The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

[Hot Sauce 1]

Excellent post Mike! I LOVE the Grizzly Rapids long exposure shots, so silky!



Hope you don't mind me hijacking this for a minute, but here's some of my fast-exposure-with-water shots that I didn't use Shutter priority for, just to give an example of how else you can get fast shutter speeds and creative shots with water:


Falling Water in Slow Motion by `Andrea [anndreeuhh], on Flickr
Exif: Aperture mode; f/5.6; 200mm; ISO 100; Exposure compensation: -2 1/3; Exposure: 0.001 (1/2000).


Cooling Off by `Andrea [anndreeuhh], on Flickr
Exif: Aperture mode; f/5.6; 200mm; ISO 100; Exposure compensation: -2 1/3; Exposure: 0.001 (1/1600).


Frozen Water or Frozen in Time? by `Andrea [anndreeuhh], on Flickr
Exif: Aperture mode; f/1.8; 35mm; ISO 400; Exposure compensation: -1 2/3; Exposure: 0.001 (1/2000).


We Have Liftoff by `Andrea [anndreeuhh], on Flickr
Exif: Aperture mode; f/1.8; 35mm; ISO 400; Exposure compensation: -1 2/3; Exposure: 0.001 (1/4000).

I didn't use a filter for any of these shots and they were all shot with my Nikon D5000 (an entry-level SLR) and either my 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 or 35mm f/1.8 lens (I sold my kit lens). So there are plenty of ways to do water shots, it's just up to you to mess around with your settings and use it creatively.

Those are GORGEOUS! Totally true, there are so many ways to get them that you just have to find which works best for you.

[WDWFigment]

Hey Figment. Thats very solid info. But I am meticulous in my printing. When my ink is worth more in it's weight than gold, I have to be. Lightroom supports 16bit output. So why not use it. Also, I print big. So flaws can come out very easily. I just rather be safe than sorry.

This is kinda reminds me of the mp3 and flac debate. Most people wont notice the difference but "can heads" will. Everyone is different. I just happen to be obsessed with my pictures and I have a touch of perfectionism. I double backup my images even. Locally and Offsite. When I print and go over my images, I want to know that I did the very best I could to make it perfect. If someone doesn't notice the difference then absolutely use jpegs cause there is a connivence factor from a small file size. But mpix does mention one keyword and that is "Lossy". Jpeg is a lossy format and I would prefer to stay lossless and 16bit the entire way. Again, cause I print big and my printer supports it. I agree you wouldn't notice much of a difference if you were printing 4x6 or even 8x10. So if your not printing big and your printer doesn't support 16bit, then then jpegs are totally fine.

I sort of pegged you as a perfectionist. Good to know all of this! If I ever do get anything printed for myself, I probably wouldn't go to your (of Michael's!) great lengths of achieving perfection. If things are off a bit in my photos, it's not a huge deal to me. I understand it is to a lot of people, but color is usually an artistic decision for me (to a degree at least), and I could edit a photo one day at 3550 degrees WB and think that's perfect, and decide 3700 is perfect the very next day. Since I might change my mind so easily anyway, I don't care if the printer changes things slightly.

Re: Printing JPEG vs Tiff

I Agree with Tom on this one. I do ALL my editing at maximum resolution & bit depth, but once I am ready for print, I just save it as a really big JPEG and send it off to costco. I don't believe they have support for TIFFs (or at least when I tried to upload my 100+MB TIFF it timed out). That'd be really interesting to try some day however: Printing a complex picture at 20x30 with both JPEG & TIFF, and see which one looks better!

Just to clarify - I don't really have a horse in this race, so there's no "agreeing" with me per se. I was just quoting Mpix to see what orbitalpunk thought. I have no experience with printing JPG v. TIFF or anything. I was just quoting and asking.

[Hot Sauce 1]

6-10-11
Today’s “Disneyland Photo Tip of the Day” goes fora little spin by photographing people on the Teacups.

Disneyland is designed to be fun and we all go there to have fun. Therefore, it only makes sense to capture the moments when we are having fun. When people are having a good time, they are naturally relaxed and look much more natural in photos. One of the great places to take a picture of your friends or family having a great time is in the Teacups. The Teacups offer a bright and colorful background for a portrait as well as the opportunity to have a dynamic photo filled with motion and excitement.

Taking pictures of people while riding the teacups is fun but does have its difficulties. Getting a sharp shot of your subject with the background in motion comes down to finding the right mix of shutter speed and exposure. You are obviously going to be hand holding the camera, so you can’t use a shutter speed that is too slow or your subject will be a blurry mess.

I’ve wanted to try this for quite some time but until recently couldn’t get anyone to ride the teacups with me. Fortunately Natalie and Rebekah agreed to be my photo guinea pigs and put up with me playing around with the camera while they worked to spin the teacup.

I knew that the shutter speed would need to be somewhere between 1/25th and 1/40th of a second to pull it off so here’s how it went. (I do have to say that my time of day for takingt hese pictures was poorly chosen. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was already low in the sky. This caused the majority of the photos to be in shadows with a few streaks of sunlight making it very difficult to meter the scene properly because it kept changing so quickly.)

I set the camera on Shutter Priority and tried this first shot at 1/25th. The camera chose an ISO of 100 and an aperture of F/7.1.


It had a nice motion blur to the background but seemed a tad bit too slow to keep Natalie and Rebekah in sharp focus so I increased it to 1/30.


This worked out a little better but the main problem I was having (I didn’t think about it at the time) was that the autofocus points would only choose one person, so one was sharp and the other was a little bit blurry. I liked the amount of blur in the background but do thinkit was still a little too slow to really get a dynamic photo and the F/7.1 was a little too shallow of a depth of field to showcase the beautiful area around the tecaups.

Thankfully WDWFigment allowed me to use his photo that he took of his lovely wife on the teacups. This photo struck me not onlybecause her blue dress stands out so well against the yellow teacup but the lighting is perfect and the background is slightly blurred yet filled with color and excitement. I don't know if they planned out her wearing a blue dress and sitting in a yellow teacup, but if it was by luck or a carefully executed plan, it is fantastic either way.

The shutter speed for this was 1/40, F/22, ISO 100,Exposure Compensation -1/3 with the flash on for a fill flash. Using the flash here was brilliant because her hat would have caused a heavy shadow on her face without it. I also really like the small aperture of F/22 because it keeps so much of the area recognizable.


I hope this little whirl on the teacups inspires you to give it a shot yourself. I know I am looking forward to trying it again. When I do, I will go into full Manual Mode and set the Shutter Speed at either 1/30 or 1/40 with a Aperture between F/16 and F/22 and the ISO on Auto. Depending upon the time of day and amount of sunlight, I might need the flash as well. I would also like to give this a try at night using the Night Portrait Mode to see how that works out.

Thank you Tom, not only for letting me use your photo but for sharing your secrets with us.

Happy Snapping
© Michael Greening 2011
For a complete directory and direct links to all ofthese posts, please click here: http://micechat.com/forums/disneyland-resort/140579-disneyland-photo-day-50.html#post1056358940

[orbitalpunk]

I sort of pegged you as a perfectionist. Good to know all of this! If I ever do get anything printed for myself, I probably wouldn't go to your (of Michael's!) great lengths of achieving perfection. If things are off a bit in my photos, it's not a huge deal to me. I understand it is to a lot of people, but color is usually an artistic decision for me (to a degree at least), and I could edit a photo one day at 3550 degrees WB and think that's perfect, and decide 3700 is perfect the very next day. Since I might change my mind so easily anyway, I don't care if the printer changes things slightly.

just the ink alone is $500 for my printer. perfection is costly. ugh... Oh, that reminds me, who ever uses a print service, ask what type of ink they use, pigment or Dye, and whats the life span. pigments last longer but have a sheen effect unless they use a final clear coat to prevent it, dye looks smoother and does not have a sheen effect but has a lower life span.

Just a quick question on your teacups photo. Did you think about spot healing the sun spot, more like dot, on her nose? It catches my attention every time. Just curious.

[Hot Sauce 1]

just the ink alone is $500 for my printer. perfection is costly. ugh... Oh, that reminds me, who ever uses a print service, ask what type of ink they use, pigment or Dye, and whats the life span. pigments last longer but have a sheen effect unless they use a final clear coat to prevent it, dye looks smoother and does not have a sheen effect but has a lower life span.

Just a quick question on your teacups photo. Did you think about spot healing the sun spot, more like dot, on her nose? It catches my attention every time. Just curious.

I'm glad you mentioned the different inks. The company here in San Diego that is working on my Morning Glory print has been having all kinds of trouble getting the colors right. The poor guy has been bringing me samples almost every day and none of them have worked. It turned out that he is using UV Inks which last a long time but have terrible color matching. He switched his machine to Dye Inks and the colors are perfect. But as you said, the Dye Inks do not last as long and cannot be placed in direct sunlight or they will fade in less than a month.

He is printing it for me at 30" x 60" using Dye Inks and a UV Laminate coating. It should last several years but still cannot go into a location with sunlight. The spot I'm hanging it is in an indoor room with no windows, so no problem there.

I should be getting it this afternoon and will try to post a photo of it when I do.

[alphabassetgrrl]

Thanks for the tips on waterfalls. I really need to start playing with the ND filters more. I frequently have difficulty photographing water since it's always so terribly bright and I want a longer exposure to smooth out the water a bit but the filters should help.

[Hot Sauce 1]

For the "Pretty" shot of the day I decided to focus on some small details from the Enchanted Tiki Room.

[Hot Sauce 1]

6-13-11

Today’s “Disneyland Photo Tip of the Day”continues some of the concepts of the previous post about photographing moving objects with a blurred background by taking a look at Panning.

Following a moving object with your camera “panning” can produce exciting and dramatic effects and if done well gives a sense of movement and speed. It is also somewhat difficult to master and takes a bit of practice. Good subjects for panning include race cars, bicycles and running pets or people.

To pan effectively you must set your camera on Shutter Priority and choose a shutter speed that will allow you to cleanly capture the moving subject while making the background a blur of streaks. The most common shutter speeds are usually between 1/20th and 1/40th of a second, depending upon how fast your subject is moving. Other things to consider are your distance from the subject and the focal distance you are shooting at. You don't want ashutter speed slower than your focal distance. For example 1/20th of a second if the focal distance is 20mm.

In Shutter Priority Mode the camera will try to handle the exposure by adjusting the aperture either up or down to create a well exposed image. You have to choose your shutter speed and then see how the exposure is and adjust either the ISO and or Exposure Compensation to make sure it isn’t over or underexposed. There may be times when there is either too much light or not enough light for the aperture or ISO to completely handle the exposure so that is when you must adjust the Exposure Compensation up or down to make up the difference.

A good panning technique is like a good golf swing. You need to stand facing the spot where you want to snap the photo and swivel your hips through the movement of the subject. Also keep in mind where you are standing and what will be in the background when the subject comes into your frame. You should try to avoid having people or other stationary objects in the foreground because they will be a distraction in front of your moving subject.

For my first attempt I chose the Teacups and Dumbo.I can definitely say that this does take some practice and that I need more of it.

I started at the Teacups, shooting them as they whirled by. My first attempt was at 1/25th, F/11, ISO 100 and 0 Exposure Compensation. The speed seemed ok but the bright spots seemed a little blown out.


I kept the shutter speed the same at 1/25th, and pressed the shutter half way down for a bit following the teacup. This time it set the aperture to F/16 , ISO 100, 0 Exposure Compensation. This seemed to work a little better on the bright spots.


Then I moved over to Dumbo.
Here I am standing parallel to the spot where I was shooting them.


The light was pretty bright so I chose a speed of 1/25, ISO 100, 0 Exposure Compensation. The camera chose an aperture of F/22. The exposure was pretty good but it didn’t have quite the blur I was after.


I dropped the shutter speed down to 1/15th, kept the ISO 100 and dropped the exposure compensation down to -1. The blur was good but it is a little too dark. It kept the same aperture of F/22.


Next was at 1/15, F/22, ISO 100, Exposure Compensation -2/3.


Now at 1/20, F/22, ISO 100, Exposure Compensation-1/3. I think this one worked the best.


Like I said, I need more practice. I hope you all go out and give it a try for yourselves.

Happy Snapping
© Michael Greening 2011

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

[WDWFigment]

Mike - next time you head out to shoot, try panning something that moves in more of a straight line. Dumbo and the teacups are going to be more difficult to get successfully because they're moving in more direction than one at once.

I like trying on Splash Mountain, as well as the Davy Crockett canoes. I've had better results with Splash Mountain more recently, but I don't have the photos posted on Flickr. I still like this one, though:


You May Get Wet by Tom Bricker (WDWFigment), on Flickr

Orbitalpunk - I'm sort of torn on the sunspot, but I think I agree with you. In other shots, there are sunspots on her face that are more like "sun freckling" and I think those work better because none are prominent or distracting. This is really the only one you can make out here, so it's a bit more distracting. Good call.

[Hot Sauce 1]

Mike - next time you head out to shoot, try panning something that moves in more of a straight line. Dumbo and the teacups are going to be more difficult to get successfully because they're moving in more direction than one at once.

I like trying on Splash Mountain, as well as the Davy Crockett canoes. I've had better results with Splash Mountain more recently, but I don't have the photos posted on Flickr. I still like this one, though:


You May Get Wet by Tom Bricker (WDWFigment), on Flickr

Orbitalpunk - I'm sort of torn on the sunspot, but I think I agree with you. In other shots, there are sunspots on her face that are more like "sun freckling" and I think those work better because none are prominent or distracting. This is really the only one you can make out here, so it's a bit more distracting. Good call.

I was trying to figure out what I was going to try for my first attempt at panning. I was thinking of Splash Mountain but it wasn't open the day I was shooting those. I'm also thinking about trying it on something faster moving like the California Screaming Coaster the next time I am there.

The teacups and Dumbo were kind of difficult because they were moving on a curve instead of a straight line. It was tough to figure out what to shoot that moved straight and not in a curve. There really isn't much that does go straight, especially at a decent rate of speed.

I definitely want to practice it some more.

[anndreeuhh]

I agree with Tom on this one. Something that moves in a straight line -as opposed to something spinning- would definitely work out better. Spinning rides (to me at least) seem easier to do the whole long exposure on them like:

Zephyr'ing on By by `Andrea [anndreeuhh], on Flickr
or

Dumbo in Flight by `Andrea [anndreeuhh], on Flickr

I had only had my camera for a few weeks before I started messing around with panning and other creative things. If I recall correctly I had actually been shooting on "Scene (Landscape)" Priority and seeing as how I didn't know what I was doing the shutter was slower so I knew I had to pan in order to get a "clear" shot. This is the result: (I personally really love this shot)


U.B. Speeding by `Andrea [anndreeuhh], on Flickr

I can't wait to see the ones from California Screamin!
Another suggestion: seeing as how I hate Space Mountain yet enjoy photos from it, this would work really well for when the train comes back into the loading dock or when it takes off into the ride. Then again, I haven't been in that building in years so I'm not sure if it's changed since I last went on it.

[Hot Sauce 1]

Here's today's "Pretty" picture for the day. It is another one where I was experimenting with photographic impressionism. I call it "Memories of journeys long past."

[Hot Sauce 1]

I wanted to give an update on the canvas print that I had done at Easy Canvas Prints.
Here is the link to the post about it: The Disneyland Photo of the Day...

I decided to contact them and ask if perhaps they put the canvas on the wrong side of the frame as some explanation as to why there was a big groove running around the entire face of the canvas. They asked me to e-mail them a photo of it so I did. 2 days later I heard back from them saying they doubt it was mounted on the back of the frame because of the way their jigs work and asked me to send them pictures of the back of it. I e-mailed them photos of the back and explained that I also doubted that it was backwards but didn't understand why the groove was there creating a shadow across the sky and white line across the bottom. That was 4 days ago and I still haven't received any response back from them.

I did however have it printed at a local company here in San Diego who just delivered it to me this afternoon. I had it printed 30" x 60" as a regular photo and mounted on 1/2" Gator board and laminated. I have to say that I am stunned at how sharp the photo is and how clean and rich. This one I am actually very happy with. FINALLY! This photo of it is blurry and doesn't do it justice but it might give you a sense of it's size and color. It is resting on top of my computer monitor which is a 22" monitor (for scale)

[orbitalpunk]

Excellent job Hot Sauce.

I hope you dont mind some questions.

1. Did you print it on Canvas again?

2. Is it pigment or dye ink?

3. What did they charge?

Again, nice work. Some say its never really a photograph until it printed. And this is one heck of a photograph.

[Hot Sauce 1]

Excellent job Hot Sauce.

I hope you dont mind some questions.

1. Did you print it on Canvas again?

2. Is it pigment or dye ink?

3. What did they charge?

Again, nice work. Some say its never really a photograph until it printed. And this is one heck of a photograph.

This was printed on photo paper just as a photograph. I am really stunned at how perfectly sharp it is. I could easily take this to 36 x 72 without any pixelation.

It was Dye Inks, then laminated with a UV laminate. I do have to keep it out of direct sunlight or it will fade.

He didn't charge me for it because we did it as a trade out for hot sauce. I asked him what it would normally cost and he said around $175.00. What made it more expensive was the fact that it was 30 x 60, which isn't an effective use of the sheet of gator board. If it was done as a 24 x 48, it is a better use of materials and would be more cost effective.