Motor - Two for C&C

Curran

Was asked to snap a few shots of a friends car on Monday. Had mainly done stationary shots of cars before, but decided to try a few on the "move", as there was 3 of us and I could go passanger!

Wondering what you guys think....anything that stands out as being totally rubbish, or anything you would change!

Cheers Dave!

GhostInTheRuins

I suppose the point of doing moving shots is to actually make it look like the car was moving. I looked at the pictures first and I presumed the first picture was stationary, 'twas only after I read what you said that I noticed the guy driving!

shemwhistler

Agreed, the second one has that feeling of movement that the first lacks.

BlastedGlute

Don't be afraid to let your shutter speed on a bit longer, maybe go to an underground car park(telcos have them sometimes) and use the ambient light on a slow shutter speed and have his headlights or rear lights on for a bit of neon madness. These shots look more like he's selling the car than they do a representation of lifestyle or whatever. What lens you using? Go a bit wide angle and don't be afraid to have a lot of the scenery or the Tarmac in the shot. Get down on the same level as the front bumper and give it some size.

challengemaster

BlastedGlute wrote: »

Get down on the same level as the front bumper and give it some size.

Be interesting to see how he'd manage that one while the car is moving...

BlastedGlute

challengemaster wrote: »

Be interesting to see how he'd manage that one while the car is moving...

Perhaps...not being in a car and just letting it drive past you.....


genius....

Curran

BlastedGlute wrote: »

Don't be afraid to let your shutter speed on a bit longer, maybe go to an underground car park(telcos have them sometimes) and use the ambient light on a slow shutter speed and have his headlights or rear lights on for a bit of neon madness. These shots look more like he's selling the car than they do a representation of lifestyle

I have other shots that I took later in the afternoon that are more a representation of lifestyle - I was hoping for C&C on these two shots!
Have only had the chance to edit those two photos from over 260 snaps...granted lots were test shots, trying different shutter speeds, apertures etc as its the first time Ive tried rolling shots. These were the best two from early in the shoot - I have others from later in the day that may be better!

BlastedGlute wrote: »

What lens you using? Go a bit wide angle and don't be afraid to have a lot of the scenery or the Tarmac in the shot.

Unfortunately I havent a whole lot of gear I have a Canon 450D with a kit lens (18-55 f3.5-5.6) and a 50mm f1.8
Id love to have a wider angle lens or a full frame camera, but thats another days discussion.


He's seen the two of them and he's delighted with the 2nd one - he's happy, so Im happy!


challengemaster - Cheers for the PM

BlastedGlute

You don't need a wide angle you just need to pick your position a bit better. Think about the entire composition and where best makes the vehicle look appealing. Dont read a few pages tutorials for this subject, just look at some images and think about how you might be able to achieve that same shot!

Don't worry about your kit you have the goods to get a great shot it's how you put it to work for you that counts! Considering your kit and the shots you've taken, I tried to find an image that I think is just a better version of what you have and not something entirely different. I like this one, taken at 20mm you can get that on your kit lens because it's shot at F4 anyway. Slow shutter speed like I mentioned above, really get that full motion going. And the angle is right down at the front bumper or there abouts,gives a good scale to the motor, and that BMW will look monster if shot right!

http://500px.com/photo/1059201

Challengemaster instead of being negative on thread and seemingly helpful off thread you could just post your tips up here so someone else could benefit instead of just being a bit snotty about the advice I gave him.

Curran

Yeah BG thats a nice shot....but it has to be shot using a rig - which I dont have just yeat...its in the pipe line!
As you know yourself, rig shots allow for much slower shutter while not comprimising sharpness as if the car shakes, so does the camera.

Shooting with 18mm at the widest, and on a motorway, its hard to find the space - but I know what you mean - I wouldnt have a problem shooting on a runway as we could have the cars 20 yards apart as opposed to 6ft as it was on the day! I wanted to shoot the car on the road...so unless I sat in the boot to take the shot, my widest angle wasnt wide enough! That said, we did find a quiet carpark with a narrow lane way into it and I did sit in the boot to snap a few!

On Challengemaster's PM - there's nothing to hide - he didnt have any tips as such - just complimented me on my two shots and offered his C&C in the future, as he takes alot of car shots, and as the photography section can sometimes be a bit quiet / slow to respond to motor shots - PM'ing him might be handier!

BlastedGlute

I think your thinking too big about what needs to be done to get some motion in your shots. You don't need to be doing 60mph down a motorway to embellish the drama. In fact a few photoshop tweaks could do more for you than you can get clearly on your camera. There was a photo of a purple skyline or maybe a lancer or something that was posted here ages ago. It had before and after shots and was at a silly angle. But the actual shot was quite still and static, fast shutter speed. But with radial blur on the wheels and a masked motion blur for the scenery it actually looked pretty sweet.

I like this guys still shots to: http://500px.com/photo/922173

He has one of a ford focus there to that's shot from his friends car while both are moving give it a look sure.

Curran

BlastedGlute wrote: »

In fact a few photoshop tweaks could do more for you than you can get clearly on your camera

Not being smart, but anyone half decent at PS can make a static car look like its in motion!

But Im trying to learn how to do it through the camera - I dont know, thats just me, I dont like to cheat!

hi_im_fil

Curran wrote: »

Not being smart, but anyone half decent at PS can make a static car look like its in motion!

But Im trying to learn how to do it through the camera - I dont know, thats just me, I dont like to cheat!

They never look quite right though. If you have a tripod you could try mounting it in the window/door frame of the car to help achieve a low shutter speed and more of a sense of speed. Heres one i did using a tripod. It would have been better with a more zoomed out view but its all i had to work with

Toyota Trueno AE111 by philipmchugh, on Flickr

Dont worry about not having a huge amount of kit either, you can achieve a lot by thinking outside the box and making do with what you have already.

Curran

hi im fil; how exactly did you mount the tripod. I cant work out how you have mounted it! Thought you might have meant use the back door open, but Trueno's dont have back doors!
I have a tripod and would like to give it a go!

hi_im_fil

Right there are three legs on the tripod, open it up a small bit so the legs spread open a small bit but not too much. Open the window of the car 2-3 inches and place 2 legs of the tripod on top of it, close the window slowly so the window just catches on the legs and pushes them against the pillar of the car. Leave the 3rd leg of the tripod rest against the door of the car, you might want to place a cloth or towel between it and the car to stop it scratching the paint.

Adjust the head of the tripod to whatever angle you want then. Extending the legs of the tripod too far makes it too unstable and you get blurry shots, you'll find the right balance after a few goes!

BlastedGlute

Great example of shutter speed there hi_I'm_fil! I don't quite know what a rig is but I was looking at my gorilla pod and tripod and thinking surely they could be used to good effect. And there's the proof I suppose!

Also I'm not sure that photoshop is cheating at all. Post processing is an important part of any image construction. Do your best with what you can on camera and then master the image for the best possible image! Look forward to seeing your next stuff so post up again!

challengemaster

BlastedGlute wrote: »

I think your thinking too big about what needs to be done to get some motion in your shots. You don't need to be doing 60mph down a motorway to embellish the drama. In fact a few photoshop tweaks could do more for you than you can get clearly on your camera. There was a photo of a purple skyline or maybe a lancer or something that was posted here ages ago. It had before and after shots and was at a silly angle. But the actual shot was quite still and static, fast shutter speed. But with radial blur on the wheels and a masked motion blur for the scenery it actually looked pretty sweet.

There's a right and wrong way to do things, and that's the wrong way tbh. It actually takes more work to do it properly and have it look realistic than to do it properly on-camera and do the usual Post work on it.

And if you're doing a car to car shoot, then it does matter what speed you're doing - the faster you go, the faster your shutter speed can be and still get the motion, and the less likely the shot won't be sharp

BlastedGlute wrote: »

I don't quite know what a rig is but...

Suction cups, a very large boom and a camera attachment...

Also I'm not sure that photoshop is cheating at all. Post processing is an important part of any image construction. Do your best with what you can on camera and then master the image for the best possible image! Look forward to seeing your next stuff so post up again!

Post processing is grand, but trying to mess around with radial blur, gaussian blur and whatever other blur you can get your hands on and make it look realistic is just crazy amounts of work, especially when you can 99% of the time spot when it's done.

The only piece of software out there that realistically does it costs thousands of dollars (intended for commercial usage)

No offence intended, but if you don't know what you're talking about, the advice you're giving isn't going to be spot on.

BlastedGlute

Now why couldn't you have been that constructive on thread?

Also I don't believe there is any perfect set of advice for any type of photograph do you? And if we all just kept our friendly(or otherwise) advice to ourselves we wouldn't have a community and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.


Other than that there is plenty of advice on here now so we can all progress and learn from it. no harm in that!