We're there; I started posting pics.

[Neelloc]

Great pictures Mark!!! I love your costumes from MNSSHP!!!

Did you happen to take any shots of the HM last night during the party? I was there 9/16 and forgot to.

 

[SC Mouse Fan]

Awesome shots Mark! I'm pulling out the luggage tonight and you're getting me all psyched!!!

My son got our luggage down for us on Sunday. I have already packed my camera gear and am working on my clothes. My husband hasn't packed anything yet but it won't take him long. Can't wait for MNSSHP on Sunday 10/23.

Mark, your costumes were great.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

Great shots Mark! I love the shot of the Lion King Bird (girl). I have one but its a little soft because of the NR I needed. I can't wait to get back (41 days but who's counting) with the new camera body. Who took the picture of you taking a picture of the boys?

 

[NLD]

These are great, thanks for sharing. Love the ones of your kids--you caught some great expressions on the coasters and Splash!

 

[handicap18]

Great pics thus far Mark. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[Evad]

Great pics Mark!! Keep them coming!

 

[NateNLogansDad]

Thanks Mark! Don't stop now

 

[njtree]

awesome shots I wish I knew how to take picutres like that.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Monday was our Epcot day. Our first ride was Test Track.

Later that day, we took a ride through The Land. I shot this lily on the boat ride.

I'm not sure what the appeal is, but the boys love that place with the different fountain drinks. They like to mix them into their own hybrid concoctions.

I didn't really understand this. At first I thought something had gone wrong and this lady was cleaning it up. As I set up the shot, I realized that this was intentional, although I still don't understand what the heck she was doing.

I finally took out my fisheye and got this shot of the dome in China. I'm just not much of a fisheye shooter.

Here is another fisheye shot in China.

My boys got these diablo things in China. I'm not really sure how you work them. It involves string, spinning, and chasing.

One of my favorite attractions at Epcot is The Universe of Energy. I'd love to go on a walking tour of this attraction sometime.

We ended our stay with a ride on Spaceship Earth. They keep updating it, but like Journey Into Imagination, they keep not making it better.

We ended the evening by going to Fantasmic! I tried a fisheye shot of the entire theater. I thought it would be really cool. It ended up being really boring.

Can you spot me in the crowd?

There were some people camping up on the rocks during the show. I'm guessing it had something to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

These guys chased them away.

Fire is just so cool.

 

[klmall]

.....I told the kids that they need to get a lot of candy tonight. I'm not buying them any more food this week. We're dressing up as stick figures using electroluminescent wire costumes. I just hope that my soldering holds up.

Great idea about the candy! I laughed about that one so loud DH asked what was on TV!

And I love the costumes!

Mark - I walked through part of Universe of Energy when I did the "Undiscovered Epcot" tour but most of the tour was a dud. I did like the backstage part of UoE though; it was dark and smelled like sulphur!

Your guys staring at each other in that beverage picture is so classic kid! My brothers used to do that for years! You have some fun shots of them this trip.

And fish-eye looks like one of the better ways to capture that enormous ceiling in China; always been a toughie for me!

---Kathy

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Tuesday was Hollywood Studios day. It was actually supposed to start with surfing lessons at Typhoon Lagoon, but the closed TL for the rain that didn't show up until the evening.

I grabbed this shot as we walked by the brooms. Because the weather was so ugly, we hauled around a bunch of ponchos and opted to only bring one camera. I decided to bring the 7D for a change of pace and because I'm not confident that the 5D's weather seals are in top shape after 3 years of mistreatment. I wish I'd had the 5D for this shot. I wanted less DOF, but even at f/1.4, I couldn't get the look I wanted with the 7D.

Here I am doing a little ant wrangling.

I think that's my last rodeo in that playground for a couple of decades. My kids are getting a bit too old for it. Honestly, I think this is probably our last "Disney" trip until the kids are grown. We might drop by the parks for a day or two sometime, but they are definitely entering the "thrill ride" phase and losing interest in shows and good presentation. It has created an odd vibe on the trip. They are really enjoying it, but you can really feel that it is the end of an era for us. We'll never be at Disney with our little boys again. Hopefully someday there will be grandkids. Disney is great fun as adults with no kids around, but it is so much better with young children.

I enjoyed the stunt car show a lot more this time. I'm not sure why. Last time it just didn't click with me.

I missed the morning run of Tower of Terror. I was busy doing a Midway Mania fastpass run. With my wife's hip issues and my parent's and kid's age issues, I'm doing all the fastpass running. I'm getting tired. Anyway, we made it back on in the afternoon.

I took a gazillion Beauty and the Beast shots. It's the first time I've seen the show in about a decade. Right now, they all look the same, so I won't bother posting any.

My wife and I left the kids at home and went to Epcot for the evening. They were exhausted and not in the mood to go back to the parks. It was raining, so I didn't really blame them. I took this shot of the fountain. I really wanted to get a shot with us in it...a little flash and ambient mix shot, but I didn't want to hassle with it because of the rain.

Here is my lovely bride. The ground glows where she stands.

 

[theduck619]

Great shots! Thanks for sharing.

 

[kldmom2000]

Fantastic photos!!! Can't wait to see more!

 

[Bstanley]

Thanks for letting us (me) follow along on Smugmug - I look at the Info for a picture and learn!

I grabbed this shot as we walked by the brooms.

I just have to say...this shot weirds me out...I am confused that it has that much depth of field using f1.4...I really thought I had a handle on DOF, clearly I do not.

When I first got my 17-55mm f2.8 I went to a local botanical garden and tried shooting with shallow depth of field. The example below was at 55mm/f3.2 (Rebel XS - 10mp) and it shows way more focus 'blur' than your shot - OK the flower in focus below was maybe 3-4 feet away from the lens but I'm still confused.

 

[WDWFigment]

Kind of sad that it's an end of an era for you, but at least the last trip is now, instead of a year or two from now, when it could be less-than-fun. It's always good to go out "on top," so to speak.

Great photos thus far. I thought your MNSSHP costumes were just cheap-o Tron costumes at first, but now I get it. Very cool idea.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Wednesday was primarily a Typhoon Lagoon day. We didn't bring the DSLRs, but we did bring a couple of GoPros. We only use them for video and I'm not going to bore you with unedited video, so it'll be a while before I post anything from them.

The kids were pretty worn out at the end of the day (especially Erik, who has a sore throat). Kathy and I left them at the condo and went to the MK for the parade and fireworks.

Kathy on the Liberty Boat

Halloween Decor

Little Dumbo

Waiting for the parade

Don't let anyone tell you that it isn't crowded in October. I've been very surprised at how busy the parks are. I've also been very disappointed in the Touring Plans crowd calendar. Comparing different parks on the same day and the same parks on different days, their predictions have proven to be wildly off the mark.

I loved the Electric Light Parade. Honestly, it didn't seem very different from SpectroMagic, but that's not really a bad thing. It just makes me wonder why the updated it. I guess you have to keep changing things to keep crowd levels up (which they certainly seem to be doing).

The memories thing on the castle seemed lame when I heard about it, but the execution of it was excellent. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Thursday was a Magic Kingdom day. It started off badly with my realizing half way to the parks that I forgot our passes. We compounded that error when I made a quick fast pass run to Space Mountain as we were going from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland. My father and oldest son decided to catch a quick showing of Carousel of Progress, using a precious half hour of early morning low crowd time on a ride that never has a wait. We eventually got our act together, but we missed several attractions because of poor execution.

I wanted to shoot the kids on Astro Orbiter, so my wife and I shared a rocket. Those things aren't sized well for two adults. It's worse when you want to shoot at the rocket behind you. We managed, but it was not a very comfortable ride.

One of my goals for the day was to get more shots of our group. I've got enough shots of most of the rides and don't really need more. It's the shots of family that I really like. On some rides, like Buzz, that isn't easy. Here are a few that look OK.

My dad

My youngest son

My dad and my oldest son

My wife and my youngest son

My oldest son

The thing glowing in his ear is an ear plug. Disney seems to have gotten louder since we last visited. Maybe we're just getting older. Either way, my kids have been complaining about the volume levels all week, so I picked up some ear plugs on the way home last night.

Here's a shot of a little spinning action on the tea cups

This one is from It's a Small World

Here is the crew on Big Thunder Mountain. It was showing a 120 minute wait time (soon reduced to 30 minutes) and the fast pass line stretched all the way out of the attraction queues.

The People Mover

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I'm thinking about putting together a Disney World Photography Recipe book. My thought was to go through on an attraction by attraction basis and discuss ideas for shooting the attraction (what focal lengths, apertures, shutter speeds, camera modes, etc) with examples. Kind of like the how-to threads I did a while back. I'll also mix in a bunch of general shooting advice so that it makes sense.

The recipe approach will make it easier for people that want a simple way to achieve decent results. It can also serve as a jumping off point for people that want to get creative but don't know where to begin.

Assuming that I actually commit time to do it, I'll post it on disneyphotoblog.com, which is a domain that I just picked up. I might also compile everything into a big PDF or online book when I'm done. I'll post more about the idea if I'm still enthusiastic about it when I get home. I'm booked almost solid with projects until Thanksgiving week, so it won't be any time soon.

 

[Daisy14'sDH]

Great entertaining thread so far! Loving it all and I like the idea of the recipe book... once I get through all my pics I'm going to do a photo report... but that will take a while...

 

[MarkBarbieri]

A quick stat check...after 6 days at the parks we have taken 7,232 photos, video clips, and audio clips totaling a bit over 200gb of data. Yesterday I filled a 32gb card at the MK. Much of that was because I was doing 3 exposure bracket shots in spray and pray mode on some rides.