I finally figured out how to shoot this parade from the Contemporary! It's easy! Raise your iso up high enough to freeze the action. Because this parade is floating along, it never stops moving completely. I have always had a hard time getting it to photograph because of the dark and the moving lights. Here I was using the 80-400 lens so my max apeture was f5 because of the focal length. I raised the iso up to 2000. The camera picked 1/4 second. This seemed to work really good. Some of the pics actually are a little to exposed and show too much stray light. These two had the best combo of saturated colors and sharp lights. [This attachment has been purged. Older attachments are purged from time to time to conserve disk space. Please feel free to repost your image.]
Thanks Poly. Mine have always been a blurry mess too. I don't know why it took so long for me to figure out that a high iso on a tripod works pretty good!
Nice work Craig! I haven't tried to shoot the water parade for a long time because I always failed miserably. Of course I was usually trying to use up the last couple of shots on a roll of film and always had a low ISO film in the camera. I'll have to try it again next time I'm there.
Those are great shots... does anyone know if the Electrical Water Pageant runs on both sides of the Contemporary? The schedule is as follows: Disney's Polynesian Resort - 9:00pm Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa - 9:15pm Disney's Wilderness Lodge - 9:35pm Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground - 9:45pm Disney's Contemporary Resort - 10:05pm Magic Kingdom park - 10:20pm (only during extended Magic Kingdom Park hours) So is it safe to assume that from around 9 - 9:30(ish) that it should be visible from 7 Seas Lagoon side (as in Craig's pics above) and that from 9:30 - 10:00 it'll be viewable from the Bay Lake side? The route is kind of weird to me. How do they get from 7 Seas Lagoon to Bay Lake? I drew a picture. Does anyone know if this is somewhat close to what they do?? I know I'm probably putting way to much thought into this, but I'm only going to be down for a couple days, and the only chance I'm going to get to see this is after Illuminations, so I don't have much time. I'd appreciate any help anyone can give!
I wish I could help more, but I have never really paid attention to the times too much. My exif data above shows 10:21 pm, so that puts it right at the MK time. I believe the main focus of the parade at the contemp is on the bay side. It does travel through the canal, just like you have drawn. It is docked during the day in the canal in the top left of your picture. you can see it from the monorail. My suggestion would be to ask a CM for more details. Actually, if I can, I will find out this week for you and post back if I get more details.
If you look closely in the upper left hand portion of your picture, there is a straight canal. Those tinny little things on the right hand side of the canal are the boats for the water pageant! They go around the 'right' side of the islands and loop past the Poly, then GF, then off to Bay Lake.
Thanks for your help guys... I'm thinking that if I set up somewhere on the Contemporary beach out by the pool I'll have time. The only thing I'm not so sure about is whether there'll be enough ambient light to get a decent picture. But then again, there isn't a whole lot of ambient light in SpectroMagic or Disney's Electrical Parade out at DCA...
