Coaster Photography

I bought a Canon EOS Rebel G a few months ago. I'm VERY eager to get the chance to take it to Cedar Point and take some pictures to share with everyone. Anyone here go to parks just to take pictures? I can honestly say that I would spend a whole day at an amusement park just to do just that.... Well, maybe get on one or two rides ;) I just believe that photography can convey a lot more than mere words. Hopefully come summer, I'll have some good pictures!

What are your thoughts?

-Shawn Bailes

Very good camera. I have the same one. I have just recently gotten into mixing my two joys; Roller Coasters/Amusement parks and photography. Take this time during the off season to play around with your camera and figure out all the settings and what works best when.

I spent a few days last year at Kings Island just walking around taking pictures. I visited a few other parks during the year and only brought my disposable camera though wish I brought the better one. I plan on having plenty of pictures from all the parks I visit this year.
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Chris Tyson
Photographer
www.pkiunlimited.com

I have a Canon AE-1 Program and a T-50 I would love to get something newer but I woudl have to forgo my lens collection then which I woudl not want to do. Besides both provide me with a lot more options then a lot of the newer Canons even if they are a lot more manual (the AE-1) at least. I like running things manually anyway which makes most of the features on some of the EOS's moot to me.

I enjoy photography immensely, it really chills me out.I have been taking railroad pictures and roller coaster pictures for quite a while now and am trying to break my way into Photography as a business now.

xl.kneebush.com is my forgonely unupdated webpage.

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Da Poodle

Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!

BeastFreak,

Yeah, it's a very good camera. My girlfriend is a photography major. We've taken a lot of pictures and she's taught me quite a bit.. I hope to manipulate the settings to get some interesting shots. I like stills, but I'm a big fan of motion shots!

I have a lens in the shop right now, it's an Ultrasonic EF 75-300mm Zoom. Gonna be sweet when it comes to the shots of MF and TTD! :)

-Shawn

I really love taking picture at parks as well. I was using a Minolta S-1 and an HP C200 as my first digital. I had sold the C200 over the summer and gotten a much better Nikon Coolpix 885. It is an extrodinary camera, and take fanominal photographs. Some of my best stuff is posted here:

http://www.coasters2k.com/gallery/

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"If you make it too smooth, it'll be like sitting in your living room."
-Bill Cobb - Designer, Texas Cyclone
*** This post was edited by Black 7 2/6/2003 8:56:56 PM ***

Magnum, I used to have a Canon AE-1 until... well it got stolen, along with my assortment of lenses and filters. I'm slowly getting back to what I used to have and learning the new camera.

I can't wait till Solace to play a little more with motion shots, stills, and night photography.

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Chris Tyson
Photographer
www.pkiunlimited.com

I haven't done this yet, but I, along with some of my friends, plan on going to CP and only taking pictures and video of the rides and us having fun at the park. I was only able to go to a park once after I got my digital camera, and I took atound 100 photos durring the ten hours that I was at the park. But the only problem that I see for myself is that it is very hard and expensive for me to go to a park (I usualy pay for gas and at least two tickets each time that I go), and I want to ride the rides, which leaves little time for me to take good, creative pictures.

First off, I'll join in the namedropping fun. I bought a Canon Powershot G3 on blind faith. I actually never used the G1 or G2 (I have a 2 MP Kodak DC3400, which is nice, and is what I used for ALL the pix on my website), but I had heard so much good from early reviews that I decided to go for it.

The thing is a bit expensive ($800, but you can find it for less if you look hard enough), but for all it does, and the picture quality, that's great.

Back to the topic.

For my photography, the best thing I ever did was to buy a hi-capacity memory card (I have three 128 MB cards that I've gotten free as special offers, well, two were free anyway) and just take pictures whenever I wanted to.

The thing is - the Kodak was relatively small (though no Elph), but it did fit in my pocket. For whatever reason, photography kept me well occupied in ride lines. I'd be waiting in line for, like, Wicked Twister at Cedar Point, and I wouldn't be bored because I was just snapping photos of the ride.

The other advice is to set aside time for riding and shooting. While I always take my camera in line with me, to keep me occupied, sometimes (I did this at SFGAm a lot, because I go there so much) if the park was just so crowded, and it was just so hot, I'd go back into the park and look for new angles.

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"Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation." - David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
http://www.loopscrew.com

Magnum:

I'm still using a variety of older Canons. The automatic features of newer cameras aren't really of much use for rollercoaster photography anyway. You need to be prefocused since auto focus delays the picture taking just long enough that the train isn't there when the exposure occurs. Similarly, auto exposure tends to be fooled by having the bright sky as a background. I usually try to find a patch of grass in the same light as the coaster to take my exposure readings from.

Well the good news, Shawn, is that with those Canon lenses you can upgrade at some point to whatever the next version of the D-60 is (and hopefully it'll have better focus in low light).

Honestly, I've rediscovered photography since I got my D-60, free from worrying about how much film I burn (the average amusement park trip was generally six to ten rolls). Not only that, but you can experiment with the camera settings and get immediate feedback, something I would've killed for back in my high school and college days.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

I agree with Jeff, I am slowly becoming an even better photographer with my D100, I know right away if I got the shot I need or not. I remember a couple times at CP I would waste half a roll on one shot to make sure I got it right.

I just got my microdrive yesterday and today I am getting my Nikon 80-200 2.8 lens! I can't wait to get my new camera in a park to play with it.

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Dan Haverlock
Magnum:2233
"How do you own disorder?"

I didn't want to start a new topic but I have a couple questions about a camcorder I bought. It is the Canon ZR40. I just wanted to know if anyone has one and if it is good. Thanks.
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-Sean Newman

Well isn't it a little late now that you've bought it? There are hundreds of sites on the subject. A Google search gets you a ton of results.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

I had a Kodak digital...sorry I don't recall the model, but it was a heavy, honkin' thing, so it was pretty inconvenient to carry around. It did a decent job, though. The pictures I provided for MiA's Corkscrew, Timbers, and Zach's Zoomer, as well as the ones for Demon and Whizzer at SFGAm (under rollercoasters on this site) were taken with that camera.

Fortunately (in my opinion) it stopped working and I got a Coolpix 2500 for Christmas. It has 12 settings, including back light which prevents the problem mentioned above with the autofocus, landscape, and low light. I still have to adjust for the delay, which I had to do with the Kodak camera I had before. That doesn't really bother me, because, as Jeff said, with a digital you can immediately see if your shot is good or not, and I have a 64 mb and two 32 mb cards. It only took two tries for me to get the Demon shot which shows the train in the middle of the loop through the cave.

What I really like is that it is small and light enough I can drop it into a pocket without being weighed down while riding coasters. Since my main purpose of having a digital camera is to just "take pictures" of my trips to parks, it should suffice.

When I went to Timbersfest, I spent the first couple of hours at the park just taking pictures. When I went to SFGAm, we got a lot of riding in the first evening we were there. The next day, after crowds picked up, I spent the rest of the day just taking in the sights and taking pictures.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead
*** This post was edited by CPLady 2/7/2003 6:31:43 PM ***

The next Digital SLR from Canon is gonna be sweet. It's a much bigger camera, with the full grip (would I be right in guessing that you could buy a battery pack or something for the D60 that gives the extended grip?), similar body to the 1D, being the 1Ds (11mp).

My current camera is the Canon IXUS v3. My last camera was stolen (if the waterpark didn't have 30min+ queues for the lockers, it wouldn't have happened), probably for the better - wasn't too happy with the Kodaks after the DC-200 series. I chose the IXUS because it is small, and takes decent sized videos. It is basically only something that will last until I can afford a digital SLR (which I'll probably get after a nice Prosumer DV)

I have gone to parks a number of times, purely for photography.Usually just with a compact digital. Sometimes I take pictures of the rides etc., but I often switch to Macro mode, and snap some plant and animal shots for the collection (Dreamworld is literally full of native flora and fauna; and most of it isn't part of the wilflife park).

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So what if the best coaster in Australia is a second hand Arrow?

-www.totalthrills.com-
Australia's Premier Source for Thrills!

Yes, the D60 has a vertical grip, and I have been eyeballing it!

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

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Jeff said:
Well the good news, Shawn, is that with those Canon lenses you can upgrade at some point to whatever the next version of the D-60 is (and hopefully it'll have better focus in low light).

I know what you mean about low lighting environments! Bleah! I'm wanting to get a wide angle lens someday. However, the pricing is VERY high for those. Over the $1000 mark for some of the best. I've been looking at the EF 24-75mm F/2.8. Very nice, but very expensive! And for those of you who don't know how these cameras work, the smaller the F-stop (f/#) the bigger the aperture is and the better pictures you get from low light!

My Mom got a Canon Powershot A-40 for Christmas. I think I may have to steal it to get some quick and easy pictures to upload to a site. heh. They can be quite big upon upload, but very good quality. They're also easily reduced in size without sacrificing the quality. Highly recommended! ;)

Well, that concludes todays gibberish.

-Shawn Bailes

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I just got a Minolta HTsi+, it was one of those cant pass up deals from the clearance case at Best Buy. $150 for a $300 SLR and as Brent mentioned, the automatic features are redundent. I still just set it in AP mode, and only use the full auto features for quick grab shots. I used to be a loyal Ricoh user, I know we were few and far between. In fact I may pick up an old one to use for black and white again.

My newest toy is a JVC GRDLV725 DV camera. with 1MP CCD and 530 lines of resolution, havent even had a chance to try it out yet.

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Dave

Beware of Kiddie Coasters

I highly recommend the Olympic Zoom 80 camera. I was shocked at how well the prints came out. The only thing it doesn't do that well is red-eye reduction, even though it has preflash. This isn't a major concern for me as I mostly shoot inanimate objects. I bought the deluxe version, which comes with a carrying case and battery. The best part about the case is that it has a belt loop, so it has ridden countless coasters since May of last year. It's small size also makes sure it won't get crushed by any restraints.
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This is counter culture from the underground eternal revolution this is our sound KMFDM better than the best Megalomaniacal and harder than the rest

Not to pull away from the techie talk here, but on the subject of the original post I find taking photos at parks to be ridiculously enjoyable. I'm a huge coaster/park fan and a mild photography enthusiast. But taking photos at parks is at times more fun to me than riding. I've been known to skip rides in favor of getting photos of the ride instead.

Sick, huh?

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www.coasterimage.com