MK - Disney Starlight Nighttime Parade

Scottwdw

Member
Advantage of living near Walt Disney World. Disney announced the new Disney Starlight Nighttime Parade will publicly premier on Sunday, July 20, 2025. I have made park reservations for the Magic Kingdom that day. This is a placeholder thread where I will show photos of the parade I will taking that night (weather permitting). Anyone care to join me? :D
 
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Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade (Part I)

All photos were taken with a Nikon Z9 mirrorless camera and Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2 lens. I used Joanie's advice from her recent experience of photographing the "Paint the Night" parade in Disneyland. Joanie used a Nikon Z9, too. I set Exposure to Center-weighted metering which worked really well. Focus settings were Wide-area Auto Focus (AF) and Auto Subject Detect while she used People detection. It seemed to pick up the people at the top of the floats really well.

I did use Auto ISO with a Maximum of 10,000. Joanie manually adjusted her ISOs. The only time it hit the limit was when I had my shutter speed too high or the subjects were too dark (see ground entertainer photo examples). If you see any photos with an ISO over 7200, I used Lightroom's new non-destructive AI Noise reduction on it.

I photographed both the 9PM and 11PM parades.

First up is the 9PM parade. First photo shows you where I was in relation to Main Street USA. When I arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 3:30PM, people were already staking out location up and down Main Street USA. With a heat index of over 110 degrees F, I was not going to do that. Instead I rode a few rides and enjoyed a Dole Whip snack. I got to this location at 5:50pm. Luckily, clouds had moved in but thankfully rain never materialized.

I processed all the photos in latest version of Lightroom Classic and made extensive use of all the Masking tools when appropriate.

This was my shooting location. Again, since I did not stake out a location, I had to settle for the best I could get. About 30 feet past Casey's. A bit past the garbage cans nearest Casey's.

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1/40s, f/8, ISO 560, 28mm FL


The Blue Fairy Float leads off the parade in a very impressive manner. I lightened up enough of the background so you can see the Ice Cream Palor to judge scale. There are two other characters on this float, Pinocchio and Geppetto, dancing behind a screen which clears and then goes opac. I did not get useable images of them.

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1/500s, f/2.8, ISO 720, 28mm FL

Frozen II Float featured Elsa and the rest of the cast in screens about the float. Elsa is well lighted here as she is looking down. You can see the three lights illuminating here at the front of the float. Most of the time Elsa and other other characters would have their heads up and get a lot of shadowing about their faces.

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1/400s, f/2.8, ISO 900, 28mm FL

Princes and Princesses float was next featuring some of our favorite royal couples dancing and waving to guests.

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1/125s, f/2.8, ISO 320, 28mm FL

Here is Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen on the float. Naveen has some motion blur due to the shutter speed I selected.

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1/125s, f/2.8, ISO 1250, 75mm FL

Coco is a colorful and beautiful sounding float. Trick here is to get the white balance on Miguel correct. I had to fix that in post.

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1/200, f/2.8, ISO 1000, 34mm FL
 
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Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade (Part I) - continued (ran into a board issue with the length of the post)

Whimsy the Train is the new "character" debuting in the parade. Funny thing is there was no merchandise for sale with Whimsy on it. All the classic Disney characters are on this one plus Tangled and Aladdin couples (not sure why). His face changes into starlight and then back. Lights go from Starlight blue to colors correct for a train and cars.

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1/320, f/2.8, ISO 280, 28mm FL

More Whimsy showing the size of the float compared to all the guests.

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1/320, f/2.8, ISO 6400, 28mm FL

Mickey and Minnie Mouse looking down and well lit as they greet guests. A faster shutter speed would have helped out Mickey here.

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1/160s, f/2.8, IS 2000, 75mm FL
 
Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade (Part II)

There are not many ground entertainers. What there are were clothed basically not to be seen. Even the dancers.

Here are a couple examples...

I increased the exposures in post to bring out the dancer's faces. I guess the parade designers didn't want that.

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1/125s, f/2.8, ISO 10,000, 36mm FL

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1/125s, f/2.8, ISO 10,000, 75mm FL

There is only one character who is on the ground as of today who can interact with guests. Tinker Bell proceeds the Peter Pan float. Thankfully she has a bright wand.

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1/125, f/2.8, ISO 720, 75mm FL (cropped into a Portrait)
 
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Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade (Part III-A)

For the second parade at 11pm, I moved over to Frontierland. This location gave me a good distance from each float. While on Main Street USA and Liberty Square all the lights are turned off, in Frontierland, the Diamond Horseshoe marquee and porch lights are left on.

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1/40s, f/2.8, ISO 10,000, 28mm FL

This was the best photo I got of the Wish float. Will try again to get a better photo of the entire float.
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1/160s, f/2.8, ISO 400, 75mm FL (cropped)

Encanto was another beautiful float. However, the characters kept moving in and out of the lights.
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1/400s, f/2.8, ISO 900, 50mm FL
 
Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade (Part III-B)

Moana float with Moana leaning the wrong way. :D

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1/320, f/2.8, ISO 10,000, 28mm FL (cropped)

Better one of Moana and the Manta Ray depicting Gramma Tala which pops up as the float moves.


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1/640, f/2.8, ISO 10,000, 32mm FL (cropped)

Peter Pan, the float. This is one light sequence. Like all the floats, the lights and colors change throughout the parade's route.

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1/125s, f/2.8, ISO 720, 28mm FL
 
Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away Parade (Part III-C)

Whimsy the Train showing his Starlight face

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1/250s, f/2.8, ISO 2000, 28mm FL

Whimsy the Train in color.

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1/250s, f/2.8, ISO 1000, 28mm FL

The end of the parade float...

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1/160s, f/2.8, ISO 500, 42mm FL

Which has the wonderful Jiminy Cricket animation on the back side as a nod to Spectro-Magic.
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1/250s, f/2.8, ISO 1400, 33mm FL
 
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