Photographing cars
David Filion
classic/muscle cars. I'd like to start taking photos os the cars.
The lot is pretty well exposed to sunlight in the early evening.
Obviously, as the night progresses the light level decreases. The lot
does have fairly good lighting however.
I was wondering what type of filter I should use to reduce glare from
the car's as I take shots. Also should I use a hood to reduce the
amount of light that would enter from the side caused by the overhead
lights in the lot?
What should I use for shooting cars during the day?
Thanks!
ps. I'm using a Pentax 5n w/built in flash and a AF 28-80mm Pentax
lens.
Only me...
"David Filion" <fil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:393bdf7c....@news.videotron.ca...
> I was wondering what type of filter I should use to reduce glare from
> the car's as I take shots.
A polariser will reduce glare from paint, and reflections from glass.
It will not reduce reflections from chrome, or any other metal though. A
polariser will reduce all scattered light, and colours will appear more
saturated.
> Also should I use a hood to reduce the
> amount of light that would enter from the side caused by the overhead
> lights in the lot?
>
Of course. You should always use a lend hood.
>
> What should I use for shooting cars during the day?
The same. A polariser, lens hood, and a nice location. A parking lot
doesn't sound very nice. I'm sure if care enthusiasts there are anything
like they are here, they'll be proud of their cars. Get talking to them.
Offer to take shots, and I bet they'll offer to drive you to a nice location
to do it. Car enthusiasts are a nice bunch of people usually, and they'll
appreciate a good photo of their car.
David.
JP
Are you talking about the Orange Julep meeting, near Décarie in Montréal?
I heard about it. I was interested in getting few shots there.
Every wednesday night? What time? from .. to .. ?
JP
PS to answer your question: it really depends. Of course, lens hood will be
critical in such situations. I would bring a pola. It really depends on what
you want to do. To get cars properly or to get some special effects due to
darkness and the many sources of light and colors.
Maybe those enhanced filters (stars,...) could be fun.
I would not use the flash in such situation (too much metal and glass).
400iso film maybe good. A tripod could be extremely usefull if there is some
spin off at night,...
HTH
JP
"David Filion" <fil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:393bdf7c....@news.videotron.ca...
> Every wednesday night at a local resturant there is a get together of
> classic/muscle cars. I'd like to start taking photos os the cars.
> The lot is pretty well exposed to sunlight in the early evening.
> Obviously, as the night progresses the light level decreases. The lot
> does have fairly good lighting however.
>
> I was wondering what type of filter I should use to reduce glare from
> the car's as I take shots. Also should I use a hood to reduce the
> amount of light that would enter from the side caused by the overhead
> lights in the lot?
>
>
> What should I use for shooting cars during the day?
>
David Filion
On a warm summer night the place will be packed with cars. Everything
from the 20s to the 70s. Muscle cars, cars with rumble seats and old
pickups. Alot of Harley owners gather also.
The owner closes off the parking lot and 'filters' which cars get in
so the collection is usually very good.
One night last year I had to park 3 blocks away!
By the way, the orange juice is out of this world.
Things usually start around 7-7:30pm and end around 10-11pm. If there
are no cops around, you can see some great burn outs and tire smoking.
Stephen M. Dunn
$Obviously, as the night progresses the light level decreases. The lot
$does have fairly good lighting however.
I can't help much with your questions, but I do want to make sure
you're aware of one thing you didn't specifically mention.
The lighting may be fairly good in terms of _quantity_, but its
_quality_ is probably poor. If it's produced by sodium or
mercury vapour, or fluorescents, or most incandescents (including
tungsten), its colour balance is not the same as that of sunlight,
and unless you're shooting tungsten-balanced film, your film expects
to be used to take pictures of scenes illuminated by sunlight.
The human visual system is remarkably good at correcting for this.
Film is much more literal; if you take a picture of something
illuminated by a yellowish light source (e.g. the incandescent lamps
in your house), it will show up with a yellowish colour cast in your
pictures. If the lighting is greenish (most fluorescents), you get
sickly greenish pictures. And so on.
There are filters available to correct for this, but there are
downsides to them, too. One is that they tend to rob you of a
_lot_ of light; to correct for tungsten lighting, for example, you lose
somewhere in the ballpark of two stops of light. They are also
specific to specific types of lighting; you need to know what
colour temperature the light source is, and you won't for these
(to give an example: the datasheet for Kodak's Supra films
lists over a dozen different types of lighting and how to adjust
for them). And if you have more than one source of light
(a sodium-vapour streetlight plus a mercury-vapour light in the
lot, or one kind of light plus the daylight-balanced light from
your flash), you now have different colour balances in different
parts of the frame. You can also get colour-correction filters
for your flash to make its output match that of some weird types
of lighting, but again, you lose quite a bit of light, and you
need to know what colour temperature you're trying to match.
Some of Fuji's films have a fourth colour layer, which they
claim produces much more realistic colours in mixed-lighting
situations. I've never used these films, but many folks on
the Net have said that the claims are true. You might want to
try 'em out.
$I was wondering what type of filter I should use to reduce glare from
$the car's as I take shots.
A polarizer (circular, if your camera requires it). Polarizers
can't do anything for reflections from metallic surfaces, but as long
as there's a layer of paint on top of the metal, the reflection is
coming from the paint, not from the metal.
Remember to look at the whole scene as you adjust the polarizer;
since different surfaces may have reflections at different angles
from different light surfaces, as you decrease the reflections on
one surface, you may notice them increasing on another.
$ Also should I use a hood to reduce the
$amount of light that would enter from the side caused by the overhead
$lights in the lot?
Yup. It may block the flash, but given the colour balance problems,
you may not want to use the flash anyway.
--
Stephen M. Dunn <ste...@bokonon.ussinc.com>
>>>------------> http://staff.ussinc.com/~steved/ <------------<<<
------------------------------------------------------------------
De doo doo doo, de dah dah dah -- that's all I want to say to YOU!
David Filion
research for taking some shots. I think I'lI wait for a car show on a
sunny day for the moment.
LKRZ
>research for taking some shots. I think I'lI wait for a car show on a
>sunny day for the moment.
>
Probably a good idea.
The night show would be an interesting place to work with digital, though.
Since digital captures light in a totally different manner from film, I've
found I get some interesting effects with mixed lighting. With digital, you can
also change the white balance for different lighting.
Wilfred Kazoks
specular reflections off a metal surface since metalic reflections are not
polarised.
It is always a good idea to use a hood. I once took a 2 hour exposure of a
coastal seascape at night, damned if there wasn't a dim red flare spot from
the moon. True story.
you should make use of a good cloud cover for shooting cars during the day.
Cars rarely look best with the sun shining directly on them. This is partly
because of the consequent obvious reflections you get of both the direct sun
and objects lit by the bright direct sunlight.
Regards WIlfred
"David Filion" <fil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:393bdf7c....@news.videotron.ca...
> Every wednesday night at a local resturant there is a get together of
> classic/muscle cars. I'd like to start taking photos os the cars.
> The lot is pretty well exposed to sunlight in the early evening.
> Obviously, as the night progresses the light level decreases. The lot
> does have fairly good lighting however.
>
> I was wondering what type of filter I should use to reduce glare from
> the car's as I take shots. Also should I use a hood to reduce the
> amount of light that would enter from the side caused by the overhead