I have posted a few shots from this area already, but this is my first that is your standard sort of framing for the scene. It is a no brainer kind of shot but still a lot of fun to edit as it just looks really awesome (minus the blue lighting… but I digress.) I did a bit of dodging and burning to bring even more focus on the Falcon and hopefully differentiate the shot at least a little. Thanks for looking!
The cool thing about this spot is it makes the Slinky Dog coaster look like it goes upside down. I took this just as the sunset was really starting to pop off and I really like the divide between the orange sunset colors on one side and the fading blue sky and clouds on the other… virtually right down the center. Enjoy.
I initially framed this shot more forward with the frame edge cutting off along the arches. This looked alright but then I thought if I switched to the fisheye, I could get the whole arch in the frame. I certainly liked the frame better this way and hope you will enjoy it too.
This is a photo of me waiting in line for a Dole Whip (I went with the twist). The sky started popping some interesting last-minute color here, so I took this shot with the lens I already had on the camera which was the Nikon 35 1.8S. I applied a tilt shift blur to the bottom of the frame to obscure the people a bit and also burned it down a bit to further reduce focus to the crowd of people (which you are now looking at because I’m talking about it). I’m sure there was a better frame to be had here but again, I was in the line for a Dole Whip and obviously choices were made… It was delicious by the way.
Another Splash Mountain sunset and another bizarro angle. This time I tried to angle the photo along the curvature of the loop. I went for a bit darker of an edit to really accentuate the contrast between shadow and light. So, a decent amount of dodging and burning went into this one. I hope you like it.
Alright, I am back with some more new stuff. Having shot around the parks so much I find myself trying a lot of weird angles. Sometimes they work out, other times I just look at it later and wonder what I was thinking. This one I like because of the way the palms on the right work with the angle. I guess you could still just call it a dutch angle and honestly it is a cheap way to attempt to make a frame seem more interesting. I will leave it to you to decide if it works here. Enjoy.
This seemingly simple photo has a lot to talk about. To start, even though I framed Elsa on the edge of the frame I pointed the camera in such a way that she is pointing and looking into the camera. I was also fortunate to have the moon in frame a lot on this night which is always a fun element to include. Next up we must discuss those blue lights Disney uses everywhere yet again. In this scene they are bathed all over Anna, Elsa, all the plants beneath them and into the building and plans in the background. It’s all just so boring, lazy and overkill for the lighting.
Once again, I’ve colored corrected the scene. After an initial draft I decided to bring back the blue lighting at a lesser strength on Elsa as at least this makes sense. Finally, and unfortunately, there was a light just out of my frame in the upper right-hand corner that was causing some flaring across the scene. This is honestly an easy thing to deal with when shooting, as you can simply using your hand to block the light source and eliminate the flare. I thought I had done this but apparently, I did not do a very good job as when I got home, I realized that all 3 of my attempts to block the flare had failed. To be fair it’s very hard to see on the exposure before you start boosting the shadows but It’s still one of those things that is going to irritate me every time I look at this photo but I figured it’s a good teaching opportunity. So remember, you can use your hand to block flares and then just use an extra shot to mask the hand out eliminating the flare… but you to actually have your hand in the right spot to block the light source… lol. ? Ultimately, I did clean it up and reduce it significantly using frequency separation which is a really neat way to separate texture from color and work on them independently.
This one was taken on March 12th, just 3 days before the parks closed due to COVID-19… hence the title. I have always been one to shoot low. I often in the past set my tripod height around 3 feet as I feel this simulates the view a small child gets of Disney. It makes everything feel a bit grander. I’ve also shot many with the camera on the floor, but they were always a bit more problematic because I’d have to lay on my stomach to see through the viewfinder. Now with the flip screen on the Nikon Z7 I find myself shooting these types of shots without hesitation. It’s a complete game changer for me personally.
To be honest this photo is just OK… I’m mostly posting it to talk about (complain?) something odd I experienced shooting this one. I initially had the Nikon 24-70 F4s on my camera and was waiting patiently for the monorail to come around so I could have it in my frame. As I waited the sun was beating down strongly and I noticed my frame through the viewfinder was getting foggier by the second. Within about a minute it was completely fogged, and I couldn’t see the scene at all. There was no fogging on the front element, and I could nothing on the back element of the lens or the sensor. I swapped out to the Nikon 14-30 F4s and all was good. Somehow the internals of the 24-70 F4s fogged up just from being in direct sunlight for a few minutes. Really weird and something I’ve never experienced with any other lens, even in direct sunlight for hours. What’s the dealeo Nikon?
I took several shots from this spot as the sunset including several with Slinky Dog in the frame. Ultimately the Slinky Dog blocked some of the glorious sunset and made the image feel cluttered and unbalanced. This way the image lets you focus on the structure, the characters, specifically Jessie, and the amazing, glowing sunset. When I shoot a frame, I sometimes find myself trying to stuff as many elements in as possible, but this shot was a good reminder that sometimes less is more.