This past week, I had the opportunity to take my hungry eyes over to the Disneyland Resort in California. As a frequent visitor, rather than just leisurely enjoying myself, I went with a mission this time. I went with purpose - to capture as many characters as I could with my cameras.
I decided to travel light. Most of my photos would be shot in the generous light of the SoCal sun, so fast, heavy lenses and strobes stayed home and wept.
Camera and lenses:
- Canon 5D Mark II
- 24-105L f4 - good all around lens,
- 70-200 f4-5.6 - great for parade closeups
- 85mm 1.8 - I don't think I used this even once
- 50mm 1.8 - Ideally, I would have a 35mm 1.4 but this would have to do. Great for nighttime or in the rides shots.
- 15mm 2.8 fisheye - something different
- Canon s95 - brought along this point-n-shoot so that I could give it to other people to take pics of me. Lending people my SLR often led to blurry useless shots and me sobbing buckets (and I look really stupid doing that, so no more).
Now, Most people who's been to a Disney park will tell you that getting a photo of or with a character is no easy feat. You've gotta wait in line, the character could leave at any time, regardless of HOW LONG you waited, or they may not show up or be substituted by some other character right as you are about to step up to the plate. (I noticed that this happens especially if you want a photo with someone in particular. Grr...)
Related story. I was waiting for the Tomorrowland Monorail the other day and overheard a woman griping "I haven't seen one Disney character the entire week that we've been here. Are we even at Disneyland?" I sort of chuckled inside.
They're here, dear, but you have to be lucky, a fortunate victim of happenstance, or... put in the energy to study a particular cahracters schedules and hunt them down.
Luck was on my side and all three things happened on this visit. Happy, happy! :)
I took a while bunch of shots, but most would be reduntant to the stuff I posted last year. Instead, I'm just putting up the with Disney face characters (no masks).
You can view the complete set here on Facebook.
