Mustang Light Painting

[biggerry]

I got a feeling there are gonna be a fair few Mustang images turning up here!

Big thanks for the use of the car and the great turn out - very very helkpful and fun.

a couple of quickies from last night...






will be great to images from others too

[gstark]

Gerry,

The first two ... print them big, and put them on your wall.

Then submit them to a stock site.

[aim54x]

The first is an absolute stunner there Gerry... maybe a bit of a warmer tone (check WB) but it looks terrific!

[surenj]

Phenomenal first shot Gerry! No wonder you were going for broke right at the end!! Persistence pays off...

[Glen]

Very nice Gerry, like the first 3 a lot. 4 should be submitted to a ghostbusters program

[Photopotamus]

Very nice Gerry, like the first 3 a lot. 4 should be submitted to a ghostbusters program

I do believe that's the ghost of Surenj!

[surenj]

Ghost of myself! Scares me to even think about it!

To my annoyance, after causing all that flare for you boyz, I got a crappy shot of the hindquarters!

[biggerry]

Then submit them to a stock site.

hmm, theres a thought, ta.

Thanks all for the comments, summarising what I learnt from the night;

1) LED's can be a better choice in terms of lighting the subject up, however I think i would always have a go with both or even mix and match, given i did my first one (the Beaver) with just a flash, I found that quite OK. A suitable LED would be one of the Wolfeye numbers, Cam's one which pumped out about 260 lumens (from memory) was sufficient, the only gripe is the light focus, a LED with variable 'throw' would be much better and permit a 'spill' of light rather than a 'target'.

2) The actual technique is not particularly difficult, the key aspects being the choice of location and the means to light the subject.

3) Location, this is particulary important, as mentioned in previous posts, Tunks Park was perfect, there was the option of complete darkness or a harbour side (resdential) back drop. The amount of traffic through the place is alright, just enough to make sure you do get mugged and not enough to ruin every shot

4) Composition, this was the hardest one for me, even very slight variations in the composition can result in an image that is great and an one that is ordinary...for example the first shot in this post was my very last shot, it was only about 6 inches away from the second last shot which was nowhere near as good - quite possibly that could be due to me not quite recognising the better composition from the get go but hey....

I actually think i might go out of my way and try and get some more pictures of cars in the future, from a composition point of view it is quite challenging and very different from the majority of what i take pictures of...anyway I digress.

5) Softbox, pretty damn important i think, the softbox i had and also Surenj (correct me here Surenj if i am wrong) had a single diffusing layer, i think a doubler layer would be beneficial. Also a softbox mounted on a telscopic boom or similar would be very handy also, this would permit the 'painter' to keep a larger portion of the light out of the FOV and also greatly assist the lighting of the roof of the car, which was always a stubborn area.

If your looking for softbox, Servaas has the 50x50cm version of mine at a very very very reasonable price (69.95) (cheaper than my purchase price )
http://servaas.com.au/portable-photographic-flash-soft-box-diffuser-50x50cm-p-137.html

6) Lighting up the inside of the car is definitely desirable, however we found it a bit difficult to achieve decent result, would like to here suggestions from others about a good way to achieve this one.

anyway, thats enough from me, feel free to add to or correct as required!

[surenj]

Gerry,

Thanks for putting your ideas on paper..

Just to clarify, my softbox was double diffused. IT would have been insteresting to see whether there was any difference between the two, especially using the same torch...

I don't want to put down the defenders but, my $20 ebay 76 LED light is more than sufficient for this job providing that you don't need it for anything else. [it doubles as a bike light that you can wear if you felt that was fashionable]