Its Summertime here in Utah, which means it's time for car shows! Our local Chevrolet dealership held a small one this past weekend to try and lure people in to buy cars. This show was good photography practice, and I had a lot of fun trying to get interesting and cool angles. Hit the "more" link for all of my best shots from this show and for details on how I shot them.
All of these were shot in the middle of the day when the sun was at its brightest - not the best time to shoot. To help reduce glare, I put a circular polarizing filter on my lens. The nice thing about this filter is that it rotates so you can control the amount of glare. In some shots, I tried to play up the flare so you knew that it was a sunny day, and on others I cut it down to get detail. Because it was the middle of the day I didn't go for beautiful, smooth colors; I wanted the viewer to feel the bright, relentless sun of Summer. All shots were made with my Nikon D40 set on aperture priority (9 times out of 10 I'm in aperture priority mode). Because I had the polarizing filter on, I could still shoot with a wide aperture with out going over the max shutter speed of my camera. A neutral density filter would achieve the same function, but wouldn't allow me to cut down on glare, or give me the rich, vivid colors that could otherwise be washed out on such a bright day. I used my Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Lens
- this lens hardly ever leaves my camera, and I'll dedicate a post to it later.Now time for some pictures...
Since there were a number of cars all parked in a small space, I decided to take pictures of details. In this case, I wanted to capture the iconic tail fin of this Bel Air. This photo is as much about lines as it is about detail.
>>> Exif Information <<<
White Balance : Auto
Sharpness : Hard
Saturation : High
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Light Source : Unknown
ISO Speed Ratings : 200
Focal Length : 35.0 mm
FNumber : F5
Exposure Time : 1/500 s
Exposure Program : Aperture priority
Exposure Mode : Auto
Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV
Contrast : Normal
Edited in the GIMP:
Applied some sharpening using a high pass filter script, and edited curves.
This would have been a boring shot had I not converted it to black and white. I used the c2g GEGL operation in the The GIMP to give it a more processed, grainy look. Lately, I've been obsessed with taking photos and then making them look old. I guess I should just break down and get an old film camera! Maybe my grandfather-in-law will let me use his old argus camera, if I ask nicely!
>>> Photograph Information <<<
White Balance : Auto
Shutter speed : 1/640 s
Sharpness : Hard
Saturation : High
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Light Source : Unknown
ISO Speed Ratings : 200
Focal Length : 35.0 mm
Flash : No flash
FNumber : F4
Exposure Time : 1/640 s
Exposure Program : Aperture priority
Exposure Mode : Auto
Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV
Contrast : Normal
Aperture : F4
The owner of this Bel Air was proud of his trunk - and rightly so. This picture does not do it justice. Because digital cameras have a severely limited dynamic range, I had to try and brighten up the part of the trunk that was in the shade. I could have used HDR, but the series of photos I took did not line up well (need to use a tripod for HDR even if the shutter speed is fast enough to hand-hold). I should have taken this one in RAW so I could easily recover the shaded part, as long as I was careful not to make the shade too dark. In the end I used the lasso selection tool to select the shaded area, created a layer mask from the selection, copied the photo to many layers, and used the screen setting to brighten up the shadows. This added some noise, so I had to remove it with Bibble pro.
>>> Photograph Information <<<
White Balance : Auto
Sharpness : Hard
Saturation : High
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Light Source : Unknown
ISO Speed Ratings : 200
Focal Length : 35.0 mm
Flash : No flash
FNumber : F5
Exposure Time : 1/200 s
Exposure Program : Aperture priority
Exposure Mode : Auto
Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV
Contrast : Normal
In this shot I wanted to capture the detail of the dashboard. I didn't care that the scene through the windshield was all blown out (meaning it was mostly white). The lack of detail through the windshield provides an interesting backdrop to the dashboard, and furthers the notion that it was a very sunny day. I added some sharpening in the GIMP using a high-pass filter script.
>>> Photograph Information <<<
White Balance : Auto
Sharpness : Hard
Saturation : High
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Light Source : Unknown
ISO Speed Ratings : 200
Focal Length : 35.0 mm
Flash : No flash
FNumber : F5
Exposure Time : 1/50 s
Exposure Program : Aperture priority
Exposure Mode : Auto
Exposure Bias : -1 EV
Contrast : Normal
Again, I wanted detail and leading lines. I also loved the color. I shot the shady side of the car so I could capture the deep red without too many highlights. Doing so also let me overexpose the background to further isolate my subject. In its current form, it would make a cool computer wallpaper, but for printing I might flip it around because in the western hemisphere we read from left to right.
>>> Photograph Information <<<
White Balance : Auto
Sharpness : Hard
Saturation : High
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Light Source : Unknown
ISO Speed Ratings : 200
Focal Length : 35.0 mm
Flash : No flash
FNumber : F4
Exposure Time : 1/320 s
Exposure Program : Aperture priority
Exposure Mode : Auto
Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV
Contrast : Normal
In this shot, I used a strong reflection off the windshield to create an interesting look. To further the artistic look of this shot, I used the unsharp mask filter in The Gimp and cranked up the sharpening. I also adjusted the color curve to look like an "S" to increase the contrast. The idea was to make this pop with color and detail.
>>> Photograph Information <<<
White Balance : Auto
Sharpness : Hard
Saturation : High
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Light Source : Unknown
ISO Speed Ratings : 200
Focal Length : 35.0 mm
Flash : No flash
FNumber : F4
Exposure Time : 1/500 s
Exposure Program : Aperture priority
Exposure Mode : Auto
Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV
Contrast : Normal
This shot is about symmetry. I found the background distracting, so I decided to blur it out. I followed similar steps as outlined in this video: Gimp Tutorial: How to blur backgrounds on portraits
File name: DodgeChallengerBack.jpg (Standard EXIF Tags)
>>> Photograph Information <<<
White Balance : Auto
Sharpness : Hard
Saturation : High
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Light Source : Unknown
ISO Speed Ratings : 200
Focal Length : 35.0 mm
Flash : No flash
FNumber : F4
Exposure Time : 1/250 s
Exposure Program : Aperture priority
Exposure Mode : Auto
Exposure Bias : -1/3 EV
Contrast : Normal
So, those are the best of my best! I hope my thoughts on each picture help you understand more about photography and how you might approach a similar subject. If you want to know any specifics on any shots please let me know in the comments. To view all the shots from this series, go to the gallery
Thanks,
Heath
No comments:
Post a Comment