So our magical dream vacation to Disney World is months past but after ROCK THE SHOT FORUM posted THIS ARTICLE about my take on enjoying disneyworld as a photographer and a mom, it all came flooding back to me…

there was an influx of questions from y’all so here are some of the most commonly asked ones and their answers below the post with a few more images of our magical trip which by the way was planned by me AND BY THE MOST AMAZING DISNEY TRAVEL LADY TAMMY i can’t say enough about this woman and the wonderful-ness that SHE truly is!!!!!  i love her!!!!!!!  if you want her info email me ill hook you up hahahaha

QUESTION: I like having nice photos from our adventures but the freedom of not having all the gear. (My daughter is three and we’ve pretty much giving up the stroller so I have to carry any gear. I’m highly considering getting another point and shoot just for Disney trips but afraid I’m going to be disappointed with quality etc. any suggestions? Is it worth it to get a P&S?

ANSWER:  i am always disappointed with the speed of p&s cameras so i would actually encourage you to rent a stroller and BRING YOUR BIG GIRL CAMERA.  however our family does own AND USE the canon powershot as our p&s camera and we really like it.  But since this was our first trip i was determined to shoot some but always experience every moment with my family and i did just that, finding the best balance for the amount of time you are there vs what you really want in the end is the best way to go, and the rock the shot article give tips for that.

QUESTION:  I’m headed there soon and am curious about why you chose to bring the 35 AND 50–even sacrificing to have only one of them on any given day?

ANSWER: i do not own any lenses outside of prime L lenses however i did consider renting the 24-70.  FOr me i ended up making a choice based on using what i was comfortable with and NOT HAVING THE BULK or weight of the 24-70, that is a pretty hefty lens to carry around all day and my 35L or 50L are quite light and decently short lenses so they fit well in the pbk backpack i ended up putting my camera in.  i will say the 50 was tight in some of the indoor princess meet and greet locations so if i could have only had ONE lens it prob would have been the 35L.  I am learning slowly to love this lens however i do enjoy the slight distortion it gives to closeups and it lends itself really well to lifestyle type images in my opinion.

QUESTION:when you were in cinderellas castle which lens were you shooting with?

ANSWER: okay all images in these two posts were shot with the 35L, settings for the last image were 20,000 YES UP READ THAT RIGHT, 2.5 2500 which is why its not perfectly in focus but i knew i wanted a high ss to freeze the fireworks so i went for it, there really is no perfect answer to this question, knowing your cameras capabilities and correct metering helps a lot but i simply adore these night shots of the castle so i went for proper exposure and sacrificed on the noise

QUESTION: How are you able to reduce so much noise in lightroom with your darker images?

ANSWER: the luminance slider in lightroom is a savior for noisy images plus i shot with the canon 5d mkiii which is a beast in low light

QUESTION:I always have such a hard time with ambient light at the parks after dark and often, even bumping ISOs to astronomical levels, is still not enough to bring shutter speeds high enough. And that says nothing about how difficult it is to even pull focus with contast being so low in the dark. So the big question I’m dying to know is… did you bring along an external flash??

ANSWER: no ma’am i never use external flash i only use available light/natural light.  remember when shooting your subject in the park try positioning them in sections of actual light, like with street lights near, next to or behind them to  i use this a lot when shooting at night in my home as well, THIS SHOT WHICH WAS ONE OF MY FAV SHOTS EVER and is a great depiction of what i mean along with  THIS ONE