Minnie's Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks Show at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party over Cinderella Castle, Part 2 (the photography nerd edition):
I started out trying to time my exposures with the fireworks, but that was sort of pointless; there was just too much going on. Ultimately, I just locked the shutter cable and let the camera run with brief pauses to tinker with the settings. I ended up with over 200 frames.
For my photo nerd friends, yes, I shot these with a tripod. The rules on this are not exactly welcoming: On the Property Rules section of the Disney website, under "Prohibited Items," it says, "Tripods or monopod stands that cannot fit inside a standard backpack or that extend over 6' (182 cm) are not allowed in theme parks..."
The tripod I brought meets all these requirements, mainly because I can fold it so it fits into the center of an old CaseLogic camera backpack, a compartment that would accommodate a body with a modest zoom lens attached. The security guard who searched my bag noted the tripod (calling it my "sticks," which gave me pause because selfie sticks of any sort are on the "Prohibited Items" list) but let me in without concern.
As for the shooting location, unobstructed views are not abundant. There are trees, umbrellas, balloons and lights everywhere. And if you think you'll move around for different angles during the show, forget about it. The pre-show announcement even says to (basically) not move around during the show. For approximately 15 minutes, everyone's eyes are glued on Cinderella Castle and the skies above and around it.
I was resigned to an obstructed view and considered skipping the shots altogether, but 20-ish minutes before the show, we found a curiously open spot where Main Street meets the center rotary around the castle, technically, the corner of Main Street and Edison Street. It's near where one of the PhotoPass photographers is stationed, so when they vacated, we moved in, and I could straddle the tracks in the middle of the street, which was completely packed by the time the show started.
I had thought about doing some composites, but my tripod was jostled a couple of times by the people around me, so the field changed enough to require postproduction alignments I didn't want to fuss with. A composite wasn't necessary, though, because unlike local shows, this is a very active display. So much so that as the show progresses, there's a ton of smoke left behind (and there's a bunch of spotlights), so if you're going to shoot this, be ready early. The first shots are by far the cleanest.
The different projections on the castle are magical, a fun series of costume changes. In the photos, the castle almost looks drawn in afterward. At one point, the projections on the spires move up and down, so it looks like the castle is literally dancing to the music. It's incredible.
For settings, anything longer than 2.5 seconds was too busy, so these are all 2- or 2.5-second exposures, all at ISO400. I did adjust the f-stop as the show progressed, mainly to try and mitigate the illuminated smoke; I started at f8, and by the end of the show, I was at f14. I went with 24mm (on a Canon R5mark2). It's not quite wide enough, but the wide displays were infrequent, and the 14mm would have invited light flares. All postproduction is done in Lightroom, with generous amounts of AI noise reduction, mainly for the crowd; the shadows slider is pushed far right for most of these shots.
TL;DR: Minnie's Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks Show is genuinely remarkable; photographing it has been on my list, and I can finally check that box.
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