Hello Everyone, I just wanted to introduce myself. My name Jason from Tuscaloosa, Alabama and I am a college instructor for the University of Alabama and I am big Disney fan. I am new to the board and I am looking for some advice. I will be going to Disney World January 28th till February 3rd and wanted to know what camera equipment most people bring. I have a Nikon D50 with a 28-80. I do have a small budget to buy some more equipment if needed .Thank you for help. Jason
Hey Jason! First off, I won't hold it against you that you work for UA (War Eagle!!! 2000 AU Grad) Second, welcome to TMIP!! Hopefully, we will be able to answer all your questions. Congratulations on your upcoming World trip! I think the answers to your questions are based somewhat on what type of pics you want to take. If you want night pics or fireworks, a tripod is a must!!!! Check out this thread for tripod suggestions. I assume that lens (28-80) has a max apature of about 3.3 on the wide end, so, dark ride pics are going to be very hard to get sharp. A prime lens with max apature of 1.4 or 1.8 is your best bet there. Your current lens will probably be fine for most pics including night, fireworks, etc. Some of us go gung-ho with 17-20 pound backpacks with 5-8 lenes, while others pack light with just a single lens. For example, here is what I recently took to MouseFest..... Tamrac Expedition 5 Backpack Canon Digital Rebel XTi Body Canon 10-22mm lens Canon 17-85mm w/IS lens Canon 28mm f/1.8 lens Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens Canon 70-200 f/2.8 w/IS lens Canon 1.4 Teleconverter Quantaray 2.0 Teleconverter Quantaray 900 Flash Plus Batteries, CF cards, etc. Then tripod when I needed it. (Loockers are your friend!!!!) Maybe this answers a few questions. Also, let us know what type of photos are important to you. Keep asking questions, we'll all learn something. Take Care, Byron
Hey Byron, I guess an Auburn grad and an Alabama grad can have one thing in common that is we both enjoy Disney. Thanks for the great advice. Does carrying all that weight affect getting in and out of rides? I am going to be taking pictures of family and landscape shots. I would like to take some shots at night. Congrats on the bowl win last night. Thanks for all your help.
jason, welcome aboard, i too attended recent mousefest, my gear list was as follows lowepro micro trekker canon 20d canon 10-22 f3.5-4.5 tamron 28-75 f2.8 xr di sigma 30mm f1.4 (rented) canon 70-300 f4.5-5.6 IS (rented) canon 70-200 f4L (not used this trip, could have left it home) canon 550 ex flash 12 kingston 2gb cf cards, i'm a believer in switching out flash cards every day or so, spreads the work out, in case of a card failure i haven't lost the whole trip velbon luxisf tripod, i'm very happy with this as a travel tripod 6 batteries, with charger, i like to start out the day with 1 fresh in camera and at least 3 spares i rented 2 lenses for mousefest because i wanted to try them out, i'm going on the magic med cruise in may 2007 and am considering building a lighter weight travel set up based around the rebel xti almost all of my ride shots in various threads were taken with the sigma, i found it focused fairly fast, accurate and the colors were nice and warm, but i also shoot with my cameras saturation parameters jacked up a little. i would include a link but the place only rents canon or canon compatible gear i would consider buying the sigma or perhaps a nikon compatible f1.8 prime of around 28-35mm focal length, this would be a good investment in low light capability and could double as a portrait lens, i don't know the nikon line so i don't know what's available in their primes gary
jason, i ran over to www.fredmiranda.com real fast and found this review thread for a nikor 35mm f2 www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/showproduct ... =12&page=1 that's close to 50mm field of view with nikon 1.5 focal factor, so you would get pictures similar at point of focus to what the human eye sees gary
Jason, Thanks for the congrats...at least the defense showed up!! As for the size and weight of my backpack.... Well, to begin with I'm what you would call a person of size (over 300 pounds). So, without camera gear, some attactions can be a little harder than others. But, I've yet to find an attraction I can't do. MouseFest was the first time I toured with the listed setup (bought most of it right before the trip). I was a little concerned about and size of the bag on a few rides. However, I didn't have any problems with the attractions I tried. Because of the way MouseFests can be, taking in attractions can sometimes be few and far between. Also, for a lot of the rides I was solo. Here are the attractions I did with my bag during MF..... Spaceship Earth Maharajah Jungle Trek Finding Nemo: The Musical Expedition Everest Buzz Lightyear Haunted Mansion Swiss Family Treehouse Pirates of the Caribbean Kilimanjaro Safaris Pangani Forest Exploration Trail Sounds Dangerous Fantasmic Soarin' The Seas With Nemo The only one in that list I was worried about doing with the bag was Expedition Everest. The trick for me was to set the bag down between my legs then sit down. Currently, you can only take photos before the Nemo musical. No photography is allowed during the show. Soarin' has pouches under the seats. But they are not big enough for the Expedition 5 bag. You just set it on the floor in front of you and a "Flight Attendant" will set it off to the side. The rides that I didn't do with the bag but might be a little worried..... Tower of Terror - There's plenty of room, just the idea of having to keep a bag with that much mass from flying around. Rock 'n' Roller Coaster - Probably not a problem. My guess is like EE. Mission: Space - Don't believe storage bins are big enough for the "big" bags. Don't know the procedure for people with big bags. Test Track - If you're over 5'10" it can be a tight fit to begin with. Leg space is at a premium. Dinosaur - No storage for big bags. I'd be a little worried about it falling out due to the violent movement. Kali River Rapids - Nuff' said. Primeval Whirl - Don't know if I'd want to subject my equipment to that. Big Thunder Mountain - Space is not a problem....Just be carefull to hold on. Space Mountain - Similar to Test Track. I know there are serveral on this site that can add to what I have. Tim, the site owner, did at least one or two in my last list. He has the same bag. Well, I guess I have the same bag as him, as he was the one that told me about it. Guys, galls, what have I missed? Also, browse the forums and find pics similar to what you want to take and ask for any tips or tricks. Byron
Welcome aboard, Jason! I, too, am a MouseFester (MFer, as we are affectionately known). But unlike Byron, Gary, and a lot of other shutterbugs around here, I take a minimalist approach to what I carry in the parks. This puts limits on what kind of shots I can get, and the quality of the shots I do get, but the advantage is that I have less to carry around all day and don't have to worry about $3K worth of gear going swimming on Splash Mountain or getting bumped around as I travel. My list of gear: Canon Digital Rebel 300D Sigma 18-125 f3.5-5.6 Canon Speedlight 220EX Canon RC-1 infrared remote shutter release 2 512mb Sandisk Ultra II CF cards Pocket-size tripod WillCAD Custom Camera Poncho (1-gallon Ziploc with the corners cut off) Lens cloth (Mickey Mouse) I normally don't carry a spare battery for either the camera or flash. On my last trip my battery ran out once toward the end of the day, after only shooting 123 shots, but that was an anomaly caused by my changing of the cameras power-save settings. I like having a good walkaround lens and not having to carry extra lenses with me. This limits how far I can zoom a shot, but I'm willing to make that trade-off. If I start finding that I'm running my batteries out more often (it's only happened once in over a year with this camera), I would add a spare battery to my gear.
i havent had any probs with my backpack on big thunder, space mountain, test track, or dinosaur. more to follow later.
Welcome to the boards Jason, nice to have you here! I'm with Tim in saying that I haven taken my camera bag (tamrac velocity 9) on just about every ride in WDW. The exceptions would be Splash Mountain and the Kali river rapids, I don't like water rides anyway so its not a big deal : As for gear that might want to take would be #1 a tripod of some sort, #2 lots of media storage, and #3 a good lens pen to keep the smudges of your lens.
I want to thank everyone for such great advice. I am looking to take no more than 2 lenses with me and memory cards and batteries. I think this site and forum is great place to get advice and meet new people. Would a lens like this 28-200mm F/3.8-5.6 be considered a good walk around lens? Thanks.
you might find that the 28 end isn't quite wide enough, i think with the crop fov, you need to get down around 17-18 mm at the wide end,lot of streetmosphere and other acts at wdw, i've found 200 is usually enough tele at wdw. my solution when i don't want to carry a lot of gear is a super size fanny pack, mine is from outdoor products, has 2 compartments, and 2 water bottle holders, plus top straps for the all important disney poncho, i use cloth wraps that have velcro at each corner and i guess you would call it a diaper type wrapping of any lens not on the camera, this allows me to carry extra flash cards(2), extra batteries(2), and my 10-22 and either a fast prime or my 70-200f4 , if the 28-75 is on the camera. i find this to be a tolerable weight, the hip belt is wide enough that it actually distributes the weight properly, this is a rig i can and do wear everywhere, new york city, for stroll around street photo, central park, i've taken it skiing, snowshoeing, xc ski, bicycle, hiking, sailing, fishing, trail riding, etc gary
also, count me in the group with byron and gary in that we carry around tons of gear in a backpack and have never had a problem. it was SCARY how much stuff we had between the three of us at any one time....
I guess I am just minimalist at heart. I am going to bring my 28-80 and 55-200 and a travel tripod. What do you guys think of this. Tim, I do not think the guys of mouse tunes plug your site enough. Thanks.
