[grphx]

I went to shoot this black car tonight in this empty parking lot, and I thought "Hey I have 2 studio lights, I should be able to do it. AFter shooting about 20 shots and moving the lights around, this is the best I could do. The left light is about 30 yards from the car, and the right light is half the distance.



Here is another look att he same shot, but at 10mm, to show where the lights are and such.


Here is a little drawing I did of where the lights were at. Notice the light on the right has an umbrella. I figured that would help knock out that glare on the car, but I was wrong.



To make it super easy, I have included the EXIF data in my watermark on the photo.

[UdubBadger]

well just look at where your light is ending up on the ground. I know you don't want to over expose but especially at night, you want more light concentrated on the subject. Try that 1st then maybe try shooting longer exposures.

[BillLee]

what car? all i see is two wheels on the ground.

I don't understand what you were trying to accomplish? how come you didn't move the light closer to the car? Or move the car closer to the lights, because its too close to that building.

[grphx]

I'm not sure how close the lights need to be to the car. I've been reading up on other shoots and when someone posts a picture of the car with the lights showing(showing how they set it up) a lot of them have the lights pretty close. I'm starting to believe that the lights need to be closer.

How are my camera settings? I would hope that I could have a shutter speed fast enough to shoot hand held, and with these lights I thought I'd be able to throw enough light at it for the fast shutter speed.

Also look on the car's door, how do you get around that huge glare of the right light?

PS: You said the car is too close to the wall, why do you say that. I found out that if you have a subject close to a wall, it will throw a more defined shadow on the wall, so I moved the car out a little bit, but I guess I didn't move it out enough.

[UdubBadger]

Originally Posted by grphx

I'm not sure how close the lights need to be to the car. I've been reading up on other shoots and when someone posts a picture of the car with the lights showing(showing how they set it up) a lot of them have the lights pretty close. I'm starting to believe that the lights need to be closer.

How are my camera settings? I would hope that I could have a shutter speed fast enough to shoot hand held, and with these lights I thought I'd be able to throw enough light at it for the fast shutter speed.

Also look on the car's door, how do you get around that huge glare of the right light?

PS: You said the car is too close to the wall, why do you say that. I found out that if you have a subject close to a wall, it will throw a more defined shadow on the wall, so I moved the car out a little bit, but I guess I didn't move it out enough.

settings are good I guess, I mean shoot how you want to, everyone has their own style. I prefer shooting at a low aperture for a DOF effect (bokeh) when I can, even if it means bumping up the ISO or shooting long exposures on a tripod.

You can shoot hand held as long as you are above 1/60 or 1/30 if you have image stabilizer on the lens and you'll be fine.

As for the car being too close to the wall, I agree, but again its a personal preference. If you move it away, your light will be concentrated on the car and not the background, it SHOULD fade nicely away instead of being a hard light/dark on the wall for the shadow - especially if you are bringing the lights in closer.

[grphx]

Originally Posted by UdubBadger

settings are good I guess, I mean shoot how you want to, everyone has their own style. I prefer shooting at a low aperture for a DOF effect (bokeh) when I can, even if it means bumping up the ISO or shooting long exposures on a tripod.

You can shoot hand held as long as you are above 1/60 or 1/30 if you have image stabilizer on the lens and you'll be fine.

As for the car being too close to the wall, I agree, but again its a personal preference. If you move it away, your light will be concentrated on the car and not the background, it SHOULD fade nicely away instead of being a hard light/dark on the wall for the shadow - especially if you are bringing the lights in closer.

I guess I need one or two more lights to light up the wall/background if I plan on shooting with the car away from the wall.

I just wish I knew what causes all the hard shadows. Here are 2 more pictures that I took. I forgot exactly how the lights were setup and all that, but I'm pretty sure the lights were closer to the car when these were taken.

[Point & Shoot]

Honestly these photos look rather Flat, try getting a lot closer to the car,
and put the lights on left and right of the car more further away from each other,
rather than having them get closer.. This way the light will spill across the car, rather
then aim at one particular part of the car..

[UdubBadger]

hmmmm
1. move car further from wall... probably where oils spot is in that pic.
2. 1/160 is too fast? 1/60 is all you need for hand held w/o blur. you could also try to lower the ISO if you want.
3. light set up could work well by placing them about 3 ft from car (towards you), one placed at the hood, one at the trunk but aim them all the way across the car so the one at the hood side is aimed at the trunk and vise versa. oh and don't forget to diffuse the hell out of um too soften them up and not blow out the shot.

[grphx]

Had another shoot tonight, taking everybody's suggestions. I had to adjust the levels to get the picture to be bright enough, I now know not to crank up my LCD screen's brightness because that will make you think that the picture is well lit. I don't think the noise is too bad after the adjustment.


Tested it out on me and the other photographer's truck, before the black g35 showed up


Showing where the lights were and such.


The black g35. The owner is going to murder out the car, but I wanted to shoot it before she did that so I could test on black car.

I think we are getting closer to taking some real good shots. I forgot to charge the battery pack(more like I wanted it to run dead since it's new) so I didn't get a lot of shots of the g35. Always next time!

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions!

[Point & Shoot]

the last pic i guess it getting closest, u need to crank up the power on those lights,
so u can afford to go higher with shutter.. bump up the aperture as well..
and see if u can defuse the lights.. only thing wrong with the last pic is u turned the wheel,
making the fender overcast a shadow over it.. u could turn the wheel just move the light over so u can rid the shadow..

[grphx]

Originally Posted by Point & Shoot

the last pic i guess it getting closest, u need to crank up the power on those lights,
so u can afford to go higher with shutter.. bump up the aperture as well..
and see if u can defuse the lights.. only thing wrong with the last pic is u turned the wheel,
making the fender overcast a shadow over it.. u could turn the wheel just move the light over so u can rid the shadow..

Yah we had the lights at about 25%. I could have dropped the shutter speed for sure, since I have IS on that lens. On my LCD it looked like it was exposed correct and all, so that's my fault for going off the LCD and not the histogram. I need to do some reading up on how to read the histogram correctly.

And yah I didn't think about turning the wheel and casting a shadow. It's just popular to turn the wheel a little bit when shooting a car.

[Fat Buff Guy]

bigger diffusors. umbrella's leave to big a reflection. thats the worst w/ black cars.

[BillLee]

try taking multiple pictures (move the lights in different locations) then merge them into one picture.

[Pendulum]

What sort of lights are those? They seem to be strobes, am I right?

If so, then here's how I would set things up.

Place the car where you want it, and frame your shot. Bring the lights close enough that they're just outside the frame. Aim your heads however you prefer.

Start at, oh, idk... 1/160th shutter speed, lights at 50% power. Set whatever aperture you prefer for Depth of Field. I prefer working between 2.8 and 5.6. Adjust lights and aperture until lighting looks good.

Shutter speed has absolutely NO effect on strobes (other than banding). The aperture is what will change how much strobe your sensor sees. Shutter speed controls ambient light.

[Pendulum]

Oh, and also:

Hard light vs soft light depends on your light source. Bare strobes are going to create harsh shadows. Try some striplights, or at the least, some umbrellas.

[JHayesPhotography]

they are Interfit EXD200s