Disney At Night
Harper's Mill is a building located on Tom Sawyer Island in Frontierland, in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The building gets its name from the character "Joe Harper" from "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".
Inside the mill is a reference to the 1937 Disney short "The Old Mill". In the cartoon, a storm is raging and it starts to turn the gears of the mill. A mother bluebird and her eggs are nesting in the gears and could get crushed. Fortunately a tooth in the gear is missing and like the cartoon, the Bluebird is saved.
To get this shot, I wanted to get a really nice smooth reflection of the mill in the water. To do this, I used a really long shutter speed of 30 seconds. The aperture was set to f/8.0 at ISO 400 and a 21mm focal length. Of course for a 30 second exposure a tripod was necessary. So if you are looking for silky smooth water for a nice reflection, try a very long shutter speed.
Also interesting to note, with such a long shutter, this shot came out much lighter than was I was seeing. It was very dark and standing there, I could hardly make out what was in the shadows. This is what makes photography fun for me. While I think I'm getting one shot, I get something somewhat different that I envisioned. It's a great process of learning and discovery.
Have fun capturing the magic of Disney.