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i have done my first proper shoot on a car this weekend, actually did two cars but i like how this one has turned out.

as it was my first shoot and people watching i didnt realise i havnt lit up the roof of the car as much as i would of liked but from the feedback i got when the owner was looking at the LCD screen on the back of the camera. he is really pleased anyway which is the main thing.

he will recieve the photos either tomorrow, ill send them off today for him.

all up there is 15 photos of his car but these ones are my favourites.

just realised i didnt put any data in

1st picture
iso 400, f/9.0, 50mm, 35seconds

2nd picture
iso 400, f/8.0, 50mm, 10 seconds

3rd picture
iso 400, f/8.0, 50mm, 20 seconds
and
iso 400, f/8.0, 50mm, 10 seconds
then layered and deleted bonnet in photoshop

4th picture
iso 400, f/8.0, 50mm, 10 seconds

Compare these to what you were doing a few months ago when you joined. The improvement is, to coin a word, stark!

You have done well to focus attention on the car in #1. No distracting elements in the background here.

The small pool of background items in #3 offsets the image quite nicely, I think.

auxr8220 wrote: from the feedback i got when the owner was looking at the LCD screen on the back of the camera. he is really pleased anyway which is the main thing.

While it's all well and good to be able to chimp, and to show the vehicle's owner the images in situ, be very careful when doing this. The camera's LCD is not a calibrated monitor, and what you - and your client - are seeing there is not going to be an accurate representation of what the image will look like. Brightness will bear no relationship to what the image's brightness levels actually will be, and unless you're using your camera's histogram, this can actually lead you into a sense of false security about the images that you've captured.

I'm also concerned at what I'm seeing as a lack of sharpness in the last image. Given your aperture setting of f/8 with the 50mm lens, I would expect this image to sparkle, but it seems somewhat soft to me. Obviously you were using a tripod: how are you triggering your exposure?

Just for the fun of it, I'd like to see you shoot some simple images of, say, a newspaper page, running through the range of aperture settings available to you on your lens, and let's see if you can find your lens's sweet spot.

Very nice work, as Gary said....HUGE steps have been taken since your first images! I like the first the most, such a classic car mag look!

cheers for the comments, i still cant believe how far i have come when i compare my work from when i first signed onto here, i visit two dslr forums, aswell as get feedback from photography sections on car forums and it is amazing how much people are willing to help each other out.

g-stark, about the last picture it looks quite sharp on a fullsize version, but it could just be me that is overseeing the quality. it could of also focused on the glare from the badge when i was using the torch to focus. and that could of given a focus that wasnt accurate, but it makes it so hard to see at night that you dont really know what you have got till you get home.

i told the owner to expect around 10 photos, and he is getting 15 so im sure he will oversee that one

These are sensational. I really like them.

Critique from me would be watch the dark spots on the roof in 1 and 3 - but you have already picked up on that.

Very nice though. Was lacking inspiration, I will need to find a mate with a nice car. This would be an excellent minimeet project. Who has a hotrod?? In Sydney

whitey wrote: Who has a hotrod?? In Sydney

Does a Daiwoo Lanos 3 door hatch count?

love #1 and #4. i think 4 is my favourite, although a bit of photoshop panelbeating is in order. lol
excellent work !

I agree that these are very very nice images! You are definitely in Tangla territory now. I have a question about your softbox technique... I have asked this before but didn't understand your answer. Which angle do you hold the box to the car. I tried this at some stage and got too much flare and light trails. Then I tried to hold it 90 degrees to the car and didn't get much light to expose the car properly...

auxr8220 wrote:quality. it could of also focused on the glare from the badge when i was using the torch to focus. and that could of given a focus that wasnt accurate

I wonder whether you could take a small white piece of paper and tape it to the car and focus on the transition between the white paper and car? This may help your focusing system to work better. Are you using the canon 50mm 1.8? This lens has very poor low light focusing.


I am all in for a car-painting-minimeet. Will start an EOI thread for all concerned....

as i said the softbox stays direct opposite the car panels like it was sitting flat againt the panel just a few feet away, the reason these probably arnt as harsh is there is a second sheet of white material for the light to pass through inside the softbox.

and yeah im using the canon 50mm 1.8 it is a much better lens to focus with compared to the kit lens.

Very nice work!Nothing left to say.

Thanks Auxr8220. I will have try again. Just waiting for the weather to improve so that I can feel my hands and think straight during an outdoor excursion at night.

You could probably get a little more of the roof and bonnet to come up with a bit of selective PP.
Nice work otherwise

As everyone has mentioned, these are such a vast improvement from teh first images months ago, the other thing that really grabs me about this series is the colour of the car, this colour works soooo much better than a dark blue or black..

top stuff...

colin_12 wrote:You could probably get a little more of the roof and bonnet to come up with a bit of selective PP.
Nice work otherwise

Colin you should try this technique on ya fun guy...

Great lighting in the engine bay!

Nice photos, really like the colour !!!