One of my favorite parts of the movie Jurassic Park is when everything starts to fail and they talk about having all the problems of a major theme park and a zoo combined. This is how the builders of Animal Kingdom must have felt. The eclectic nature of this park makes it a lot of fun and it is a "photographically rich" environment. Not only do you get to use a wide perspective to take photos of the great scenery/architecture, you also get to utilize longer focal lengths to capture some "easy wildlife". Below, the two bird photos (parrots and Roseate spoonbill) were taken with the MZD 45mm portrait lens at enclosures near the entrance of the park. The two after were taken with my 40-150mm "kit zoom" while on the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. I bet the MZD 75mm f/1.8 would yeild some extraordinary photos of Animal Kingdom's wildlife... and it may be reason enough to purchase the beast.

Of course all the parks are filled with people so you have plenty of subject matter to hone in on your street and environmental portrait photography skills. I usually try to get some candid shots and of course photograph my partner when he consents ;)  There are also many "street performers" and getting shots of the parades are a blast as long as you get a good spot.

Another thing I found fun to photograph is the "park landscape" in addition to the "wait in line" areas that you frequent in order to ride attractions. When a ride is busy, you can spend up to 45-1 hr waiting so theres plenty of time observe your surroundings and find something interesting to photograph. Disney has done a really good job of making sure that you are at least mildly entertained while waiting and taking photos is a good way to pass the time.

Finally, I wanted to share some photos of one of my favorite attractions at Animal Kingom. The first time my partner and I saw it we were AMAZED and we have even seen people in tears after the show. If it all possible, try not to miss... "Finding Nemo - The Musical". When you consider the talent of the actors, their use of acrobatics, and the crazy amount of work put into the stage production and costuming, it is just so good on multiple levels. Also, try to get there 30-45 minutes before the show starts. Even with a fast past to one of the times, getting there 10 minutes before the show did not cut it and we were not sat "center stage". Olympus' 45mm f1.8 proved very useful here as it allowed a bunch of light in wide open and I was able to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the action. Also from the height and distance I was sitting it was a perfect focal length allowing me to photograph most of what was happening onstage.

Really the photos I presented here are maybe 10% of the visually awesome things you can encounter in this park. One disclaimer is that I do not to Disney with the sole purpose of photography. It is also important to me to have fun and I try not ignore my partner by having my face glued to the viewfinder. Its hard though because at all the parks there is so much to photograph. Luckily we went three times in 2013 so I had plenty of chances for photography. Next up is EPCOT, which is like travelling to space and 11 different countries in one day. Hope you enjoyed at lest a few of these photos, happy shooting =)

Sam D.

Walt Disney World Series:

Part I: Introduction
Part II: Animal Kingdom
Part III: EPCOT
Part IV: Post Processing in China
Part V: Hollywood Studios

A few days ago, one of my best friends and fellow micro four thirds enthusiasts (check out his Flickr here) suggested I try out the Enfuse HDR Plugin for Lightroom. It can be found here, and for a monetary donation of your choice, you are granted access to the full version of the app. I wanted to share my first run of images processed using it. Ill admit now that the following photos are not the most interesting, but they do give an example of what Enfuse is capable of. I will start with showing how I came up with the introductory shot. The photos for this were taken by turning on the "exposure bracketing" mode on my EM5 to "5 photos at 1 exposure value difference". In addition I switched my shooting mode to "high speed burst pulse". I don't have a tripod offshore so I rested my camera on the hand rail shown and held down the shutter button. I was shooting in "manual" mode and the aperture on my 7.5mm fisheye was set to f/5.6. Therefore, the camera changed the exposure by altering the shutter speed. Below is a screen grab of the 4 resultant photos whose shutter speeds were (top left to bottom right) 1/500, 1/250, 1/60, 1/30:

To run Enfuse, I followed the directions published by "HDR Guide" that can be found here. The suggestion is to use at least 5 exposure levels and to do a "global edit" on the series of photos before you run the plug in. For the global edit, I used "Punch" under the "Lightroom General Presets" heading. I chose this preset because it only adds a bit of clarity and color saturation... nothing too drastic. After the global edits were made I ran the series through Enfuse which automagically imported this TIFF file back into Lightroom: 

As you can see, the photo above is more "balanced" compared to the four that were used to make it. Here, the foreground railing is not under exposed and the background sunrise does not exhibit blown out highlights. On a bit of a side note, I have come into the habit of correcting the photos I take with the 7.5mm third party fisheye for distortion. The following is a screen grab of what this looks like:

After cropping, I processed the photo to taste by adjusting the tone, increasing the clarity, muting the colors, and adding a gold overlay using "split toning". I chose increased contrast and a warm overlay because I wanted the the photo convey a sense of nostalgia. However, there is a wide range of options here. 

I think the plugin works great at giving you natural looking photos in cases when getting a proper exposure is difficult. The following are examples of such instances:

A) Subject is back-lit: Sure I could have composed this so that the sun was out of the picture, but I simply enjoyed the flare it provided. If I were to have only exposed for the sunlight then details in the lens would have been lost. If I had exposed to bring out the details in the lens, then the sky would have been blown out. Layering five photos using Enfuse provided a great solution.    

B) Subject is heavily shaded: Here, my focal point in this photo was in the shade and like the "backlit situation", simply exposing for the chain would have led to a blown out sky. Using Enfuse allowed me to retain details in both the foreground and background all while still producing a natural looking photo.

C) Subject itself is an intense light source: It would have been very difficult for me to photograph the sun here and retain both detail in the clouds and water without the use of Enfuse.

Even if the thought of over processed, insanely saturated, hard to look at HDR photos makes you run for the hills, you shouldn't discount the tasteful side of this type of photography. The concepts behind HDR deal with exposure and in part learning how to read a histogram. The following articles published by The Phoblographer were a great introduction for me:

The Phoblographer's Guide to The Histogram(Part 1)

The Phoblographer's Guide to The Histogram(Part 2)

The Basics of Photography: H for HDR

If you get a chance, I highly recommend you check out Enfuse. Once you get a handle on how it operates it is extremely easy to use and a great introduction to (tasteful) HDR.

Sam D.

My last post mentioned some experimentation with nighttime photography and I wanted to highlight some of the resultant photos here. I am offshore, but not technically working yet so I was able to spend a few nights outside attempting to showcase (as a Cancerian, my favorite) the moon. Traditionally astrophotographers avoid the moon like the plague because its intensity drowns out the light coming from stars, but I figured I could use the full moon's output to my advantage. Unfortunately, during the first two nights that I went out to shoot the seas were very rough and it was hard to come up with a decent photo... not that that stopped me from trying ;)

"Torrential" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 4 sec, iso200

"Moonset" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 4 sec, iso200

"Diagonal" 45mm, f/1.8, 1/10, iso200

The third night however, was a charm. Winds were down, the sea was calm and the Viking I was bathed in moonlight. This allowed me to really push the envelope when it came to exposure time.

"Just right" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 12 sec, iso200

"Stars" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 7 sec, iso200

"Swimming" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 7.2 sec, iso200

Overall conditions for long exposure photography on a boat are not ideal. Not only is the vessel moving up and down due to wave action, you are also usually traveling in a particular direction. On top of that, I have no tripod so I had to rely on the boat itself to stabilize my camera. This turned out to be an obstacle in itself because the giant mechanics working on the inside of the boat cause tons of vibrations. In the photos below however, I utilized the lighting from the boat to "help".

"VS492" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 1 sec, iso400 

"Helideck" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 6 sec, iso200

"F" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 6 sec iso200

By the time I took the photo above, I could see the horizon opposite the moon start to brighten with daylight. The following photos are what I took as the sun was rising.

"Concave" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 1 sec, iso200

"Seafaring" 7.5mm, f/3.5, 0.5 sec, iso200

"Dave" 45mm, f/1.8, 1/60, iso200

Of course, most of the photos in this series were taken with the 7.5mm third party fisheye that I have been raving about (see here, here, or here) because I have really taken a liking to it. I also used the 40-150mm kit zoom for the first "close up" moon shot and 45mm MZD portrait lens a bit. I came into the habit of using the live bulb mode on my EM5 to get a "feel" for how long my shutter speed should be and then setting my camera accordingly (usually a second under) for the shot to get a rounded exposure value (ie. 6 instead of 6.8) but this was not done in all instances. Hope you enjoyed at least one of the photos in this set =) It was challenging, and definitely out of my comfort zone but that's what photography is about right!? Until next time!

Sam D.

When I first moved to Florida my partner and I became Disney World annual pass-holders and decided that this year we would spend Christmas at the happiest place on earth. We also decided to spend the first two days of our vacation at Universal Studios Orlando. Since I had recently purchased a 7.5mm MFT fisheye (Bower version), I decided to become familiar with it at the park and from the get go it was mounted to my EM5. I took it off on occasion, but this lens was so much fun it was in use for about 95% of the time. I think this lens works extremely well at a theme park because the attractions are often immense, you are surrounded by people, and there are bright colors and interesting shapes everywhere. The distortion caused by the fisheye accentuates all of these things and I feel made for some pretty interesting shots. I took an obscene amount of pictures, but below are a few of my favorites.

  

I also shot a short video of one of the roller-coasters at the park because it was pretty intense. I cannot believe I rode it! It was a blast though.. In case you are interested it is named the Hulk. I accidentally had my camera's mic turned off so there is no sound :/ Also, I HARDLY ever take video so I am not sure of all the "specs" here. I undoubtedly need to do more videography research, and this should only be taken as an example of what you can capture with the lens and not necessarily a great example of the EM5's video quality.

I had soooooooo much fun not only at Universal, but using this lens there. I highly recommend it especially for shooting at a theme park!

Sam D.

For more on this third party fisheye:
Part I: Little Havana
Part III: The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights