The Photography Thread

[wilch]

Nice shot Myst, I love clouds. They make for an awsome backdrop to cars. Nice and clean.

Some examples, both were private clients of www.wbcarphotos.com (my little photo business that I co-own):


http://www.wbcarphotos.com/folio/ima...W_6620_800.jpg


http://www.wbcarphotos.com/folio/ima...G_0287_800.jpg

[wilch]

My girlfriend and I went the liquor store today....



2x strobes
1 behind the bottles centred, pointing slightly up
1 off camera right bouncing off the ceiling

[Myst and rain]

I love clouds, too! They are especially beautiful in the evening out here sometimes. When they have these lilac shades... It's very beautiful. Anyway, that pic I posted was taken through a window, so that's why the colors are a bit dull, perhaps. But I did manage to capture the cloud. Which is cool.

I love the color of that first car. It kind of looks like Candy apple red!

[shredmaster]

Wilch, you do some damn great work man! what camera are you using and lens, and what are you doing to light those cars. how do you get them to look so vibrant and sharp? i'm guessing no strobe flash, maybe 1/2 second shutter or so to let the natural light saturate the shot. awesome job.

steve

[wilch]

Originally Posted by Myst and rain

I love the color of that first car. It kind of looks like Candy apple red!

It is . The owner had restored it but choose to go with that colour. Apparently as a child his favorite movie was Bullit. A realisation of a dream for him which is just too cool.

Same with the Ferrari owner. The Ferrari in that picture is truley an awesome car. Upgraded from factory with the carbon brake discs and Challenge wheels. F1 gearbox too which was unbelievable to say the least.

It felt like I was in heaven when I was in that car.

Originally Posted by shredmaster

Wilch, you do some damn great work man! what camera are you using and lens, and what are you doing to light those cars. how do you get them to look so vibrant and sharp? i'm guessing no strobe flash, maybe 1/2 second shutter or so to let the natural light saturate the shot. awesome job.

steve

Thanks dude.

Camera has very little to do with it. If I recall correctly I think I actually used a Canon 300D body for the mustang image. It did have Canon L glass on it though. Unsure which lens I was using. 24 -105 f4L possibly. The Mustang was done with natural light.


Definitely not the 300D with the Ferrari photo. Either 40D or 1D.

Ferrari had 2x strobes off camera right and left. Delicate balancing act with midday'ish sun (very bright ambient), and the strobes. Followed by quite a bit of post to correct everything and make the car pop while keeping the background true.

[wilch]

A very close friend of mine bought a brand new Golf GTi last week and asked if I could take some photos.

Here's one:

[wilch]

I love the euro interiors. They're so much nicer than the Japanese.





N.B. all images are strobed with 2 to 3 flashes. All three were bounced off whatever was available (was a very quickly setup shoot).

The interior shot had one strobe aimed directly in off camera bottom right, firing through a blow-up diffuser. The rest of the light is coming from a single strobe bouncing off the ceiling and through the open sunroof .

[shredmaster]

that's awesome! thanks for the info on how you setup those beautiful shots!
steve

[Myst and rain]

Originally Posted by wilch

It is . The owner had restored it but choose to go with that colour.

Aha, so it's a car in the color candy apple red. haha It's a great looking car. I've also seen other cars in candy apple and they looked super cool!

I like your shots, wilch. Not to be a suck up or anything, but those bottles could be an add in a magazine, for instance. Really cool, man.

[Rotti]

Really nice car photos.

[Distantshore]

Those did turn out real nice wilch.

If you don't mind me asking a noob question...how do strobes work, do they fire when the camera does? How do you meter for that extra light then? Do you have a fixed light on the car as well, or is it totally dark until the strobes fire?
Silly questions probably. Be gentle.

[jemsite]

Very nice shots wilch. i'd like to see the letterboxed one without the black bars (or grey bars) as the black merges with the window... glen

[wilch]

thanks guys .

Distant, there's no such thing as a silly question .

They're pretty much your standard camera flashes with remote triggers. The remote sender sits on the camera.

Each strobe (flash), is setup manually with regards to what power setting. It took a lot of playing around, but I've got a feel for flash power and apperture settings now that I can almost get it on the first exposure.

Basically with flashes you use the

There's ambient light around before the strobes go off (without it it's nearly impossible to auto focus). No fixed light.

Yes the strobes fire when the shutter opens. But the amount of light that gets through from the strobes is controlled by the aperture and the power setting on the strobes.

Glen, I wasn't happy with my control over the ambient etc with the interior shot. Which is why I letter-boxed it.

Here it is, sans bars:

[Distantshore]

Thanks Wilch for that explanation!
All this talk of lighting inspired me to experiment with some creative lighting. I think they call this painting with flash.
Its basically shot in a dark location with a slow shutter speed, then I proceeded to walk around with an external flash in my hands, pressing the test button at intervals. Sort of gives a ghostly effect.

[shredmaster]

Wilch, you know what would be cool, in an off-balance type of way? Do the same shot BUT with a rust bucket junker car. It would still be art, but with a junker. You wouldn't expect to see such a junker in a great photo and would be a funny artistic spin on it.

Distant, cool shot of the ghost thing. You should try it again and have someone flash you from a distance (didn't sound good) with lower flash output so you aren't so blasted with light...more subtle ghostly-looking that way. This shot reminds me, I am way overdue for planning a trip on ghost hunting with the cams and video. Been trying to organize that for a couple years now with some other people that wanted to do it. I'll have to post a ghost thread if we get anything once we go out.