Top 10 Disney Photo Tips

There are lots of moments you’ll want to capture with your camera during a Disney vacation. Here are our top ten tips for photography during your trip:

1. Before leaving home, check the time and date stamp on your camera.  Whether you consult the time and date on a photo for scrapbook journaling or as a personal diary, you want it to be correct.
2. Before your trip, decide to learn about one of the features of your camera other than the Auto setting.  Try Googling your make and model and, for example, the setting “Av” (which many cameras feature).  Or learn how to turn the ISO up so you can take some atmosphere photos at night without the flash.  (Just be sure you turn it back down again in daylight!).
3. Stow an extra memory card or two in your park bag.  They take up next to no space and will be a life-saver if you run out of megabytes!
4. Become a Disney Trip Photojournalist, if you aren’t one already.  Snap your family having their plane snacks, sitting on your Magical Express Bus, the number of your resort room, the menu at dinner, a display of plush Mickeys at a gift shop, or any other little detail that captures your fancy (at Disney, they are all around!).
5. If you’re not taking advantage of your camera’s video capability, remember to capture some “moving moments.”
6. Don’t forget that Photopass photographers will happily take your family photo with your own camera.  There is no fee for this friendly service.
7. Sign up for Snapchat and have fun with Disney geofilters (location-based graphics that overlay automatically on your Snapchat photos).  There are new ones all the time for various Disney rides and attractions.
8. Leave your selfie stick at home, if you have one.  Disney has banned them from its property.
9. Turn off your flash on indoor attractions or “dark rides.”  But remember that turning up your ISO as high as it will go may allow you to get some fun shots indoors without flash.  The resulting photos might look a little grainy, but this will be more authentic looking than a washed-out burst of light (which Disney asks you to refrain from in any case!).
10. Ask your server or an available cast member to take a photo of you with your group so that the photographer in the family won’t be the only one left out!

Where is your favorite spot to take a Disney photo?