Uploads from Groucho Dis

The monorail and... Splash Mountain?

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:10:29 -0700

How often do you get those two things in the same photo?

This is a shot from our room at Bay Lake Towers, as Monorail Orange approaches the Magic Kingdom station. The lens was my rather huge ~50-year-old preset Takumar 300mm F4, with it's 18 (!) aperture blades.

A clear, dark night at Everest.

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Mon, 13 May 2013 05:28:35 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Expedition Everest, always a fun place to be at night. The lighting is fun (though the bright mountain makes it hard to maintain the highlights in a photo) and the crowds are light - it's usually a walk-on at this point. This particular night, we had an especially dark and clear night, with the stars and moon shining brightly.

One rumor that I hear is that it's hard to get night shots at Animal Kingdom nowadays - not so! You just need to be there sometime other than the summer, since the days are just too long then. During this trip (February 2013), Animal Kingdom was open until at least 7pm for at least seven days in a row, and two of those days it was open until 8! With it starting to get dark at, oh, 5:30 or so, that gives plenty of time to see it in the dark. So, the trick is just to go in the winter and adjoining months. :)

NYPD crash from The Amazing Spiderman 2

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:51:36 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Right here in Rochester, NY, filming is going on now for a big NYC chase scene for next summer's The Amazing Spiderman 2. I was able to stop in on the one day that they took a break and get pretty close to the cars, including this big three-car pileup.

A close examination will show the ramps that are on the rear of the first two cop cars, to enable the following cars to ride up the back up the car head of them, ripping up the roof in the process. Cool stuff!

There are a bunch more photos over at Google+:
plus.google.com/u/0/115937286730696834482/posts/X2cQYtjfxYY

Darkside of the Endor Moon

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:41:43 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Happy Star Wars Day!

Here we see Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, traditionally the opening act of the Hyperspace Hoopla, promoting their new album, "Darkside of the Endor Moon". Featuring such hits as Copacabantha, Watto is Love, and My Sebulba.

Sorry for the lack of updates; Far Cry 3 has been brutally sucking up the time when I usually be working on photos!

Nighttime Fountain of Nations

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:55:45 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Future World in Epcot is certainly colorful at night, isn't it? It's definitely much more attractive when the sun goes down. During the day, it's a bit too much gray concrete for my tastes.

I believe that I used the Gorillapod on a railing for this shot. It looks like I got slight camera movement during the 2-second exposure, but not too bad. The water is certainly nice and silky, which is what I was going for.

Let me outta here...

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:30:17 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Watch those coffin nails! This is one of my favorite setpieces in the ride. Seeing this shot takes me back to being a kid, watching a little three-minute Super8 film of the Haunted Mansion in my room projected against my wall. No sound, just the whirring of the projector. I must have watched it a zillion times.

Flamingo by Miyuki

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:45:16 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Miyuki is one of Epcot's treasures; it's always a treat to catch her making her rice candy sculptures. Here we see a crowd admiring the pink flamingo that she's putting the final touches on with a paintbrush.

One interesting change was that she was not giving away the candy to the person suggesting an animal, but instead they all were going to a children's hospital. I don't know if that's the way it is all the time now or it was for a limited time.

T-Rex on the loose

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:05:25 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Here's the final indoor scene of Universal Studios' Jurassic Park ride, where dinosaurs are tearing apart a research facility, which somehow leads you to a bone-soaking plummet into the waters below.

A decent enough ride, and yet another attempt by Universal to make sure that you're completely and utterly saturated with water by the time you leave the Islands of Adventure.

Fireworks and magic carpets

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:07:47 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Here's a different location for fireworks photos... with a spinning Magic Carpets of Aladdin in the foreground. OK, it's not exactly Cinderella Castle, but I was happy with the colors and motion that I got here.

Soggy Olive

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 05:51:31 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Being a huge fan of Popeye (at least, the EC Segar comics and the Fleischer Studios cartoons), I couldn't skip the Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges ride at Islands of Adventure... one of the wettest rides in a very wet park! It was pretty good, if you don't mind getting totally soaked.

This is near the end of the ride, as Popeye pumps out Olive Oyl like a well water pump - I believe this was done in one of the Fleischer Studio cartoons, too. Typical for Universal, they didn't bother to paint the big screws holding on the panel on Olive's chest. These panels and big silver screws are fairly obvious throughout the ride - you don't notice so much when you're actually on it as you've moving so much and dodging water, but in still photos, it's pretty clear.

Gargoyle on watch

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:57:19 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Waiting for our reservation for the new Be Our Guest restaurant in New Fantasyland gave me a chance to grab a few photos of the sullen-looking gargoyles on the bridge. Not the most inviting fellows, but then, this area isn't supposed to be cute and cozy, I don't think!

While we were waiting, I overheard a server telling someone without a reservation that they were booked until August. This was in late February. Would such a coveted spot live up to its popularity?

Unfortunately, for us, the answer was "no." While the area was must certainly wonderfully themed, both my son and I didn't care for our steaks. Perhaps it was because they were more "French", but ultimately they were overly fatty, a bit tough, and very thin. My wife liked her dinner but was not blown away at all. It's a shame as I really wanted to like it, and it wasn't cheap, either! The sides and dessert were pretty good, but all in all, I won't be in a rush to come back, at least not for dinner.

What a view.

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 05:12:38 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Here was our first room at Bay Lake Tower from our recent trip. This is a pretty darn nice way to stay in the mood once you're back at your room! Great location, too - same level as the walkway to the Contemporary and the second room away from the elevators and walkway. Super convenient!

I say first room as I wasn't able to book a Magic Kingdom view for the whole trip, so we switched rooms halfway through the trip - to a "lake view" room that actually have a better view of MK!

We really loved Bay Lake Tower; I will definitely be staying there again!

The photo itself is pretty straightforward - 30 seconds at F10 and some gentle tweaking in Lightroom. Keen eyes will note the light trails of the monorail passing by, the car lights in the parking lot (just noticed them myself), and you can't miss that moon in the sky!

Haunted Organist

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:29:11 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Here's one of those shots that has been on my list for years, and I finally have one that I'm happy with! This is, as you probably realize, the ghostly organist from the ballroom scene in the Haunted Mansion. Disneyland's version has the original organ from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; the WDW version is a copy of the original. Here you can see it well enough to notice the bat-shaped music holder. Even at full resolution, I can't make out the notes on the music, but I assume that it's legitimate sheet music for Grim Grinning Ghosts.

These shots do put a strain on the ol' camera... this was 12,800 ISO pushed almost a full exposure up in Lightroom, F1.4, manually focused. image stabilized, 1/30th of a second. You're also shooting through the railings in front of your Doom Buggy, which are here visible as vertical shadows across parts of the image, like the right-most candlesticks. I did a little noise reduction, but not too much in order to keep the detail.

"Oh yes, and no flash pictures, please! We spirits are frightfully sensitive to bright lights."

The True Love castle

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 06:05:50 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

As part of the Limited Time Magic promotion for 2013, the week of Valentine's Day was "True Love Week". This included the castle being lit in pink, with hearts projected against it.

I didn't have time to set up a tripod (plus the crowds were too much!), so this is a handheld shot of the Fantasyland side of the castle. (I believe that technically, this is the real front of the castle!)

This was our first day arriving, so I didn't get a chance to see much of the promotion, but what we did see looked pretty nice.

The bright pink really blows out the camera sensor, so there's quite a bit of highlight recovery going on here! I could have pulled it back farther to increase detail more but you started to lose the vibrancy of it at that point.

Nero fiddles while Piggy burns up.

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:52:42 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

OK, this penguin probably doesn't have a name, but Nero is as good as any.

On our last visit, we ended up in the front row of Muppetvision 3D, which gives a chance to get an upclose look at the penguin orchestra, who actually are fairly busy during the movie, watching and reacting to it in addition to their musical duties!

Here's the scene during Miss Piggy's big solo, rudely interrupted by Bean Bunny, whom is hated by both Miss Piggy and myself. There's so much great about Muppetvision 3D, but it would be even better without Bean and the awful Waldo.

Drowning in flowers

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 04:43:55 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Here we have Sorcerer Mickey looking on as the brooms throw bucketfuls of flowers onto the grass.

This is the current topiary at the entrance to Disney's Hollywood Studios, so a popular photo spot. In fact, this was my first photo from my trip there last month. I tried to use depth of field to give it a look, and I think I probably had a circular polarizer on my lens, too, with that deep blue sky!

All aboard the Hogwarts Express...

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 05:09:19 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Another Harry Potter photo for today. Here's the Hogwarts Express train from an extremely wide prospective. This was actually a fisheye photo originally, "corrected" into an ultrawide. I generally much prefer the fisheye look to UWA, but everyone once in a while, the straighter lines work, and I think they did for this shot, pushing the front of the train right out to the corner.

I hope you like!

Hogwarts Castle starburst (Explored!)

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:16:55 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Between the Harry Potter area and the Jurassic Park area at Islands of Adventure, you can get a nice view of the sun setting behind the castle. This shot took a few tries to get the best aperture choice and just a slight amount of shadow fill in Lightroom to give a little bit of detail to the foreground, but not too much!

This was one of my attempts to get photos of the Harry Potter area (especially the castle) that weren't the same basic view that they've planned out for you that everyone takes.

Hollywood Tower Hotel on a starry night

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 05:00:12 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Better known at the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror! This is from my Star Wars Weekends trip last year; the rest of the family was resting and I was out with my tripod. :)

This area is a little tricky to shoot as there are such different white balances and levels of light. This is not an HDR shot but it did require some tweaking in Lightroom! The exposure is bumped up almost three stops, the shadows brought up, the highlights pulled back, and so on.

I'm also a little amused that the guy sitting on the bench stayed almost perfectly motionless for the 30 second exposure! Hypnotized by his phone...

Weathered finial

nobody@flickr.com (Groucho Dis) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 04:49:43 -0700

Groucho Dis posted a photo:

Back in Epcot, here's one of these Chinese finials that I find myself shooting often; this time with the Torii Gate in the background. This finial seems particularly worn, giving it an interesting texture.

I shot with with my 50mm F1.2 lens; F1.2 itself would have been too narrow; this is "only" F2.0. The nice thing around an F1.2 lens is that even if you're not shooting at F1.2, it's razor sharp as early as F1.4, while your usual F1.4 lens is still a touch soft at that point. Plus, if you can get the focus just right at F1.2 and the picture allows such an extremely shallow DoF, it can be magical!