Competition entry: Disney at Night
Disney at Night by Brian Narveson
2012 April Competition - B Open
32 points
Judges' comments:
Nice composition; looks soft; could crop some off the bottom
Maker's notes:

This was taken at Disney World in Orlando this last February. I took a lot of photo's to expirment with camera settings. My best success was with high ISO (ISO-6400) and f/4.5. I hand held the camera on a fence for stability. Shutter speed was 1/50, with auto-focus and the image stabilizer turned on, using my EFS 18-135 zoom lense. I thought the symmetry of the cluster rockets smoke trails made this interesting. The post processing challenge of this photo was to get the sky black, see the smoke trails but not all the smoke. It was late in the show and the sky was filled with smoke. Using a combination of shadow and highlights controls I achieved the attached image.