Much of the attention goes to the Partners Statue featuring Walt and Mickey in the Magic Kingdom, but the Roy Disney and Minnie Mouse park bench is worth the time to find. Find? Well, the bench moves around throughout the year. Most of the time the bench is located by the flagpole just inside the park entrance, but on this day it was over by the Fire Department to make room for Limited Time Magic’s Long Lost Characters Week.

Technical Details

This shot was taken with the NIKON D40 and the 35.0 mm f/1.8 lens.

• Focal Length 35 mm | Aperture f/2.5 | Shutter Speed 1/800 | ISO ISO 200

Mouse and Man – Hand in Hand originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

Sunset on Sanibel Island from the beach at Seaside Inn.

Sanibel Island, Florida
Seaside Inn

Technical Details

This shot was taken with the NIKON D40 and the Sigma 8-16 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens.

• Focal Length 8.5 mm | Aperture f/22 | Shutter Speed 0.8 sec to 1/20 sec | ISO ISO 200

A Sanibel Sunset originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

While working on a Time Logging database, I wanted to develop a simple way for the user to add a second entry without adding another button to the form.  Let’s say that 99% of the time there will be just one entry, so having the extra button would get in the way of a clean look.  Well, at least in my opinion.  At the same time, I did not want to trouble the user by having them leave the input form.  My solution was to enable the user to hold down the shift key, which would cause the save button to save the current record and automatically reset the form for a new entry.  Normally, the save button would save and close the input form.

The VBA Code

If you want to follow this example, start with a blank form and create a command button cmdTest.

The VBA code provided below is simple and to the point.  Basically, it will detect if the Shift key is pressed and run alternate code.

Step 1:  create a public variable to store the status of the Shift key as TRUE or FALSE.

Dim boolShift as Boolean

Step 2: add MouseDown code to the cmdTest button.  This will update the public variable with the status of the shift key each time the user clicks on the button.

Private Sub cmdTest_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
”This is the actual status check for the Shift Key status used in the Click event.
”Set shift button status…  Place a negative (-) in front to make it True/False.
boolShift = -Shift

End Sub

Step 3: Now, it is time to make use of the public variable and build the cmdTest click code.  In the previous step, we set the public variable to the current shift key state.  In this step we will look at that variable and run code based on if the user is holding down the  shift key.

Private Sub cmdTest_Click()
”Determine the user intent based on the pressing of a shift key.
If boolShift = True Then
MsgBox “Shift Key was held Down during Button Click”
Else
MsgBox “Shift Key was NOT detected during Button Click”
End If
End Sub

Step 4:  This step is optional, but I find that it is helpful to let the user know what is happening.  For this example we will change the caption text of the command button based on the status of the shift key.  When the user moves the mouse over the cmdTest button code will run to determine the status of the shift key.  If the shift key is pressed the text will change to “Test + SHIFT” to let the user know something different will happen when the button is clicked.

Private Sub cmdTest_MouseMove(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
”Set Shift button status
boolShift = -Shift

”This is for visually changing the command button text.
If boolShift = True Then
Me.cmdTest.Caption = “Test + SHIFT”
Else
Me.cmdTest.Caption = “Test”
End If
End Sub

Finished Product

Below is an example of this code in action.

Access Database VBA Detect Shift Key on Button Click originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

Today I had the opportunity to explore the New Fantasyland with my 5 year old daughter. New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom started to allow guests to experience the new on Friday. Disney is referring to this as a “dress rehearsals” as Cast Member and Passholder previews are on the horizon. The official opening date is December 6, 2012.

This is one of many gargoyles tasked with keeping the bridge illuminated as guest head towards Be Our Guest Restaurant which sits below Beast’s Castle.

Technical Details

This shot was taken with the NIKON D40 and the Sigma 8-16 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens.

• Focal Length 12 mm | Aperture f/5 | Shutter Speed 1/640 | ISO ISO 200

A Gargoyle Lights the Way to Be Our Guest Resturant originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

Mickey Mouse is all smiles after escaping an ancient, abandoned South American temple with the Golden Mickey Idol!

Technical Details

This shot was taken with the NIKON D40 and the 35.0 mm f/1.8 lens.

• Focal Length 35 mm | Aperture f/1.8 | Shutter Speed 1/10 | ISO 200

Mickey Mouse as Indiana Jones and the Golden Mickey originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

After reading Scott Thomas’ latest assignment over at Views Infinitum I began to reflect on my motion shots.  This part of Scott’s post hit home and helped me recall a time when I was in a creative rut…

motion photographs are made intentionally by the photographer

A while back, I felt very uninspired photographically. I guess, you could say, I was in a creative rut. I was at my one of my favorite places to shoot, but could not find anything I wanted to photograph. I was so frustrated with myself creativity that I was about to put my camera in the bag and just call it a day. Then, I rode The Seas with Nemo & Friends attraction.   I tried to take a shot on the ride, but it turned out terrible.  I was shooting in Aperture Priority mode and the exposure went on for a few seconds.  It was a blur, but it was this moment when inspiration hit me square in the face. Thankfully, not literally!  It was time to try something different. I switched to Manual mode, dialed in a f-stop and changed my shutter to BULB and went for it.

While, not that great of a photo, it inspired me to see what I could come up with the remainder of the afternoon.

The rest of the day all I did was shoot long, hand-held exposures on Epcot’s dark rides.

Norway’s Maelstrom

I wanted to see what it would look like by adding a foreground element into the motion blurred background.  I failed using the bow of the boat as it to was blurry.  The couple in front of me yielded a much better result.  The next time, I attempt this shot, I will be adamant that my models remain still during the exposure!

Mexico’s Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros.

I was now hooked with the flowing wave of colors.  I wanted more.

Spaceship Earth

My favorite shot of the set, mostly due to the colors.

Warning

Experimenting with long exposures on rides can become addictive.  I’ve repeated this more on Spaceship Earth than I’d like to admit.  I tried to get creative with the Earth, near the end of the ride, by moving the camera around in a circle in the hopes of creating a Mickey head.  It sounds simple, but I’ve yet to nail the shot leaving me no other choice than try again next time.

The last, and really only true warning is that shooting long exposures will quickly drain your battery.  Consider yourself warned if you are in charge of capturing those priceless family photos.  I do not want to be the one who gets blamed for you missing that once in a lifetime shot because you killed your battery shooting long exposures all morning.

Abstract Motion at Walt Disney World’s Epcot originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

Wow, I’ve been away from the blog for some time now. I am working on a new project and have not had much time to devote to photography.

By the way, anyone have a D300 that you are no longer using? I missed an awesome deal on eBay last week and I’m still kicking myself.

Technical Details

This shot was taken with the NIKON D40 and the 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens.

• Focal Length 8 mm
• Aperture f/6.3
• Shutter Speed 1/500
• ISO 200

Expedition Everest Totem originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

I was walking around Epcot’s Spaceship Earth and my attention was drawn to the stainless steel panels at the base near the queue entrance. I walked over and held my camera above my head with the lens resting in the seem created by the two panels and fired away. The original shot was OK, but the lines gave me an idea for a modified version. I started first firing up the Tron Legacy soundtrack in iTunes and went for it. This first version, Enter the Grid, reminds me of some of the merchandise that was sold in the parks to promote to movie.

Spaceship Tron #0/1: Enter The Grid

Then few minutes later it hit me…. What would it look like inside the grid?……..

Spaceship Tron #1/1: Welcome to The Grid

01010100 01110010 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01110000 01101001 01110010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110110 01101001 01100101 01110111 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01010011 01110000 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01000101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101000 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01000100 01101001 01110011 01101110 01100101 01111001 00100111 01110011 00100000 01000101 01110000 01100011 01101111 01110100 00101110 00100000 00100000 00001010 00001010 01010111 01100001 01101100 01110100 00100000 01000100 01101001 01110011 01101110 01100101 01111001 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00001010 01000101 01110000 01100011 01101111 01110100 00001010 01010011 01110000 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01000101 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101000

Translation….

Tron inspired views of Spaceship Earth at Disney’s Epcot.

Walt Disney World
Epcot
Spaceship Earth

Spaceship Tron: Enter and Welcome to the Grid originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

The Hand of A Sorcerer’s Apprentice

I look forward to Epcot’s International Flower and Garden Festival each year. The park explodes with color and character based topiaries. You can find these topiaries scattered around the World year round, but the best time to view them all in one place is at the annual festival.

When I heard this years entrance theme was Fantasia I was thrilled. I love Fantasia, including the 2000 update. In fact, the Fantasia
and Fantasia 2000 soundtracks were the first two CDs I loaded onto my first iPod! To top it off Sorcerer Mickey is my favorite Disney Character!

19th Annual Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival
Walt Disney World

19th Annual Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival – The Hand of a Sorcerer’s Apprentice originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog

I was looking through some cruise pictures and this one caught my attention. I processed this at the same time as the previous Stacked Reflection shot, but I was not really happy with it. After having a fun time with the Dream shots, I’ve Got A Dream and I’ve Got Another Dream , at Castaway Cay that had some cool lens flare and sun burst I am liking this one again.

Disney Cruise Line
Deck 12, Disney Dream

Stacked Reflection II – Disney Cruise Line originally posted on Scott G Sanders's Blog