The Magic Kingdom before the crowds

aerialphoto

Disney World's Magic Kingdom - I Shot this last week before the crowds moved in for the day, if only it was like that all the time :rofl

Click for larger image

Notes:
Camera: Zeiss RMK-TOP
Exposure: 1/125 @ f/4.5

USAIR

Wow what a view...Good one


Fred

jamesl

Wow! That is excellent. Good job. Is this the one in Anaheim, or Florida? I can't believe how empty it is.

Is your camera mounted to the bottom of a plane? Great capture.

James

emmalou

Wow!

aerialphoto

Thanks - this is the Florida "Disney World" Magic Kingdom. It's mostly empty (if you look carefully I think you can see some people on to Main Street USA in the lower-center) because it was 15-20 minutes before opening time.

The image was taken with a large-format camera situated in a mount that is bolted to the floor of the airplane with a 20" hole cut in the floor. The neg is 9"-square but I only used about 70% of the neg, scanned at 1200dpi on an Epson 4990 scanner. Aerial photography is my bread and butter, but it usually isn't all that interesting - I'm trying to build a portfolio of neat stuff like these pictures.

Here's another one a little further south...still not many people in the parking lot

If you've never been to the Disney World/Magic Kingdom in Florida, you park in that big parking lot in the lower right. You can walk to the "ticket and transportation center", or take a tram through the lot. Once at the ticket center you buy whatever ticket package you want, then take a "Staten Island Style" Ferry to the Magic Kingdom across the lake, or hop on a Monorail. The Monorail services the Grand Floridian Resort (on the left), the Polynesian Resort (in the middle), and the Contemporary Resort (located off-frame in the upper-right). They also have a line running to Epcot.


Click for larger image

Trasmc

Love these. My wife and I are certifiable Disney nuts, and it was fun looking at the larger version. You never realize the Haunted Mansion has such a large building attached to it - ditto for Splash Mountain.

Very nice!

Awais Yaqub

Wow what a view great photographs. I can just imagine how will it feel to see huge print of this

crgphotographer

I love that view, great photos! It must be hard, but with views like that it must be worth it.

/craig.

StevenV

aerialphoto wrote:

Thanks - this is the Florida "Disney World" Magic Kingdom. It's mostly empty (if you look carefully I think you can see some people on to Main Street USA in the lower-center) because it was 15-20 minutes before opening time

I would have guessed it was even earlier than that; I can see some folks making their way up from the ferry dock but there's not much of a crowd at either the security tables or turnstyles.

These are really neat pictures, as are the rest in your gallery. The colors are espececially vibrant - do they come that way because of the type of film and scanning method you use, or are you punching them up in post processing?

k2butter

I grew up in Orlando area and rarely saw the parking lot that empty (even when I got in for the "sneak Previews" for employees!!!!!

aerialphoto

StevenV wrote:

These are really neat pictures, as are the rest in your gallery. The colors are espececially vibrant - do they come that way because of the type of film and scanning method you use, or are you punching them up in post processing?

Thanks. Usually my subject matter is horribly boring, these were fun.

I only have two scanned aerial images right now, and you're right - both of them are really vibrant, especially the greens. Some of the aerial film is designed to give crisp images through a little bit of haze, so that might account for some of the punch. For scanning I used the stock scanning software, had it set the color and levels automatically, then tweaked the balance, contrast, and saturation to my liking.

I shoot most everything else as RAW images and adjust them to my liking. There are a few HDR images there that ended up with a strange amount of saturation, but everything else is just done to my taste.

ABCaptures

SAAAAweet! very cool

aerialphoto

Update: Collection finished
In addition to the Magic Kingdom I recently finished my collection of aerials of all the Disney World theme parks (in Florida). All shot on different days at different times, with different atmospheric conditions.

Epcot


MGM


Animal Kingdom



Not one of the parks, but just next to Epcot are the popular Dolphin & Swan Hotels (on the left), with Disney's Beach Club and Boardwalk Inn Resort on the right

bigfredtn

I love the pictures. I have never seen Disney from that view. I knew it was big, but it's just amazing.

What are you going to do with the pictures?

aerialphoto

bigfredtn wrote:

I love the pictures. I have never seen Disney from that view. I knew it was big, but it's just amazing.

What are you going to do with the pictures?

Thanks... "Animal Kingdom" is the biggest. That's a mosaic of a few frames, I couldn't fit it into one.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with them yet. They're kind of going to be in limbo for awhile.

JESTER

Scott, These are fantastic. Extremely clear for aerial photos. I am really impressed. I work at Universal Studios in Orlando. Do you plan on getting a shot of it?

aerialphoto

JESTER wrote:

Scott, These are fantastic. Extremely clear for aerial photos. I am really impressed. I work at Universal Studios in Orlando. Do you plan on getting a shot of it?

I was toying with the idea of doing some of the other places too, I just don't get down there all that much.

I shot the construction of the parking garage at Universal every month for what seemed like FOREVER, haven't shot anything near there since they finished it.

aerialphoto

Now for sale... AERIALS
Thanks for the encouragement on this project everyone. Some of my Disney World series are now for sale on my Smugmug site right here.

The two square images will fit the square format prints perfectly. The rectangular one is very close to a standard size match, but some formats will cause white borders that need to be trimmed off the final print.

Any questions? Let me know!

Thanks all

-Scott