Triumph Car Show

[casper]

I went to a car club show today, arriving shortly after it began at 9:00AM, on a very bright and sunny spring day. Half of the cars were under the trees in deep shadow, and the rest were in the open in harsh sunlight. I haven’t tried photographing cars before, and a lot of shots had lack of detail in the highlights and shadows. I would appreciate it if the CiC fountain of knowledge could provide any advice on photographing car shows, or dealing with the conditions described. Here are a few that I thought were better than most, all with a Canon 7D. C&C on these shots more than welcome. Thanks for looking.
- Noel

1. 17-85mm F4-F5.6: F5.6, 1/80s, ISO100, +2/3EV, 50mmFL


2. 70-300mm F4-F5.6: F5, 1/640s, ISO100, 135mmFL


3. 70-300mm F4-F5.6: F5, 1/320s, ISO100, FL 70mm


4. 17-85mm F4-F5.6: F5.6, 1/640s, ISO100 +2/3EV, 61mmFL

[Shadowman]

Hi Noel,

One thing I noticed is you are using pretty much the same aperture and ISO setting in all of your shots, and varying shutter speed. This will make it very easy for you to experiment with how changing shutter speeds will effect the final image. Of course with any camera setting you want to achieve the best exposure, so I would look for the Sunny 16 rule as a starting point and then make your variations from there. Incidentally, increasing your shutter speed at the settings you were using will add the snap you are looking for.

My one peeve about car shows is that there is never enough room to work and usually you get spectators wandering into your shots. Don't they know that this car show was set up for your benefit only. Regarding the background at car shows, you can try for more depth of field, which you did in the last shot, and blur out the background, or also as you did in the last photograph-get closer to the subject and eliminate the distracting background.

Finally, with the shots you already have, you can use an editing program to give it a bit of extra snap.

Nice images. The cropping or compostion of the first image is very good, watch out for how the tires are cropped on the second and third.

[gcowan]

Hi Noel,
Nice set of TRs. You did very well with the conditions. Full sun on a day like today is really difficult. The highlights are so strong and the shadows are so deep that it is impossible to accommodate both.
The rule for digital is protect your highlights, that means that the shadows are going to be dense and when you process you have to be careful not to promote noise in the shadows. Try not to have any important details in the shadows.
The professionals shoot cars in a studio and either paint with light or have very large soft boxes, or they shoot on location at dawn just before the sun rises. That way the sky acts like a giant soft box and outlines the contours. Shooting cars at a show is always going to be a compromise, one that I haven't any success with, see my Land Rovers recently, but you seem to have struck rather well.
The only suggestion I could make is keep with the aperture priority and raise the ISO if the speed drops. Choose aperture to give the depth of field for each image.
Graham.

[casper]

hi John. I had not previously been aware of the Sunny 16. So not knowing where to start I set and left the ISO low for the bright sky, used Av, and allowed the camera to take care of shutter speed. Now I have a starting point, I hope to do better next time. Spectators were a problem, but I suppose that includes me as well. No.2 was a much longer line, but both ends were obscured by groups of people - lucky to get a break in the middle. I tried to save some of the other shots in Ps with curves, shadow/highlights, and cropping - I think the shots above were only cropped. No. 1 had blown areas adjacent to back wheel and above the car. I lost a bit of tyre in no.3 cropping out a piece of headlight of the car reflected in the guard. Thanks for your comments. - Noel

[casper]

Hello Graham. There were some nice cars there, mostly 2's and 3's. Good advice on exposing for the highlights, dense shadows on the grass are preferable to white sky. Shadows falling on the cars were filtered, and tolerable (see no.1). I had metering on centre weighted average all morning, which I think was probably a mistake (would average out bright and dark areas?). I recalled that I thought your Land Rovers were pretty good. I had another look, and they still look good to me - I would have been very happy with sky, subject and foreground exposed as well as yours. Next week, there is an Austin A40 club show (I would have expected about 3 cars, but there must be plenty of them still around), so I hope to be able to "get back on the horse" quickly and implement the suggestions from yourself and John. Thanks for your help. Noel.

[Carl in Louisiana]

I recently went to a car show and had similar conditions. You have a nice set of images too! This is a site I found when looking for tutorials on car shoots and found some very helpful tips or at least I thought so. I also used a CPL filter on my lens to help with some of the worst glare.

http://www.carphototutorials.com/tutorials.html

[FrankMi]

Of course with any camera setting you want to achieve the best exposure, so I would look for the Sunny 16 rule as a starting point and then make your variations from there.

Thanks for the tip John!

[Shadowman]

hi John. I had not previously been aware of the Sunny 16. So not knowing where to start I set and left the ISO low for the bright sky, used Av, and allowed the camera to take care of shutter speed. Now I have a starting point, I hope to do better next time. Spectators were a problem, but I suppose that includes me as well. No.2 was a much longer line, but both ends were obscured by groups of people - lucky to get a break in the middle. I tried to save some of the other shots in Ps with curves, shadow/highlights, and cropping - I think the shots above were only cropped. No. 1 had blown areas adjacent to back wheel and above the car. I lost a bit of tyre in no.3 cropping out a piece of headlight of the car reflected in the guard. Thanks for your comments. - Noel

Noel,

Here's one I shot this summer. I deviated from the Sunny 16 by a few stops to give a bit more shine.
f/6.3, 1/800s, ISO 200, post processing contrast adjustment.

[casper]

hi Carl,
Thanks for the link, there are some very good tutorials there. I have read through some of the outdoor car show articles and noted a few ideas for next time. I don't have any CP's for my camera, need to get some and maybe some ND grads as well - ten I need to learn how to use them.
- Noel

[casper]

Thanks, John. Just testing to see if I understand: f16 and ISO200 = 1/200, then f11 and ISO200 = 1/400, f8 and ISO200 = 1/800, f5.6 and ISO200 = 1/1600 (f6.3 about 1/1350, backed off a bit for the effect you were after). If that is correct, ISO125 would have been close according to the rule (f6.3 = 1/830), although maybe not as sensitive as you required. Nice car. Obviously someone's pride and joy.
- Noel

[Shadowman]

Thanks, John. Just testing to see if I understand: f16 and ISO200 = 1/200, then f11 and ISO200 = 1/400, f8 and ISO200 = 1/800, f5.6 and ISO200 = 1/1600 (f6.3 about 1/1350, backed off a bit for the effect you were after). If that is correct, ISO125 would have been close according to the rule (f6.3 = 1/830), although maybe not as sensitive as you required. Nice car. Obviously someone's pride and joy.
- Noel

Noel,

My sunny 16 chart had settings of f/16, 1/250s, ISO 200, however I wasn't happy with the results so I deviated until I got a color that was pleasing at least to my eyes. The shot I took with correct exposure looked dull to me and my highlight indicator was blinking like crazy.