When Disney announced that they were doing another 24 hour day, I knew I had to be there for sunrise photos. I still lived in New Jersey for the Leap Day festivities last year, so there was no way I was missing this one. Waiting at the entrance, I could see a beautiful blue hour developing over the park, and I was getting antsy to be let in! Once I was let in, I made a few quick stops before heading here, the Liberty Square bridge. This is my all time favorite Magic Kingdom photo location, and I had wanted to get a capture of it at sunrise for a very long time. I did a 5 exposure bracket from -2 all the way to +2 and processed it as a 32bit HDR, which was the subject of our last ISO5571 episode. After heading home at 7:30AM, I slept for a bit and then got right to processing!

This shot was taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, and the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens, both of which are available at Amazon. If you shop at Amazon, please click the links here in the article, as anything you buy afterwards will help support the site. Thanks for looking!

This photo was a very tricky one to take. On the night I shot it, it had poured for about two hours, which made a weird layer of haze and fog in the sky. Add to the equation the color of Cinderella Castle that I foolishly chose to shoot, and this one took a while to get right. To capture all the dynamic range in a scene like this, a three exposure bracket was definitely necessary. Once I took care of doing that, on the computer my biggest challenge was controlling the purple on the castle. To do this, I actually desaturated the purples in the image and then darkened them using the luminance slider in Camera Raw. I also made sure to correct the distortion caused by the ultra wide lens since it made the castle look like it was leaning over.

This shot was created with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens, both of which are available at Amazon. If you shop at Amazon, please click the links here within the article, as doing so will help support the site. Thanks for looking!

As many of you know, Flickr has kind of the been the Hub so to speak for the Disney Photography Community. But, as of late, it has kind of fallen off the map, with Flickr becoming a little bit stale and not showing any signs of changing. But, the other day, Flickr rolled out a complete redesign of the site. And while recording our newest episode of ISO5571, we all recalled how we all met through Flickr and that basically this site and/or the podcast probably would have never came together if it weren’t for Flickr. So, we want to try and rebuild that community over there again. So today, we are asking you all to post a Disney photo to your Flickr account! And when you do, tweet to us at @disphotoblog and at @ISO5571 so we can share it with other people! Also, use the hashtag #DisneyFlickrDay when you tweet a link to your photo.

Thanks for reading, and we can’t wait to see your photos.

Promote Yourself

If you post a Disney photo today on flickr, then we invite you to post a link to that photo here in the comments for others to see. The whole point it to share photos with each other, so use this as a way to promote your stream. We will try and post some of the photos later today in this article.

I am posting this shot today for no reason other than the fact that I officially miss Disneyland. It took about 3 months after visiting for me to get those nostalgic feelings when looking at photos from my last trip. Looking at this photo, I can remember exactly which friends I was with and how much fun I was having while shooting. Thankfully after this past trip, I had a lot more keepers than the first time I ever went out there. So at least the urge to correct mistakes is less than last time. But, there really is nothing quite like Disneyland and the original Magic Kingdom, and thus, I’m ready to go back. If anyone would like to fund a trip for me, let me know!

This photo was taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens, both of which are available at Amazon. If you ever shop at Amazon, please click on our links here in the post, as anything you buy afterwards will help support us. Thanks for reading!

This is a shot that has been done over and over again. I understand that. I headed to the park on the day I shot this hoping for some great late afternoon/evening light, but instead got some pretty overcast skies. I was, however, drawn to the clouds that were present. Florida clouds are usually great, whether they are puffy and white OR dark and ominous. To me, they make the shot, and add a sense of motion and drama that I really like,

This shot was taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens, both of which are available at Amazon. As always, if you shop at Amazon, please click the links here in the article to help support the site!

24 Hour Magic Kingdom Day

This Friday (and going into Saturday), Disney is hosting a 24 hour day of operation at the Magic Kingdom. I will be there to hopefully shoot two sunrises. So, if you’d like to meet in the park, I will definitely be at the Liberty Square bridge right after rope drop on the 24th, which is 6AM. Hopefully some beautiful shots of Cinderella Castle and the surrounding areas will be possible. Depending on how that morning goes, I will determine where I’ll be for the 2nd sunrise/blue hour, which will be around the time Disney will be kicking us all out of the park to prepare for the next day. Keep your eyes on our Twitter account @disphotoblog for more details as I figure them all out.

Thanks for reading!

Today we are excited to announce that tickets for the Illuminations Dessert Party during Photo Magic 2013 are now on sale. Thanks to Kingdom Camera Rentals for sponsoring the event and allowing us to offer you the lowest ticket price possible.

Other Photo Magic News

Before we get into the details on the Illuminations Dessert Party tickets, we just want to share some other news on the event.

If you are planning on attending Photo Magic 2013, we encourage you to visit our forums as we have setup a special section just for Photo Magic. It has had a lot of great discussion, ideas and planning from other members planning on attending. We have also setup a few dining reservations that you can sign up for. As of last night, we had almost 30 people signed up for breakfast at Kona Cafe on the last morning, there is still room available to join us! We have also started posting daily schedules and are looking for your feedback and ideas.

Visit the Photo Magic forum and help us plan the event!

Illuminations Dessert Party presented by Kingdom Camera Rentals

When: Wednesday October 23, 2013 from 8:30 – 9:30pm
Where: A private area in the UK pavilion

We found this video on YouTube that shows the exact location we have reserved:

What is included?

• Everyone will get a front row spot to view and photograph Illuminations
• Plenty of dessert options
• We will be giving away some great prizes

What dessert is included?

• Tiramisu
• Chocolate Elcairs
• Pistachio Cannolis
• Madeleines
• Chocolate Fudge Brownies
• Linzer Diamonds
• Guava-Cheese Turnovers
• Baklava
• Fresh Fruit
• Coffee, Teas & assorted beverages

Note: The menu is subject to change.

A VERY SPECAL THANKS TO KINGDOM CAMERA RENTALS FOR SPONSORING THE EVENT.
Thanks to their sponsorship, we were able to lower the cost of each ticket substantially. Be sure to check out Kingdom Camera Rentals if you need to rent any gear for Photo Magic 2013!

TICKETS ARE LIMITED AND AVAILABLE FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE
Only PayPal is accepted for payments

I snapped this photo yesterday while at Art of Animation doing some work for a yet to be announced Disney Photography Blog project (what a tease, right?). The Cars wing at AoA is by far my favorite. It seems to have the most detail, and the different Cars characters that they have out really pop in photographs. Flo is clearly very low to the ground, so from a compositional standpoint, I made sure to get as low to the ground as possible too.

As an aside, I have done a lot of shooting lately with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 as opposed to my Canon 5D Mark III. I go in waves with what gear I’m really into, but right now, it is the Oly for sure. I think part of it has to do with the fact that it’s getting hotter here in Central Florida, and having that lightweight camera system really helps. The huge Lowepro backpack with lots of large gear in it definitely adds to the feeling of the heat and humidity. For most shooting, I feel that the image quality of the OM-D is usually enough. I think the only major limitations of the system for me is that I don’t have an ultra wide angle aside from a fisheye for it, and that the depth of field is nowhere near as shallow as you can achieve with a full frame DSLR. For example, today’s shot was taken at f/1.4, which should make you think background obliteration. But, with the super small Micro 4/3 sensor, you effectively get a DoF equivalent of f/2.8, which while still creating separation, doesn’t completely wash out the background. But, the OM-D has lightning fast and accurate AF, is lightweight, and now that I have a 50mm equivalent, covers my favorite focal length, so there are pros and cons for sure.

This shot was taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25mm f/1.4 Lens, both of which are available at Amazon. Please click the links here in the post and then do some shopping over at Amazon to help support the site. Thanks for reading!

This photo comes from one of my favorite Epcot pavilions, as well as one that I think is rather well suited for fisheye shooting. In Morocco at World Showcase, there are lots of tight places. Those are my favorite places to shoot fisheye. I love creating the illusion of an area of room being huge by using the ultra wide focal length. Morocco has a few of these, between this spot, the area in the back near the restaurant, and the Fez House room with all the pillars. The textures in the walls and ground are also great for taking photos in. Another reason I chose to share this photo is that I love how the starbursts turned out. With the Rokinon manual focus lenses, I’ve noticed wonderful starbursts at any aperture higher than f/4. This one was at f/8, and those lights just twinkle.

This shot was taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the Rokinon 7.5mm F3.5 Fisheye Lens, both of which are available on Amazon. If you ever shop at Amazon, please click the links here in the article since doing so helps support our site! Thanks for reading!

Lately, I haven’t had a ton of time to head into the parks with a tripod and capture some fun stuff. I had a free night this past Friday, so I headed into Epcot hoping for a sunset and some nice night shooting. The sunset was a dud, but the blue hour and nighttime shots were pretty great! This was one of the blue hour shots, which turned out to be a little bit more difficult than it looks to capture. These fiber optics in the ground are awesome. We all understand this. What this means though is that every little kid and family that walks through this area will stop and stand right on top of them for a few minutes at a time! So, this becomes an exercise in patience, but it is worth it when getting the shot you’re looking for.

Compositionally, I went fisheye for this one since I hadn’t done a ton of fisheye shooting lately, and changing things up can usually result in getting the creative juices flowing once again. I set up my tripod to its lowest setting and got as close to the fiber optics in the foreground as I could. I then took 3 exposures at f/8, creating a bracket of [-2, 0, +2]. Once I got home, I blended them, adjusted the white balance to be a tiny bit cooler than what the camera captured, and then did some simple tweaks in Lightroom on it. I didn’t really have to do a ton to this image, as the RAW files from the Olympus OM-D E-M5 are really clean and full of dynamic range, especially for something that falls into the mirrorless camera category. I don’t think I could have done much better with my full frame Canon EOS 5D Mark III.

This photo was taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the Rokinon 7.5mm F/3.5 Fisheye Lens, both of which are available at Amazon. As always, if you ever decide to shop at Amazon, please click the links here inside the article, as anything you buy will help support our site! Thanks for reading!!