Hope you have enjoyed this series on how I used flickr, the popular Internet photo sharing community website, to improve my Disney photography. This is the last one for now. I am sure I will re-visit this concept in the future. It was both fun and extremely challenging. Especially this set of photos.
Matt Pasant is considered one of THE best Disney flickr photographers. His photographs are viewed thousands of times each week. He is best known for his fantastic photos of Disney’s night time show like Wishes and Illuminations. This time I wanted to really stretch myself and equipment so I picked a couple of Matt’s best fireworks photos.
The first one is Matt’s tribute to IllumiNations 10th year anniversary. Here I go again complaining about the weather for my attempt. It was a very still night and the air felt “heavy”. The smoke from the fireworks hung right over World Showcase Lagoon and got worse as IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth went on. I will point out more differences after I present both photos. First up is mine, then Matt’s.
IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth from the Japan pavilion.
Nikon D70/18-200VR, 3s, f/10, ISO 400, EV 0, 36mm focal length
IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth by Matt Pasant.
Canon 40D, 3s, f/10, ISO 400, EV 0, 26mm focal length
Before I point out the differences. I would like to say I came real close to the time during IllumiNations as Matt’s shot. From there the similarities end. Matt was in THE spot, which is the corner of the porch in front of the Tokyo Dining restaurant. I had to settle for a spot about fifteen feet to the left of THE spot as there were other photographers who had staked it out two hours before IllumiNations. I checked, Matt was not one of them. The smoke really took a lot of clarity and color away from my photo. Matt’s is outstanding and I hope to do better the next time I’m at Epcot.
My second attempt at one of Matt’s best was in the Magic Kingdom. A night shot of the Partners statue with Cinderella Castle lighted behind it with no guests around. That meant staying real late. In fact, I was there so late, the PhotoPass photographers had packed up and gone home. I knew my photo would be different from Matt’s as I would have the Dream lights on the castle. That was okay. What wasn’t okay was Disney had removed the Partners statue! They were filming the Christmas parade that week and the rainy weather pushed the filming into the weekend. All I had was an ugly platform. The nice decorations you saw behind the performers when the parade aired where not there at night. So, I did my best and set up my tripod in between the statue location and the castle for this photo.
Cinderella Castle decked out with Dream lights for Christmas.
Nikon D70/Tokina 11-16mm, 8s, f/16, ISO 200, EV -1.0, 16mm focal length
Here is Matt’s with the Partners statue.
Night Partners by Matt Pasant.
Canon 5D Mk II, 30s, f/16, ISO 200, EV 0, 24mm focal length
Matt photographed this with a Canon 5D Mark II camera. That is a Full Frame camera where his 24mm = 24mm. My camera is cropped and to get the same 24mm of Matt’s, I set the Tokina 11-16mm lens to 16mm. With my camera’s crop factor of 1.5, 16mm * 1.5 = 24mm. I was closer to the castle and it was much brighter with the Dream lights on. I changed my shutter speed and EV accordingly to keep from overexposing the castle. This made the surrounding areas much darker than Matt’s. I will be back for this one in the future.
The second fireworks photo of Matt’s I wanted to try never happened. The last night I was in Epcot, it rained most of the day. It would let up at times and then rain some more. IllumiNations did go on but without me. I was soaked and decided a nice burger and shake at Beaches and Cream was more appealing. I did not want to not show Matt’s work, however. I think it is one of his best and that’s saying something.
Illuminations of Imagination by Matt Pasant.
Canon 5D Mk II, 8s, f/11, ISO 200, EV 0, 27mm focal length
Matt Pasant’s flickr photostream is full of Disney photographic gems like these. Tell him Scott sent ya when you leave comments.
I hope you have enjoyed my Flckr Project. I know I learned a lot and I need to learn a lot more in my photographic journey.
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Scott,
This has been a great series! It made me feel better that a great photographer like you had struggled to duplicate some of the gems on FLickr. I knew it wasn’t easy, but you have helped prove it. I look forward to seeing more of your photos.
Matthew
Scott replies: First, thank you for calling me great, Matthew. Helps the old ego which took a hit when doing this series. It also gives me incentive to try again and improve on my results. Learning from my first attempt.
Hi Scott;
I do hope you continue to do these comparisons, it is very interesting! thanks for taking us along on these experiments, it is most helpful.
Becky*
Scott replies: Becky, you bet. I know I can do better next time.