Preparing to Capture Your Disney Vacation: Choose Your Tools
You may not know, but I am an avid Disney fan. For the last few years, my family and I have traveled to Disney World each year. After four trips in the last five years, I’m come to learn a thing or two about how I can best prepare myself to capture and preserve the memories we make while on vacation in Disney. Right now, we are preparing for our 2014 trip, so I figured that, as part of my guest spot here at the TLP Blog, I would share with you a series of posts all about how I am preparing myself for memory keeping on my next Disney trip. First we are going to focus on choosing the tools we’ll use to capture memories.
Choose Your Tools
If you’re like me, you have a few different ways that you capture photographs while you are on vacation. You may be faced with one or more of the following options:
- DSLR Cameras – Carrying a DSLR camera with you on your trip will no doubt get you some great pictures. I truly believe that you can’t beat the quality of the photos you take with a DSLR, and they often have more advanced options for zooming which can come in handy in the parks. On the flip side, DSLR cameras can be heavy and cumbersome to carry around with you. In addition, if you are not really knowledgeable about how to use your camera, you may find yourself wasting time trying to figure out how to get the photo you want.
- Point and Shoot Cameras – Point and Shoot Cameras are easy to carry around the parks, and can often be stowed away in a purse or small bag. They are often easy to use, and produce nice looking pictures. The trade off is you have less control over the settings for taking pictures and the zooming functions aren’t as advanced as with a DSLR.
- Smart Phone Cameras – Smart phone cameras certainly win in terms of ease. Most likely, you are already carrying your smart phone with you, so you don’t need to carry any additional gear to capture photos. Smart phones are easy to take out quickly and capture a photo, and share it across social media platforms if you are choosing to do so. Smart phones, however, do not take as nice pictures as a DSLR or a point and shoot. You can get some great shots, however smart phone cameras don’t do well in low lighting situations. In addition, they have very little in terms of zooming functions.
- Disney Memory Maker – Formerly known as Disney Photopass, this is a service that you can purchase when booking your trip. With Memory Maker you can have photographers throughout the park take your picture at special locations, during character meet and greets, as well as get the on ride photos from certain rides. Memory Maker makes capturing the memories easy, and you often get great photos that document the big moments of your trip. The downside is that you can only get those pictures taken a certain spots, and if you rely only on Memory Maker you will most likely miss capturing some of the smaller details of your trip.
That’s a lot of choices to make! In the past, I’ve done all sorts of combinations of these choices, from only using a point and shoot camera, to using a DSLR, my iPhone, and Memory Maker. The choices you make are going to depend on your habits of capturing memories in the park and what your preferences are.
Asking yourself these questions will help you figure out what combination will work for you.
- What is most important to me? Is it getting great photos, or are you looking for ease while in the parks?
- What type of photos will I be taking? Am I planning on lots of distance and scenic shots, or pictures of my family from close up?
- Which tool am I most comfortable with? Which tool helps me take great pictures without having to think about it?
- Am I planning to share these online? Do I want to be able to share these instantly, or wait until I get home?
Personally, for the upcoming trip I am taking, I am planning on relying on my iPhone and Memory Maker. Last year, I took my DSLR as well and I found that I didn’t use it all that much and that it was really heavy to carry around with me each day. In addition, I’m still not an expert on using my DSLR and I don’t want to try and figure it out in the parks. That’s just me though, everyone will find a different combination works best for them.
Choosing the main tools you will use to capture memories is the first step in getting ready to be successful in memory keeping on your next Disney vacation. Next time, we’ll talk about planning the approach we are going to use to scrapbook our trip. In the meantime, I hope all your days have a bit of pixie dust!
