The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

[niklj]

Great blue hour tip, Mike! I'll have to try it out.

And the train photo reminds me of the one Paul Hiffmeyer did, great job!

[Hot Sauce 1]

Here's a litlte "Pretty" for today. Sometimes it is much more fun to shoot the peoples reactions to something instead of what they were reacting to.

[Disneyland 1951]

Near Photo disaster last week.

last week I went to DL for lunch at the new Jolly Holiday Bakery. I recently bought a Nikon D5100 DSLR with several Lenses. I try to take Face Character photos with a more narural unposed look with clean uncluttered backgrounds. This is difficult, but can be done on even a busy day with planning.

As I walked by the Castle I saw the Belle was out next to the castle with the BEAST. You can find Belle out in th e park often in her Yellow Ball gown, or with the Beast in the Parade, but rarely out in the park together doing meet and greets.

They were on the way back stage, but as they walked by I was able to get 6 frames shot, but only one had Belle looking towards the camera.

The next day I saw them exiting near the Tomorrowland entrance. Belle was wearing her Blue Dress which is only seen at Breakfast Character meals, and never with the Beast. They were being mobbed, an overly excited girl ran in front of them shouting for her friend to take a picture, jumped in front of them, and walked backwards hitting Belle hard in the face.....


I then realized that they are out together because the Disney 3D version of "Beauty and the Beast" was just released in the Theaters. It came in second at the weekend boxoffice. I wanted to post this news with photos on Micechat.

I decided to come back later when Belle with blue Dress and the Beast would be out again. So I went over to California Adventure and videoed the Little Mermaid dark ride. I tried using it wide open (Aperture Preferred) and super high ASA of 25600! It worked well and kept everything in focus.

I returned to the DL hub and waited. Soon Aurora, Snow White, and Ariel walked out to the side paths of the Castle. I knew where Aurora was headed and went to the oppisite side and waited for her. She was all alone and gladly posed for me while we had a nice conversation. I asked for her to move to the side and point to the castle to get someting different. How cool would it be to have Sleeping Beauty in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle alone pointing to castle! But before I could get in place we were mobbed with little girls holding autograph books....


Great Luck......
A few minutes later Belle in the Blue dress with the Beast headed to where I was standing. They were with a Parade performer, not the normal guide. They got to a great spot, and while I waited the escort took out his pocket camera and they posed for him, and asked if he got them. I was able to get many clean poses and was very happy. It was my turn and I asked them to pose as if they were looking a a Book. I thought that would be unique. And instructed how I wanted them to stand and got 12 different shots of my idea......

DISASTER....
I had not changed the ASA back from the super high 25600 ASA... and everything was very overexposed.

Solutions:

One clear shot of Yellow Ball Gown Belle with Beast.
Problem: People in the background...

I cut and pasted to remove the people standing right behind them, Blurred the figure in the back ground, and lightened Bells face. Result:


I ended liking this, as it not a normal stiff posed shot.

Blue Dress Belle with Beast.....
Posed shots.. (At ASA 25600!!!!!!)



One of my not so great "Book" idea shots


I chose to use a standard pose.
Problems corrected: Very overexposed, Color Hue and saturation, brightness, noise reduction, crooked, and mild crop, Result


It is now OK, but with a cartoon look.... (The Movie is a cartoon... right)

Anyway, thank you very much Hotsauce 1 for you post production tips.
they helped me save a near disaster....

Jack

[Hot Sauce 1]

Well I'm back from 3 days of picture taking at Disneyland. Hopefully I'll have a few new tutorials up next week. In the interim, here's a "Pretty" for today. I used the bars of the fence as a support and wedged the camera between them to hold it in place long enough for the 3 exposures necessary for the HDR.

[alphabassetgrrl]

Nice!

[Tiki]

Wow 1951, those photos came out great for being shot at ASA 25600. I like your final result with Belle and the Beast (man is that a big costume)

Every time I start to shoot a new scene, I got in the habit of going through a mental checklist of the major settings. Picked that up from my flying days - always do a checklist or else you'll forget something important.

My checklist is usually 1. Auto ASA setting (I'm guessing your D5100 doesn't have this setting?) on or off and check max ASA if on; 2. Exposure compensation set correctly; 3. Bracketing set correctly (this one has really bit me before); 4. Program setting (aperature priority, shutter priority or manual) and then adjust the aperature or shutter speed as I shoot. When I change scenes I go through it again.

You might even be able to come up with an acronym that helps - like pilots use GUMPS (Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop, Seat belts) as a mental before-landing checklist.

[Hot Sauce 1]

1-22-12

Today’s “Disneyland Photo Tip of the Day” shows you how to Add Some Sparkle to your Night Time Photos by using the effect that aperture size has on photographing light.

The pupil of your eye acts much the same as the aperture of a camera lens when it comes to light. It gets larger when needed to allow in more light in dark situations and smaller when needed to avoid too much light from entering the eye. The size of your aperture does the same thing. First and foremost it controls how much light enters the lens and falls upon the camera’s sensor but it also has other effects on your photograph. It determines the necessary shutter speed for a proper exposure and can create depth of field.

One of the lesser known effects of aperture size on a photograph is what it does when you take pictures of lights. If you look at a light and squint really tight, the light spreads out and looks like it is twinkling. A lens can do the same thing. By making the aperture really small, lights will also get a starburst type twinkling effect.

Main St. USA is a very popular place to take pictures at night time. There is a lot of interesting architecture and all the popcorn lights on the buildings really set the mood of the location and period. The Main St. Cinema provided me with the perfect subject for illustrating my point.

I set the camera on a tripod and used the 18-55mm kit lens for these photos. The post processing is identical on each picture. The only difference between them is the size of the aperture and the shutter speed it required to achieve the same exposure. I set the ISO to 160 and started with an aperture of F/4.5. Watch what happens as the aperture gets smaller.

This is the original frame for the photos. I cropped them to better show the lights.


F/4.5, Shutter Speed 1/8^th.


F/5.6, Shutter Speed 1/5^th.


F/8, Shutter Speed .4 seconds.


F/11, Shutter Speed .8 seconds.


F/16, Shutter Speed 1.6 seconds.


F/22, Shutter Speed 3.2 Seconds.


So if you want to add some sparkle to your night time photos, remember to shrink your aperture.

Happy Snapping
© MichaelGreening 2012

For a complete directory and direct links to all of these posts, please click here: http://micechat.com/forums/disneyland-resort/140579-disneyland-photo-day-50.html#post1056358940

I have no idea why this attached image is showing up or how to get rid of it. Sorry for the annoyance.

[Ortizmo2000]

Here's a "Pretty" for today. I was really excited for this shot because I've been wanting to photograph this side of the Grizzly Mountain (does this have an official name?) at night for quite a while. Every time I went by it at night, the lights were out. Finally they lit it up for me last week.
Attachment 16973

I think it was worth the wait! Exceptional shot!

[Hot Sauce 1]

Here's a little "Scary" for today.

[chris001]

Great angle, fairly realistic looking eye to eye.

[Hot Sauce 1]

I had a lot of fun hanging out underneath the Zephyr and shooting it with a wide angle lens the other night. Something I definitely recommend for anyone insterested in long exposure light trails.


Sorry the size is so small. For some reason the website will only let me put in the small/medium size photos now.

[WDWFigment]

^Was that with the Sigma 8-16, Mike? Like the tilt you use to (presumably) keep that pesky handrail out of the frame while getting as much Fun Wheel reflection as possible!

[Hot Sauce 1]

^Was that with the Sigma 8-16, Mike? Like the tilt you use to (presumably) keep that pesky handrail out of the frame while getting as much Fun Wheel reflection as possible!

Hey Tom,
Yes, that was with the Sigma 8-16. I was right against the railing, almost leaning over it for this. I took several of them with all different light patterns with the intention of layering them all together but it just seemed to look cleaner with only the single shot.

[alphabassetgrrl]

​Gorgeous light trails! I will have to try that.

[Gamedog]

Mike,

Regarding the last "Add Some Sparkle to Your Night Time Photos" tip, were they taken with or without a filter on the lens?

I've taken these with and without a filter on and had some reflections bouncing off due to the long exposure with the filter on. Were yours taken with one on? If so, how did you prevent the reflections? Or were they taken without one?

Thanks again for the tip!