August 2008 WDW Trip Report

From the outset, Animal Kingdom was not nearly as busy as DHS had been the previous day. We quickly headed to Asia first, to ride Everest. With only a 20 minute standby wait, we decided to forgo FastPass, and just wait in the queue. We figured it’d be better to save the FastPasses for Kilmanjaro Safaris, and besides, we had never seen the full queue for Everest. I have to admit, the previously unseen portions of the queue lived up to the hype. I have always thought that WDI did a great job with all aspects of Everest, and the queue is one aspect that is easily overlooked. But, when you’re waiting in line 2 hours or so for an attraction, that queue can be ever-so-important (if you pay attention to it!).

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After Everest, we got FastPasses for Kilimanjaro, rode Dinosaur!, then headed back to Kilimanjaro. It began raining as we boarded Kilimanjaro, but fortunately, we had one of our best safaris ever. We even saw a couple baby elephants playing in the water as adult elephants looked on. After Kilimanjaro, we dined at Flame Tree BBQ. We then went to my favorite AK attraction, Finding Nemo: The Musical.

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We were in a time crunch at AK that day due to 4:30 p.m. ADRs for Liberty Tree Tavern (which we were not passing up given that the characters would soon be gone) so we quickly headed over to Camp Minnie Mickey to catch Festival of the Lion King. Being the hardcore pin traders that we are, we still had to stop to trade pins even in the time crunch, and thankfully we did, because while chatting with a manager with whom she was trading, Sarah got (us) asked to be in the parade!

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Although the parade was at 4 p.m. and our ADRs were at 4:30 p.m., we could not pass up this opportunity. We decided to at least call LTT to see if they could postpone our reservations at all. After some discussion with Guest Services, someone at LTT said it would be no problem.

Being in the parade was great. It was odd going backstage, and seeing some “weirdâ€
 
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Again, morning came quickly (for Sarah and me at least, Nick needed to sleep in, so he met up with us at 11:30 a.m.). We got to Epcot at 9:05, and quickly grabbed FastPasses for Soarin’, then got in standby for Soarin’. I was hoping to get a chance to play the games in the queue, but it apparently was too early, and the standby line was too short. After Soarin’, we decided to head over to Club Cool to get some free caffeine.

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We went around a few other pavilions, finally meeting up with Nick and going to Journey into Imagination. We balked when we got to the pavilion door—there was a line! I said that it probably broke down, but that we should see how long the wait will be. Thankfully, we did this, as the “lineâ€
 
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Boy, in looking back at my night shots with us in them, I really needed an external flash. The on camera flash makes us look washed out in so many of those shots. Hopefully the SB-400 will help with that on our Christmas trip!
 
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Wow you guys really made the most of your time there! I think its awesome you guys got so many pictures with both of you in them. I understand what you mean about never getting a dream during the past couple of years (except last year my mom got a free mickey head ice cream). But in August we got the biggest dream ever -- free Disney trip! 32 days til our Christmas trip!
 
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fantastic trip report!
thanks for sharing.
I'm exhausted just reading about it! You sure packed a lot of activity into your vacation!
The sb400 will help a lot with your flash. Also, play around with "night portrait" mode and slow flash setting. it helps A LOT with getting nice night flash exposures
 
"Craig" said:
fantastic trip report!
thanks for sharing.
I'm exhausted just reading about it! You sure packed a lot of activity into your vacation!
The sb400 will help a lot with your flash. Also, play around with "night portrait" mode and slow flash setting. it helps A LOT with getting nice night flash exposures
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Hmmm, I just played around with this a little. I usually like to use full manual mode, and "slow flash" isn't an option with it on the D40. Slow Flash appears to only be an option with Night Portrait and Aperture Priority. I'll have to test out Night Portrait mode. I played with Aperture Priority a bit, and even with the exposure compensation at -3.0, I'm not sure if I could get the settings I like. Any suggestions?
 
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my favorite setting on the d80 and the d300 is:

slow flash in A mode, at f3.5 or f2.8 whichever is the fastest and manual (not auto)iso 1600 to keep the shutter speed up.
 
"Craig" said:
my favorite setting on the d80 and the d300 is:

slow flash in A mode, at f3.5 or f2.8 whichever is the fastest and manual (not auto)iso 1600 to keep the shutter speed up.
Click to expand...

I use a tripod for all of these shots, and the D40 is not so hot at higher ISOs, so I'd like to keep this at ISO 400 or lower. I'll do some playing around with exposure comps outside tonight, but I'm hoping to use 1.3", f/3.5 - f/5, and ISO 200 for these shots. We'll see how that turns out.

It's irritating that slow flash isn't an option on full manual mode. I use manual mode for a lot of my shots because I disregard the meter because I don't want to be confined by what the camera picks, and don't want to screw with exposure compensation. Does anyone know why this isn't an option in manual mode?

EDIT: I do have a "Rear Flash" mode. I assume this is Rear Curtain Sync? However, when I use this, it flashes both at the beginning of the exposure and at the end of the exposure. I don't rear curtain was just at the end? In any case, would this be helpful for night portrait photography?
 
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don't forget that even with a tripod, 1.3 seconds is a long time to stand perfectly still and not blur.
especially if you keep shooting these at 3AM! LOL
 
"Craig" said:
don't forget that even with a tripod, 1.3 seconds is a long time to stand perfectly still and not blur.
especially if you keep shooting these at 3AM! LOL
Click to expand...

All of the above were shot for 1.3 or 1.6 seconds. We are good at standing still, I guess!
 
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Great pics...I really enjoyed hearing and seeing how much fun you guys had! It makes me sooo jealous! ;)
 
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"prettypixie" said:
Great pics...I really enjoyed hearing and seeing how much fun you guys had! It makes me sooo jealous! ;)
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Me, too, but I loved seeing you in front of the camera for a change! We should all do that more often. If a stranger looked at my collection of photos, they would have no idea I even exist! Sarah is such a beauty, btw. You're an adorable couple.
 
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WOW!! Great report and love the pics. Looks like you two had a really great time. Can't imagine how much work you put into putting this together but thank you for doing so, I really enjoyed reading the commentary and looking at the pics.
 
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Thanks, everyone. I actually previously posted the trip report in another Disney forum right when I got back, so it wasn't much work transferring it over here. I figured someone ought to christen the new forum!
 
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Ive never done a trip report before. I usually just send everyone my pictures. Not like we really do anything particularly exciting or different on our trips (First day EPCOT/MK, second day AK/DHS, last day MK/EPCOT with two rest days in between.
 
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