get home, I have to return to "regular" food, and I guess the rice crispie treats just sounded the least damaging. Plus, I wanted one desperately on our last two trips and didn't get one for whatever reason.

 

[DSDopey48]

Hi Groucho,
Just wanted to say your photos are great, sorry to hear you are sick I know quite well of the bug, I just happened to stumble on to this part of the Dis boards I have been hanging around now for a no of years doing lots of reading not many posts. I didnt pay much attention to the Photo Board till recently, A number of years ago my father passed away and I inherited his cameras, they are pentax, I was given a pentax digital slr and have no idea what iam doing or if any of the lens i have will work I was wondering if you could give me some guidance on what I have. thank-you Judi

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Groucho, thanks for posting your photos! They're great as usual! Your son is very handsome! Congrats on your #2 Leila! Sorry to hear you all got sick in WDW. That sucks. I went to DL & Vegas for 3 weeks. Got sick during the trip, and just relapsed! Being sick on vacation really sucks. At least I didn't have the Noro Virus! Yikes!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Last night was one of the worst times I've ever had in my life. I ended up vomiting every 20 minutes or so, I think it was ended up being ten times.

And to think, I almost invited you over for a beer that night. (But I was in my pjs doing laundry, LOL.)

we had 10 snack credits left!

Ready for this? We had 32 snack credits left (did the Quick Service dining plan so we each got two/day). We brought home $96 worth of goodies to distribute to friends and family. We also grabbed some pizza-to-go on the way out yesterday but still left with three unused meal credits! Even with the QS, it seemed like a lot of food.

uneventful trip back

Ours was pretty turbulent, and to make matters worse, one of our bags is missing (the one with all of DH's stuff, including all his Disney shirts). They think it might have been held up for search in Orlando. Should be fun trying to track it down and get it back. They mentioned something about it coming in on the first flight of the day today. It's 10:30 now and we haven't heard anything yet.

Glad the pregnancy's going well. Love the name. I suppose this won't be a trip you'll soon forget. I had Norwalk two years ago and it's not something I ever want to experience again.

I am hoping to get a little "first trip with dSLR" report going once I sort through all my photos. I will say I had a blast even though there were a few expected frustrations. I had so much information swirling around in my brain! Hopefully I got a few keepers. Stay tuned.

 

[Groucho]

Thanks DSF and Df92!

Hi Groucho,
Just wanted to say your photos are great, sorry to hear you are sick I know quite well of the bug, I just happened to stumble on to this part of the Dis boards I have been hanging around now for a no of years doing lots of reading not many posts. I didnt pay much attention to the Photo Board till recently, A number of years ago my father passed away and I inherited his cameras, they are pentax, I was given a pentax digital slr and have no idea what iam doing or if any of the lens i have will work I was wondering if you could give me some guidance on what I have. thank-you Judi

Do the lenses on your father's camera screw on or just need a short twist to mount? If they screw on, you will need an adapter (available directly from Pentax's web site) to use them on your DSLR. If they twist on, then they can be used on your DSLR as is. If they don't have an "A" on the aperture ring, you will need to go into the Custom menu on the DSLR and find a setting for "allow aperture ring" or something like that and change it from "prohibited" to "permitted". When shooting, you'll want to press the AE/L button to "meter" (determine correct exposure) if the lens doesn't have the "A" setting. If it does have an "A" setting, use that and the lens will work just like any modern lens, except with manual focus. (I assume they're not autofocus lens.)

As for basic DSLR usage, there should be any number of general DSLR tutorials out there. Your DSLR should have all common functions (and then some) so almost any will apply. And someone gave it to you? Nice deal! If there are some specific questions, feel free to ask.

Located in upstate NY, eh? If you decide that it's too much bother and you're looking for a good home for the old gear, keep me in mind.

And to think, I almost invited you over for a beer that night. (But I was in my pjs doing laundry, LOL.)

Well, I generally don't drink but I have been known to have a "girl drink" (usually strawberry daquiri) once in a very rare while.

Ready for this? We had 32 snack credits left (did the Quick Service dining plan so we each got two/day). We brought home $96 worth of goodies to distribute to friends and family. We also grabbed some pizza-to-go on the way out yesterday but still left with three unused meal credits! Even with the QS, it seemed like a lot of food.

32!!! Ye gods! With that many, I'd have to be getting cookies and candy and things that will actually survive the trip. I spent a while last night transferring items to ziploc bags. I was happy that the peanut butter sandwiches from the candy counter on Main St were already sealed; I'd gotten one a couple nights before from the counter in Frontierland that was loose. (Not that I minded then as I ate most of it on the spot.)

Ours was pretty turbulent, and to make matters worse, one of our bags is missing (the one with all of DH's stuff, including all his Disney shirts). They think it might have been held up for search in Orlando. Should be fun trying to track it down and get it back. They mentioned something about it coming in on the first flight of the day today. It's 10:30 now and we haven't heard anything yet.

We had a little turbulence but nothing too serious. Jack was given an Airtran pilot pin as were were getting into our seats, which made his day. (He's been showing it off to everyone since then!)

Glad the pregnancy's going well. Love the name. I suppose this won't be a trip you'll soon forget. I had Norwalk two years ago and it's not something I ever want to experience again.

I am hoping to get a little "first trip with dSLR" report going once I sort through all my photos. I will say I had a blast even though there were a few expected frustrations. I had so much information swirling around in my brain! Hopefully I got a few keepers. Stay tuned.

At this point, I'm leaning towards skipping a full trip report just because it all goes so sour at the end. I hate to end with a whimper instead of a bang! I'm thinking I'll start processing my shots and maybe update the earlier pages and add more to the end.

 

[DSDopey48]

Glad to had a safe trip back, glad you were able to use up your credits. sounds like you will be eating Disney treats for an extra time.
Thank-you so much for the information, I know that there are a couple of the lens that I want to try but just didnt have the knowledge. Now maybe I can try. I do have a list of what I have that I can email to you.

thank-you again
Judi

 

[Groucho]

Glad to had a safe trip back, glad you were able to use up your credits. sounds like you will be eating Disney treats for an extra time.
Thank-you so much for the information, I know that there are a couple of the lens that I want to try but just didnt have the knowledge. Now maybe I can try. I do have a list of what I have that I can email to you.

thank-you again
Judi

You're welcome! Good luck playing with the old lenses.

Well, folks, I'm "back to the grind" around here, had over a foot of snow drop on us the day after we returned, and WDW seems like a distant memory already. I have finished processing the day one photos now and here's a few more to share.

This was how it looked when we arrived at the airport, with the sun not yet risen on the snow.

Here's Jack resting in my arm on the Magical Express bus, on its way to Old Key West.

Merchandise on Main St.

MK boat dock, waiting for a boat to pick us up.

This is at the Wilderness Lodge.

I could do some noise cleanup on this shot... the red seems to show more noise. Anyway, this was a ridiculously delicious strawberry milkshake from Whispering Canyon. I will definitely be getting this again! It was even covered by the dining plan.

Chernabog in SpectroMagic. (One of my most blurry Spectro shots, but I like it regardless.)

After Spectro, we did Jungle Cruise (with a disappointly lackluster skipper with all jokes that I've heard before) and PotC and HM before heading back to our room. Here's the hairy-legged PotC pirate.

This one could also use a run through a noise cleaner, but I was happy to get a shot at all of Little Leota in HM! I should have done some minus exposure compensation, but was just coming off the graveyard where I was trying to pick up some extra detail. This shot is F1.4, 6400 ISO, 1/15th.

There's more shots up on my 2009 WDW gallery, and I am going to go edit the earlier posted photos on Page 1 and replace them with the tweaked versions. I hope you like!

edit: Page one photos are now updated.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Hi Groucho,
I like it, I like it! I was wondering when you say you finished processing day one photos, what exactly is your workflow for processing? I believe you used Lightroom to import the photos from the camera -- and then what? Noise Ninja or some noise reduction software? And then? Just wonderin'...Thanks again for posting!

 

[Groucho]

Hi Groucho,
I like it, I like it! I was wondering when you say you finished processing day one photos, what exactly is your workflow for processing? I believe you used Lightroom to import the photos from the camera -- and then what? Noise Ninja or some noise reduction software? And then? Just wonderin'...Thanks again for posting!

Thanks!

My workflow is fairly straightforward. I unload the memory card(s) onto the PC, usually into a "processx" folder (for general stuff, where "x" is a number that goes up as the number of unprocessed folders gets larger!) or "day1" for things like WDW trips. I import that folder in Lightroom (I never let LR touch my memory cards or move around my original files no matter what!) and apply some basic presets I've chosen as they are imported. (Clarity, vibrance, sharpening, etc.) This part is quick and painless.

I then do keywording - for WDW trips, the whole thing pretty much gets tagged as "Disney World" right off the bat. I then have a hierarchy of keywords set up for WDW, so things get tagged as one of the four parks or a hotel. Under each park, I have specific ones for various attractions. I also have a few general Disney keywords that are not park-specific, like "monorail", and some non-Disney ones like "food". I also, of course, tag the ones with my wife or son in them. This part is pretty quick; certainly quicker for a Disney trip than a family get-together where figuring out who's in what photo can be a real burden.

Next, I go through the photos one-by-one and do specific adjustments: white balance, black/white, exposure, curves, maybe a vignette... I generally only spend any time on photos that I think are worth spending time on. When I'm happy with a photo and feel that it's worth sharing, I'll tag it with a color code. Generally I use red for things that will be publically shared, and yellow for family-only photos.

Finally, I export them and upload the photos to be shared to my web site. Theoretically I should go through and add descriptions for each one there, but I'm terrible about doing that! I'll also export full-resolution jpgs of all the RAWs for quick reference later. I'll finally move the original RAWs into folders of 1,000 each: 01001-02000, 02001-03000, etc, and tell Lightroom that that's where they are now. (Each DSLR has its own folder.)

If I've done a whole "event" like a WDW trip or whatever, I might go into the Library view and view all the red or yellow-tagged photos and add those to a "collection" for easy future reference.

By and large, the only noise reduction is what LR does. I may occasionally put a specific file or two through a Noiseware or Noise Ninja, but that's pretty rare and I don't have a workflow per se for that. I have been planning on playing with the ability to jump from LR to Photoshop for some more advanced editing (including noise-reducing plug-ins) but haven't tried it yet.

Hope that answers your question! I'm currently in the "editing photos" phase of Day 2 so hopefully I'll have some of those to share soon! There's lots more pics that are still unseen.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Hope that answers your question! I'm currently in the "editing photos" phase of Day 2 so hopefully I'll have some of those to share soon! There's lots more pics that are still unseen.

Wow! That's a mind boggling amount of work! I need to figure out how to do all that processing one of these days. I don't have LR. I have Photoshop CS3 -- but I haven't even begun to look at the manual and figure that out, and now they've come out with CS4! I need more hours in the day. I still haven't figured out Capture NX so I guess that's where I should start. Thanks again! Can't wait to see the rest of the photos!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

That's a mind boggling amount of work! I need to figure out how to do all that processing one of these days.

I agree! I am currently knee deep in post processing myself. It would be nice to know what I'm doing.

BTW, as an update, our luggage was delivered to our doorstep at 9pm the night following our flight. Apparently it was held up for search. Southwest was very good about it, calling us with frequent updates throughout the day. They apparently hire a private delivery service for problems like these (actually, it was an older lady in a beat up Jeep, LOL). Who knew.

 

[manning]

We leave for WDW bright and early in the morning, and as I've done the last few trips, I've taken a pre-trip photo of the gear. Mostly for fun, partly in case anything happens to anything.

Believe it or not, I do not plan on this trip to be centered around photography! Honest!

I actually changed my mind and am leaving the K1000 home. I have some b/w 3200 film that I'd like to use but I'm just bringing too much already. There's two DSLRs (one for me, one for the wife), the kid's silver Minolta, and the Fuji that took the picture (which'll mainly be used for video if the mood strikes us.) The monopod stays home again, the remote shutter release seems to be working better than ever (it's had a couple "homemade" issues before but I think it's set now), and I've got a big stack of memory cards. The wife's DSLR will have two lenses, and I'll have 5 autofocus lenses, one manual focus, and 6 M42 screw-mount lenses and 2x TC (which hopefully will be used exclusively a couple days.)

The wife's yelling at me to get going, we have one more social visit to make before hitting the sack tonight and heading for the airport in the morning. More updates along the way!

My god I've finally found someone who has more "stuff" than I do.

 

[Disneyfreak92]

Love the photos as usual! Especially the one of Jack and the one of the shake at Whispering Canyon. I had a cotton candy shake from there in May, and it was SO good! Looked just like yours, but blue. I took a picture of mine too, of course.

 

[Groucho]

Thanks Df92! Pea-n-Me, glad your luggage made it back. What a pain!

Wow! That's a mind boggling amount of work! I need to figure out how to do all that processing one of these days. I don't have LR. I have Photoshop CS3 -- but I haven't even begun to look at the manual and figure that out, and now they've come out with CS4! I need more hours in the day. I still haven't figured out Capture NX so I guess that's where I should start. Thanks again! Can't wait to see the rest of the photos!

Well, it's really not that bad. The only extras are the keywording and the adjustment in LR. If I shot JPGs and did no post-processing, the workflow would still be a pain... Unload pics onto PC, go through to pick out the "good ones", separate those somehow and resize them to a more web-friendly resolution, give them filenames that make more sense, etc...

My god I've finally found someone who has more "stuff" than I do.

That's just the stuff I took, there's a fair amount of stuff that's not in there. I actually a did a photo recently of all my lenses recently, though the number has increased since then. Funny how that happens...

I've got day two finished now... this was a very crowded day at Hollywood Studios. Right away, we headed for the Toy Story Mania fastpass machines, and it's a good thing we did as they were emptied early in the day. The standby wait was over 60 minutes all day, I think. We did MuppetVision early (still a classic) then spent some time in One Man's Dream. I always enjoy walking through here, I love the miniatures, both to look at and to photograph. I experimented a little with wireless flash here, too; resting the flash on top of the case then shooting through the front, but had a hard time getting the exposure just right for some reason. (Usually it nails it, but I was getting a lot of overexposure.) Still, it's always good stuff in there. I got to spend some extra time as my wife and Jack went off to Playhouse Disney while I was there.

This one has some wireless flash, hence the shadow on Spaceship Earth.

We got some lunch at Backlot Express - basic burger, nothing remarkable but OK. Next we caught the Indiana Jones Stunt Show... old show but still a fun one. This guy has a lot of "fruit" on his shirt considering that he's a "plant"!

Next, we watched Voyage of the Little Mermaid... no pics worth sharing as I accidentally left the camera on center-weighted metering instead of spot, and even -1 exposure compensation wasn't enough to overcome that. Next up was Lights Motors Action. Last trip, the show was cut short after a car leaked fluid all over the ground, so we were happy that we were able to see it all this time! It's a good 'un, and Jack loved it when there was action going on. (And was bored silly when there wasn't!)

By now, it was (finally) time to ride Toy Story Mania. Jack had been driving us crazy all day asking when we were going to go on it!

Even with a fastpass, there's several minutes of queue. This part seems like something out of some twisted nightmare...

I like this shot as the guy looks so happy and the girl looks so bored!

The ride was better than I expected; extremely fast-paced and fun. It's a very different "feel" than Buzz despite being a very similar premise. As for score... 125,900 with a 35% accuracy. Not too bad for a first game, I think!

Next up was Fantasmic. As I mentioned, we were there 45 minutes early and it was already standing room only! That took a lot of the fun out of the show.

Now it was time for dinner at 50s Prime Time Cafe, always a good time and good food.

Continued in next message...

 

[Groucho]

Continued...

After this, we wandered a little. I snuck in a Tower of Terror ride as the crowds had thinned (it was an Extra Magic Hours night)... I loooooove this ride, and this particular time might have had the best drop sequence I've ridden yet.

We wandered a bit more, took some photos, and headed back to our room. Two days down, eight to go...

 

[annnewjerz]

That shot of the couple on TSM made me laugh out loud --- that soooo looks like DH and I when it comes to video games. He gets very into those type of things and I couldn't care less (which is lucky for him considering I always win when we play against eachother). At Disney, I think it would be a different story though.

AND---good to see Jack has his backpack on correct this time. One of the pictures i remember from your last trip report was seeing Jack with his money on backwards (at least I think it was last trip, not this one). He's such a cutie.

 

[Groucho]

That shot of the couple on TSM made me laugh out loud --- that soooo looks like DH and I when it comes to video games. He gets very into those type of things and I couldn't care less (which is lucky for him considering I always win when we play against eachother). At Disney, I think it would be a different story though.

AND---good to see Jack has his backpack on correct this time. One of the pictures i remember from your last trip report was seeing Jack with his money on backwards (at least I think it was last trip, not this one). He's such a cutie.

He gets serious about video games and you always beat him anyway? That's terrible! And terribly funny!

I don't remember Jack having his monkey on backwards before? But I suppose it's possible. Disney is one of the only times he wears it any more, it's just too big and exciting a place to risk letting him run free. Whenever possible, we did try to hold his hand though, or let him run around without it. The biggest downside is that every wanna-be comedian says the same stale line - "hey, you've got a monkey on your back!" That was not real funny the first couple times we heard it, and just annoying the last 50,000 times we've heard it!

It was funny, this trip was the first time we've used his stroller since the last trip back in April, and he was so excited when I pulled it out of the basement. He really doesn't need it but it was very handy, both for hauling our junk and for when he got tired or the crowds got large and it was easiest to just have him sit in there rather than trying to keep him from being run over.

In an unrelated note, I've also updated the day two photos on page two of this thread with processed versions. There aren't any huge differences, but some white balance tweaking and such.

 

[annnewjerz]

He gets serious about video games and you always beat him anyway? That's terrible! And terribly funny!

Don't get me wrong, if it's Madden or some military type game, he is definitely the better "gamer"...but I play a mean Guitar Hero and Mario Kart.

I don't remember Jack having his monkey on backwards before? But I suppose it's possible. Disney is one of the only times he wears it any more, it's just too big and exciting a place to risk letting him run free. Whenever possible, we did try to hold his hand though, or let him run around without it. The biggest downside is that every wanna-be comedian says the same stale line - "hey, you've got a monkey on your back!" That was not real funny the first couple times we heard it, and just annoying the last 50,000 times we've heard it!

Found it! It wasn't your last TR, it was a while ago.

 

[Groucho]

Ha! You're right, I've been busted. I promise he had it on the right way every time this trip.

As for games - I've been playing video games for decades but my wife is really good as some strange puzzles games (I'm thinking Lumines or Dr Mario here) and she always does pretty good as the Tekken-style fighting games, even though she mostly just mashes buttons. Whatever works!