The post Weekly Photo Challenge – Cars appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
We’ve had ‘transport’ but I thought maybe this week we’ll look at cars specifically!
We have SO many tips for photographing cars, and I’ve gathered a search for you (Click Here) and I also want to share a link to a friend of mine’s website, Larry Chen, he’s a Canon Explorer of Light and an amazing car photographer (Click Here) for some inspiration.
Don’t forget, you can go back and try ALL of our CHALLENGES over HERE!
Your Cuban Ride
Quick Car Photography tips? Here’s a list of seven that might help you.
Think about details and angles that you don’t often see or think about, perhaps you could try panning for a different looking photo?
You can upload your photo here (comments down below) or over in our Facebook Group.
Share on Instagram or Twitter and use the hashtag #dPSCars so we can see them!
How do I upload my photo to the comments?
Simply upload your shot into the comments field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see. Or, if you’d prefer, upload them to your favourite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them.
The post Weekly Photo Challenge – Cars appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
The post 7 Tips for Taking Better Photographs of Cars appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Desmond Louw.
Taking photos of cars is such an interesting activity; it’s like doing science. Every time you shoot a car, you’ll learn something from it!
That’s why I would like to share some basic guidelines to get you started with car photography.
And by the time you’ve finished this article, you should be one step closer to getting gorgeous photos of cars!
1. Shoot at the right time of day
This is by far the most common mistake people make when shooting cars.
You see, the best time to do car photography is a few minutes after sunset (or a few minutes before sunrise). Use a tripod and get that perfect soft light on the paint.
This photo was taken for Top Gear a few minutes before sunrise:
2. Be on the lookout for reflections
You must carefully control what reflects in the car. Have a look around you, then look closely at the car and see what reflects off its surface.
A car (especially a new, shiny one) is like a mirror. So try to have an open space behind you, like a field. Also, try to avoid shooting with buildings or trees in front of the car. One of the most important things you want to show in your car pictures is the design lines of the car. But reflections can spoil these lines very quickly.
Also, be very careful not to include your own reflection in the photo. If you can’t avoid your own reflection, it’s best to put the camera on a tripod, set the timer, and move out of the shot. Just look at this photo I took of a dark shiny BMW 428i (below); behind me was nothing except the horizon. In fact, you can clearly see the horizon reflecting in the car:
3. Take driving shots
One very easy way to get a cool image is to shoot the car out of another moving car. (Please be super careful when doing this!)
For instance, try shooting the car out of a window while driving at 37 mph (60 km/h) with a shutter speed of 1/100s or so.
By doing this, you’ll get some nice movement on the road and on the wheels. You can even decrease the shutter speed further, though this will increase your chances of ending up with blurry photos.
This Audi S3 was shot before sunset; it was driving at 70 km/h (43 mph), and I used a shutter speed of 1/125s:
4. Pay attention to the color of the car
All types of paint react differently at different times of the day with different light. Most colors hate direct sunlight, but some colors actually handle direct sunlight really well.
Just look at this baby blue Beetle shot in the middle of the day:
5. Choose your background carefully
Make sure your background suits the car and the theme. Avoid including objects in the background that will distract the eye.
Things like dustbins, power lines, and other cars can kill a picture. For this Aston Martin shot (below), I used a simple background. The yellow paint matches the car’s color:
6. Pan for motion blur
A cool way to get some motion in your car photography is to stand next to the road and let the car drive past you.
Follow the car with your lens in one smooth action and set the shutter speed to 1/125s. You will be amazed by how easy this is!
This Ferrari was shot at 1/125s at 200mm. The car was driving roughly 37 mph (60 km/h):
7. Let the car interact with nature
Here’s another way to capture a photo that speaks to you:
Make the car interact with its surroundings.
Examples of this could be a car creating dust or a 4×4 driving over an obstacle. Look at this Chevrolet Trailblazer climbing over a rock:
And this G-Class AMG drifting on loose sand:
8. Shoot at night
Photographing cars at night might sound daunting, but you will be amazed by how easy and awesome it is! The biggest secret here is to find a spot where it’s completely dark; any streetlights or even a full moon could make life tricky.
Once you’ve found the right spot, set up your camera on a tripod. Set your ISO to 100, the shutter speed to 30 seconds, and the aperture to f/9.
When the shutter opens, take a strong constant light source and walk around the car, “painting” it with your light. A normal household flashlight works for this.
There are no rules here. Paint the car in different ways to get different effects, and you will be blown away by the results! Here are some examples of this technique:
This is an Opel Astra shot next to Table Mountain with Cape Town in the background.
This is a Dodge Charger with the skyline of Detroit in the background. The photo took me no longer than five minutes to set up and capture.
Tips for taking better photos of cars: conclusion
Car photography may seem difficult, but with these handy tips, you’re well-equipped to take some stunning car photos of your own.
So pick your favorite technique from the article, get outside, and start shooting!
Do you have any other car photography tips or favorite images you’ve taken of cars? Please share them in the comments below.
To learn related tips and techniques, check out these articles:
Light Painting Part One – The Photography
Showing Speed: Using Panning When Shooting Action
3 Tips for Creating Dramatic Images Using Motion
Do You Pack Up and Leave After Sunset and Miss the Fun of Night Photography?
The post 7 Tips for Taking Better Photographs of Cars appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Desmond Louw.
Nick Shirrell, a motorsport filmmaker known for using old school film cameras to capture auto races, recently received an invitation from Ferrari to travel to Italy and film a race using 50-year-old Super 8 cameras with 8mm film. The result is a 10-minute video featuring a retro production style and classic voiceover narration that recently went viral on the /r/Formula1 subreddit.
DPReview spoke with Shirrell to ask about his experience with Ferrari and the gear he used to capture the race, as well as the events that led up to this moment. The project wouldn’t have been possible without support from Reddit, according to Shirrell, who explained that his first Super 8 race video went viral on the /r/cars subreddit, resulting in articles from publications like Jalopnik and, eventually, a private message from Ferrari.
Following the initial video, Shirrell filmed an IndyCar video at Road America, which likewise was popular on Reddit and with automotive media. He explains:
‘Not long after the IndyCar video went viral, I got DM’d on my Instagram by Ferrari asking if I’d like to talk to them about doing some filming. Little did I know the phone call that would follow would be an invitation to Italy to make the great film released this week! Ferrari was amazing to work with and they made it clear they wanted no hand in the creative process or in the final content, they only wanted to enable me to create something amazing and give me the opportunity to do what I do with these films.’
Shirrell used a variety of gear to capture the race, including three Super8 cameras: a 1966 Canon 814, 1968 Canon 1218 and a 1971 Beaulieu 4008 ZM2 with Kodak Vision3 50D and 200T motion picture film stock. These models were joined by a RadioShack-brand Realistic 14-1029 handheld mini-cassette recorder featuring a Smith-Victor supercardiod condenser shotgun microphone.
Shirrell said his narrator Alan Baxter used a modern microphone to record the voiceover, which was later edited using software. As well, he relied on the natural lighting available at the filming locations. Shirrell explained:
‘For post-processing the voiceover audio, I use EQ and distortion filters within Adobe Premiere Pro to mimic the sound of an older microphone recording onto tape as accurately as I can. For ambient track sounds of V10s, Challenge cars, etc recorded onto mini-cassettes the old fashioned way I didn’t have to add any filtering.’
As for processing the film, he said:
‘I do develop my own 35mm and medium format still photos with C-41, E-6, and black and white chemicals, but for a professional project like for Ferrari I didn’t trust myself to not ruin the film on my first ever attempt at developing 8mm. 8mm is challenging to develop because it’s 50 feet long and very small and fiddly compared to a roll of 35mm or 120 film that is 4-6 feet in length.’
This isn’t the end for Shirrell, who has plans for other projects involving his retro equipment:
‘For what I want to shoot next, I’d love the opportunity to film Formula 1 if the opportunity presents itself, but I also have ideas for shooting drag racing, rally, and other motorsports.’
Shirrell’s work can be found on his YouTube account and on Instagram.
Car photography is every bit as exciting as photographing people. Each car is unique and has its own beautiful traits that translate perfectly into a photo. Whether you are taking photographs of vehicles on an F1 circuit or a full-on photoshoot of the most beautiful antique cars at an exhibition, your ultimate goal is to portray the personality and uniqueness Continue Reading
The post Everything You Need to Know About Photographing Cars appeared first on Photodoto.
A Ford van zooming around the Washington D.C. area last month, seemingly without a human in the driver’s seat, wasn’t self-driving after all: it was a man in a ‘seat suit.’ A fake driverless car might seem like a weird experiment, especially considering the fact that there’s an entire fake town for testing self-driving vehicles at Ford’s disposal. But as it turns out, they have their reasons: observing how people react to seeing it. While Virginia Tech has already been testing autonomous vehicles in the area, they’re still using human overseers to take over the wheel in case something goes wrong.
In the video above, a few people muse aloud, “Is that a self-driving car?” Slow-motion shots show the vehicle passing by with a seemingly empty driver’s seat. But the fact that there’s a man camouflaged as a car seat is almost more interesting, anyway. After learning of the stunt, Adam Tuss of NBC Washington followed the car around until he could pull up next to it at a red light and get a shot of the interior, revealing the driver’s hands and legs. “Brother, who are you?” he asks in the video. “What are you doing? I’m with the news, dude.”
This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen @nbcwashington @ARLnowDOTcom pic.twitter.com/8ipKEnkeiq
— Adam Tuss (@AdamTuss) August 7, 2017
John Shutko, a Ford self-driving researcher, divulges some answers in a piece on Medium.
“We’re teamed up with [Virginia Tech] to test our communications method and to explore how pedestrians and bicyclists react to self-driving vehicles with no human in the driver’s seat. Of course, we do need someone in the seat right now, so we dressed a human up in a seat suit to make it appear as though there was nobody inside our simulated self-driving Ford Transit Connect. This seat suit allowed us to collect real-world reactions to an autonomous vehicle driving on miles of public roads in northern Virginia, without actually using an autonomous vehicle.”
Six different drivers wore the suit throughout August, reporting that they started out on a test track before moving onto the streets, and that the suit was definitely uncomfortable.
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Players of the next version of PlayStation’s Gran Turismo Sport will be able to create professional looking photographs of their cars using a new feature that offers a surprising amount of ‘photographic’ control over the way the images turn out. For us mere photographic mortals, it might be the closest we’ll ever get to shooting a $ 2.5 million car with a $ 50,000 camera…
The Gran Turismo features is called ‘Scapes’, and it lets players place their favorite cars in a wide range of scenes—from landscapes to city streets and interiors—and adjust their camera ‘controls’ to dial in things like depth of field.
A control panel down the side of the screen has software-like sliders for exposure compensation, aperture, shutter speed and focus. The car can be turned and parked where you like, the lights switched between beam settings, and the color temperature of the whole scene can be adjusted to create warm and cool effects.
More than a passing thought has gone into creating the Scapes mode, and the control of the images really seems extensive.
Users can alter the color balance of shadows, mid-tones and highlights using RGB sliders, while grain effects can be added along with vignetting and distortion corrections. And if that’s not enough, you can even blur the background using a panning effect, to deliver a race day atmosphere in one of around 1000 scenes.
For more information, check out the Gran Turismo website.
Information from PlayStation:
‘Scapes’, the New World of Photography
Go on a photography trip with your favorite car.
The ‘Scapes’ feature is a new format of photography, borne from a True HDR workflow and physics based rendering technologies. Each photo spot contains all the light energy information of that scene as data. Even the incredible brightness of the Sun is physically recorded and contained in each of these photos; and because each image also contains spacial information for that scene, it is now possible to ‘place’ cars into real world photographs.
Subway cars in Taipei have become swimming pools, basketball courts, baseball fields and track lanes to get residents amped for the upcoming 2017 Summer Universiade, an international multi-sport event for university athletes. While the installations mostly consist of photorealistic photographic murals stuck onto the floors, the illusion comes together pretty nicely, especially in the case of the swimming pool, which matches the existing subway car chairs and poles.
These ‘moving sporting venues’ will transport lots of tourists attending the events, and the city hopes to add to their excitement. The Universiade is the second-largest international sporting event after the Olympics, set to begin on August 19th and end on August 30th, and will include competitions in 22 different sports across 70 venues.
Images by: Taipei City Government Department of Information and Tourism, @skywu0326, @chi._.851229, @nikoleko1007
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Somewhere between pagan magic, modern science and quirky satire, this installation project uses salt circles but also the logic of traffic lines to lure in and ensnare unsuspecting autonomous vehicles.
James Bridle‘s Autonomous Trap 001 employs familiar street markings found on divided highways – per the rules of the road, cars can cross over the dotted line but not back over the solid line. It sounds a bit absurd, but consider: driverless cars with various degrees of autonomy are already hitting the streets, and these do rely on external signals to determine their course. As these technologies gain traction, it is entirely likely that serious attempts will be made to spoof and deceive their machine vision algorithms.
“What you’re looking at is a salt circle, a traditional form of protection—from within or without—in magical practice,” explains Bridle. “In this case it’s being used to arrest an autonomous vehicle—a self-driving car, which relies on machine vision and processing to guide it. By quickly deploying the expected form of road markings—in this case, a No Entry glyph—we can confuse the car’s vision system into believing it’s surrounded by no entry points, and entrap it.”
“The scene evokes a world of narratives involving the much-hyped technology of self-driving cars,” writes Beckett Mufson of Vice. “It could be mischievous hackers disrupting a friend’s self-driving ride home; the police seizing a dissident’s getaway vehicle; highway robbers trapping their prey; witches exorcizing a demon from their hatchback.” It has elements of cultural commentary that stem from acute awareness of real conditions, bordering on the absurd but also quite sobering.
In fact, Bridle made his trap while training his own DIY self-driving car software near Mount Parnassus in Central Greece. “Parnassus feels like an appropriate location,” he says, because “as well as [having] quite spectacular scenery and [being] wonderful to drive and hike around, it’s the home of the Muses in mythology, as well as the site of the Delphic Oracle. The ascent of Mount Parnassus is, in esoteric terms, the journey towards knowledge and art.” Meanwhile, Bridle continues to work on other pieces related to contemporary technology, tackling subjects from machine vision and artificial intelligence to militarized tech and big data.
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Richard Cooke, an action photographer whose portfolio includes innovative air-to-air shots of RAF jets, has launched a weekly video series telling the stories behind some of his most daring shoots. In the first episode, he explains how his first job photographing a Jaguar squadron in the air came to be, what the preparation was like, and what happened when he accidentally tripped the Jaguar’s air brake on his first flight.
Up to five episodes currently, the series is a fascinating first-hand account of all the trouble that goes on behind the scenes of some truly incredible images. Take a look at the first episode here, and head to YouTube to subscribe and see the full series.
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