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The Magic of Disney in 21 Pictures

Published May 18th, 2012

Disney World in Orlando, Florida is possibly one of the most photographed amusement parks in the World so it's quite tough to create a set of photographs that don't look like the gazillion others that are taken every year.

I went to Disney World with my wife and 3 kids and concentrated on shooting 3 parks in the evenings. I usually travelled very light with just one body (Canon EOS 5D Mark III), two lenses (Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L and the 50mm f/1.4) plus my Gitzo tripod that I carried using the camera-strap from the 5DIII. I was first worried that I would get into trouble by bringing a tripod into the parks but the folks at Disney are very cool about it, no problem with it at all.

I didn't shoot in Disney's Animal Kingdom because that park usually closes at 7pm, so twilight pictures were out of question.

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Built on Dreams

May 2nd, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
35mm / f/5.6

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Casablanca

April 30th, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
16mm / f/9 / 5 sec

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Ghost War

This is a single 30 seconds exposure at f/6.3 and ISO 100

Disney's Epcot Center, Orlando, FL / 2012

April 30th, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
25mm / f/6.3 / 30 sec

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Where Ali Meets Baba

Another one from my nightly Epcot excursion around World Showcase Lagoon.

This is not an HDR

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The Perfect Light

There is this very short time of the day or evening where the ambient matches perfectly the artificial light so you don't need to shoot brackets for HDR processing. I shot this at just before 9pm on April 30 in Orlando, FL which perfectly matched that time-frame.

The building in the picture below is part of the Japanese section at Disney's Epcot Center, btw.

April 30th, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
28mm / f/9 / 15 sec

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20c first 1.4 mile

April 29th, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
20mm / f/18 / 2 sec

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The Dark Side Of The Kingdom

The only way to survive an entire week in Disney World is to not stay in the parks all day. We only went there in the late afternoon and stayed late. Guess how that picture would look like when I had shot it at 2pm. While my family was watching the Electrical Parade with gazillions of others, I grabbed my camera and tripod and wandered the deserted areas of the park like Adventure Land.

This is a 5 AEB shot HDR at f/5.6 and ISO 200. Exposures were between 1/4 and 10 seconds. Post-processing was done in Photomatix Pro, Nik's Color Efex Pro 4 and Lightroom 4. In addition, I had to clone-out some ghosts in Photoshop.

Disney's Magic Kingdom, Orlando, FL / 2012

May 2nd, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
16mm / f/5.6 / 1 sec

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Watching The Parade - NOT

I decide neither to photograph the Magic Kingdom parade nor watch it at all. I rather went to photograph the people who watched it, well not all of them really did.

I'm really fed up with all this Disney World magic after a full week in Orlando but I think I still have a few pictures in my library that I'm going to publish over the next few days...

May 2nd, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
24mm / f/4.5 / 1/400 sec

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Sunset Blvd After Sunset

In case you didn't know: You can make lots of people disappear using long shutter-speeds...

April 29th, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
16mm / f/16 / 3 sec

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In A Galaxy, Far, Far Away

I had some time to wander around Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom while everybody else was getting into position for the nightly Electrical Parade that I didn't really needed to see. Finding my wife and kids again after the event was a totally different story, though...

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Captain Nemo's Office

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IllumiNations

The nightly fireworks spectacle in Disney's Epcot Center. I find it much more interesting to photograph people viewing the fireworks than just the fireworks itself.

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What the American's think Germany looks like

Disney's Epcot Center, Orlando, FL / 2012

April 30th, 2012
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
16mm / f/6.3 / 2 sec

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The Happiest Place On Earth

is also the most photography friendly amusement park on Earth I've ever experienced. They don't even consider your tripod a WMD and even though Epcot is officially closing at 9pm, they didn't bother me sneaking around the deserted World Showcase area until way after 10pm.