The MousePlanet Mailbag is a regular compilation of some of our reader feedback and writer responses that may be of interest to our readers. We encourage you to drop your questions, opinions, or comments to us in care of our mailbag.
With less than a week to go before the Walt Disney World marathon (which your intrepid mailbag editor will be running) staff writer Lani Teshima answers a question regarding locations for spectators along the course. Jill S. writes:
My daughter will be running in the Walt Disney World marathon on the weekend of January 12-13. We will be attending and will be staying at the Beach Club resort. Could you please send me a map of the course and any other relevant materials/information you might have for spectators? I would really appreciate it!
If you have not yet had a chance, read my article, “Great Spectation” from December 2005. Although it is an older article, much of the information is still relevant for spectators in general.
You can view a PDF of the course map for the 26.2-mile course at the official WDW Marathon Web page (PDF link). There is also a map for the half-marathon, in case that is what your daughter is entering.
Finally, you will need to sit down with your daughter once you get on-site with her before the event, to try to coordinate where you will want to stand to cheer her on. She will have a marathon participant booklet she will get when she picks up her running number bib at the Fitness Expo, and in it, you two will be able to look over the details about where and when spectators are allowed to cheer people on.
The next group of letters in this week’s mailbag are questions and comments submitted to MousePlanet photographer Frank Anzalone on general photo topics as well as Frank’s recent holiday photo tour, which was so extensive it filled up four pages! Stephane M. writes:
I was reading over your photo tips again. It’s very good stuff, but I wanted to ask your advice on something regarding the fireworks tips.
I’m just now starting to fiddle with the manual settings on my camera, and wanted to get your advice on aperture, shutter and film speed settings for fireworks, i.e. what do you use and/or feel is the best? Or do you just use auto and let the camera do the thinking? I’m torn on the issue.
Great question! The first place I would start is to use the camera’s ‘auto’ setting and see what happens. In general, you will get a decent picture as long as you have that camera as solid/steady as you can. If you want to try a few of the manual features, assuming you have an SLR camera, set your camera to aperture priority. What this should do is allow you to set the aperture where you want it and the camera will automatically calculate the exposure (how long the shutter is open for). I would try an aperture of f8 (experiment!) and a medium sensitivity film speed setting. If you notice, the fireworks have an initial pop/blast that is bright (especially in the center of the explosion before it trails out). If your aperture is open too much, it will capture a bright center (the camera assumes all the exposure it needs is there) and the trails will get lost. If you use the f8, this should limit the initial center brightness and pick up more of the full blast (trails) of the firework. Make sense? Try that out and let me see some of those great pictures!
Stephane replies:
Hey Frank, just dropping a quick note to tell you that I ended up getting a real good deal on a Canon EOS XTi (400D) with 18-55mm AND 75-300mm lenses. Looking forward to my Feb-March Disney trip to really put it to the test, though the Holidays have proven a fun time with it already.
As I had mentioned, though I’ve taken “pictures” all my life, I really want to get into the nuts and bolts and take great pictures from here on in. I’m already trying to teach myself about composition (most important, really) but there is a lot to be said about the technical aspect as well.
Thanks for your past advice! Now that I have the camera, your previous advice for fireworks (aperture mode with f8 pre-set) makes perfect sense.
Welcome to the world of digital SLR cameras. You bought some nice equipment, and now I want to see some results! Make sure to have lots of memory chip capacity and those batteries charged up. Springtime at the parks is really a pretty time of year and offers a great deal to capture with your new camera!
Jordan writes:
Do you have any advice for taking night shots at Disneyland? Your shots come out beautiful and I was wondering if you could give me the tips you use when taking night photography without a tripod. Thanks so much and Merry Christmas!
When I shoot nighttime shots at Disneyland/WDW, I use a couple of tricks that seem to yield a good picture.
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When shooting the castle, fireworks or any scene in the evening—I try to minimize the ‘black space’ in the frame (crop in close!). This will give your camera more light to base the metering (exposure) on. In turn this should keep that exposure time shorter and hopefully limit the possibility of blur.
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I find something steady to hold the camera against. Very rarely do I just ‘stand there’ with the camera for a night shot. Use a lamp pole, a tree, a fence railing… you have to get creative! Once when I was at the Studios in Walt Disney World, I wanted to take a particular shot and the best angle was in the middle of the street with nothing around to steady the camera. Lucky for me it was the end of the night and the crowds were small. I noticed a cast member with an ice cream cart approaching from across the street. I asked him if I could borrow the cart for one minute. After a puzzled look, he stopped and let me use that cart for my ‘tripod’ and the picture came out great!
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If you have a camera that can take multiple shots with one press of the shutter button (as if you were taking multiple pictures of sporting event in sequence) try setting the camera to do that. My experience has been (when taking a night shot, even with my ‘tripod’) that when I press down on the shutter button I may shake the camera just a tiny bit. When you have this multiple setting, the first picture may be blurred a bit, but the camera is then steady and taking the next picture already! This works great for me.
Nancy writes:
I enjoyed reading your article about better photos at Disneyland. I was given a Sony Cybershot and love it! I had probably 1000 Disneyland photos in my computer slideshow… until my computer crashed and I lost all my photos, emails, etc. Now I am trying to either re-take what I lost, or find comparable pictures elsewhere. Some pictures are lost forever—such as my shots of the 50th anniversary celebration. I had five old photos in thirteen places in the photomosaic murals, and pictures of my husband or myself pointing out our pictures in those murals.
That is another reason I am writing you. I wondered if you had any pictures of the different photomosiac murals from the 50th celebration? I found copies of the Steamboat Willie and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice—both of which contain some of my pictures. I am now in search of the following: Mulan and her father; Hercules and Meg; Baloo and Mowgli; Simba and Nala; Winnie the Pooh. I can’t remember the other!
If you have shots of these murals, could I copy them, buy them, beg, borrow, or steal? Well, I don’t want to steal… but you get the drift! I would appreciate the help.
Your photos of the fireworks are outstanding, by the way. My little Sony has a hard enough time doing Main Street all lit up at night.
Thank you again for your time—and the wonderful photos you posted. Oh, any of the old Keelboats, either? I really miss that ride.
I’m going to tell you something important (and I know you learned the hard way)… Back up your photos!! Just so you know, I learned the hard way too!
What I do is get my pictures organized, delete the ones I don’t want, and then back up the organized photos to a CD data disc. I actually make two copies, one for the office and one for storage at home. Data CDs are getting too cheap not to do this!
I’ll go through my picture files to see what I can find. I know I took some pictures of the murals when I was there. We had a few pictures used in those murals too!
Amy writes:
I’ve never been to WDW. I live in Arizona and have been to Disneyland probably 20 times. I’ve gone as a little one, and have taken my kids as babies, and will soon take my grandchild (two months old). Anyhow, I’ve heard or read about “Osborne lights”, but don’t exactly know what they are. Is “Osborne” a sponsor? Can you give more background on the “Osborne Lights”? What makes them so spectacular?
The Osborne Lights are located at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the Backlot area (on the old New York Street now called “Streets of America”). This display has the biggest number of lights and lighted shapes you will ever see! They say there are millions of lights on display and they are animated, twinkling, and controlled to sync with music. Incredible!
The Osbornes are a family in Little Rock, Arkansas who started putting up holiday lights over a decade ago and each year they added to this display. When they began to run out of room, they bought the houses on each side of their house so they could grow the display. Then neighbors started to complain and took them to court; the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that displaying over three million lights was a public nuisance. The Disney Company brought the displays to WDW in 1995 and has kept them there ever since.
A bit of trivia from the 2007 display: there are five million lights, 32 miles of extension cables, 66 snow machines, and 43 hidden Mickeys, and they use 100 gallons of snow fluid a night. Plan a trip to see them!
The official, original Osborne Family Web site.
A.J. writes:
I enjoyed seeing your recent photos of the decorated Disney parks. However, I do have a question. Do you have any idea when they start taking down the Christmas decor at the Disneyland Resort?
Also do you know when the decor in Florida will be coming down? From what I understand Epcot will be getting rid of the Osborne lights after January 6; does that go for the rest of the Florida resorts as well?
I did a little research and according to the Disneyland web site, the Disneyland Resort (and parks) holiday décor is up from November 16, 2007 through January 16, 2008.
At WDW, the Osborne lights are up there from November 12, 2007 through January 6th, 2008.
Tony R. writes:
I think Christmastime 2007 At Disneyland Resort has to be the best photo article I’ve ever seen on MousePlanet, and I’ve been following the site for some years now. Thanks so much for letting me enjoy Disneyland for the holidays.
What a magical time of year. I was there for three days and I might have been on just a few attractions (Haunted Mansion, it’s a small world, the Disneyland Railroad), but I think I shot nearly 900 pictures! I’m glad you enjoyed the Disneyland holiday photos as much as I enjoyed taking them!
Thanks for following MousePlanet! We’ll have more Disney pictures in the future!
