Hello all!!  Had another fun week here in central Florida. The temps. are coming down, as well as the humidity.  This week I visited Disney twice.  First on Thursday I went to the Magic Kingdom.  The park is decorated for autumn and "Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween".  I was there to ride the recently reopened and newly renovated "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride.  Happy to see that nothing really changed. The ride was merely cleaned up and, I assume, some of the mechanicals were worked on.  It appeared to me that they may have added another "Jack Sparrow", put a Captain Barbossa on the big ship in the beginning of the ride, and added a couple more dogs.

Fall Micky WreathThe Magic Kingdom is decked out with Fall colors Bones at the HelmAlways love Pirates of the Caribbean New Jack Sparrow?I think this one was recently added, but I could be wrong Barbossa?Always love Pirates of the Caribbean

On Friday, Theresa and I went to Epcot, where they are having the "Food and Wine Festival".  They have this every year from mid September to mid November.  You can buy food and wine samples at different booths that represent different countries.  This visit we sampled food from Patagonia, New Zealand, China, Germany, The Dominican Republic, and Hawaii (I know Hawaii is not a country, but just go with me on this).  We also tried a couple of different drinks, but didn't do any of the wine pairings.  I did manage to grab a Dole Whip w/coconut rum though.  We plan to head back a couple more times to try some stuff that interested us, but we didn't have the appetite for.

Spaceship Earth - Epcot

As far as photography goes, I tried using my neutral density filter at the Magic Kingdom.  This allows for longer exposures during daylight.  It helps to remove people or other moving objects from the image and comes in handy in busy places.  Of course Disney World is always busy and even with the smaller crowd levels this time of year, I couldn't get the effect I wanted.  I kind of knew this going into this, but I'm still getting my feet wet with this filter.  As you can see in the photo, there is a lot of ghosting (people moving, but not fast enough) and there are some folks that just didn't move during the entire exposure.

Main Street USA - Magic Kingdom Done with a 10x ND filter. You can see the "ghosting" of some folks and the flags. Gonna keep trying!

I will keep trying till I get the result I'm looking for.

In the mean time, I have included one of my prouder Magic Kingdom photos.

Dumbo the Flying Elephant

Till next time!!!

-Tom