Last week I showed you a few on ride photos. This week I want to expand on the motion aspect but from the outside of a moving ride.

Returning at night to the Mad Tea Party (aka the Tea Cups) in Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom, I setup my camera with a Sigma 15mm Fisheye lens on a tripod as close to the rail as I could. I found an one second shutter speed produced a good exposure at 100 ISO with an f/5 aperture.

Mad Tea Party at rest in Fantasyland.
Nikon D700/Sigma 15mm Fisheye, 1s, f/5, ISO 200, EV 0.

I then waited for the ride to start up and get to full speed and took another photo.

Mad Tea Party in motion in Fantasyland.
Nikon D700/Sigma 15mm Fisheye, 1s, f/5, ISO 200, EV 0.

I bet you did not think just one second would make such a difference.

After seeing the results at the Tea Cups, I moved over to Dumbo the Flying Elephant in Fantasyland’s Storybook Circus. I repeated the same exposure on a stopped Dumbo ride.

Dumbo, the Flying Elephant at rest in Fantasyland.
Nikon D700/Sigma 15mm Fisheye, 1s, f/5, ISO 200, EV 0.

Then again after the ride got up to speed.

Dumbo, the Flying Elephant in motion in Fantasyland.
Nikon D700/Sigma 15mm Fisheye, 1s, f/8, ISO 200, EV 0.

Wow! What a difference!

While I was using a tripod and would recommend it. One second exposures are not very long. If you propped your camera onto the railings surrounding the rides and used a wide angle lens, you could get similar results at one second or shorter exposure times.