Its been all about cars the last few days.

I've been shooting, some B&W but need to finish the roll so it will be a short bit before I get to that part. Funny how it works, not like the digital realm where you just offload immediately and not have to worry about "finishing" the roll.

This week has been busy over at SoCalAutoBlog. So much so that its been at the expense of everything else I need to be doing. Its a good thing to be busy, just would like a little balance in the deal. Today was the 21st Annual Street Rods Forever car show here in Monrovia and spent my morning there.

The three images here are HDR images. Today was just a crappy day for car shooting...overcast and dull shadows. It may be an even overhead light but it still sets you up to lose shadow detail. This saved the day. The HDR post processing was done with Adobe's CS5 and is a stupid easy process. Pick the frames, the blending (I chose photo realistic) and voila you are done.

More from the day in my flickr set.

HDR and cars are a good combo

2010 Mazda 3 Grand Touring

2010 Volvo XC60

2010 Ford Taurus SHO

2011 Ford Fiesta (Pre-production prototype)

I'm not quite sure why, but the auto manufacturers tend to love to give you either red or silver cars for their ride/drives at press events. Arrest me red, perfect for a performance car especially when a member of the press is trying to get a feel for its potential while running it through its paces. Especially on marked routes where you can't deviate cops love to sit and wait. No, I didn't get nabbed but is a concern when in a red car with MI MFG plates on it.

The other color they like to give is silver. Looks great, but it is hard as hell to photo without completely blown out highlights on large expanses of the car. IT also picks up the "blue sky" too well in the shadows which makes color balancing a bugger. The latter you can only do so much with a photofilter in CS2. The former, you can actually do a lot with by bracketing your shots and generating HDR images. At that point you can get shadow detail back, but more importantly control the white clipping and keep the all white highlights smaller and more natural in apprearance.

Of course being able to control the contrast and micro contrast makes it possible to highlight the cars much more differently than a straight image. Gives you the chance to drift into the surreal too which I like to do to make the car stand out more in an illustrative manner.

All of these images were shot with low ISO (200) for minimal noise and maximum detail. They were bracketed +/- two stops from average. The RAW files were run through photomatix for the HDR file generation as well as tonemapping. The final image was put through virtual photographer to clean up the cyan hue (some were shot on an overcast morning) and give them the punch of the old uber saturated contrasty Cibachrome print material.

'Nuf said, enjoy the images from a day with Ford/Mazda and Volvo and their LA 2010 Model Reveal.

wide angle perspective distortion...

...and pretty cars make for a fun Saturday afternoon!



"If it has balls or wheels it means trouble" is the phrase I've seen on a few bumper snickers over the years. For me its wheels, add lots of chrome then I'm in at the expense of common sense. Its how I'm wired, can't help it and don't want to change it.  This weekend was close to nirvana when the 18th Annual Monrovia Hot Rod and Custom Car show hit town.

Which lens one chooses can greatly affect the final image and how angles and distance are compressed or exaggerated.  Understanding how focal length affects the final image is one more tool in the bag for a photographer who wants to do more than simply record the world around him.

A wide angle lens is a way to make things look bigger through elongation of the subject.  The also make for very pronounced convergence of lines.  This good for buildings looking up, head on, well they look like the are tilting to the center.  The ultra-wide makes it even more pronounced.  The photographers angle of view and the lens you can emphasise and exaggerate the perspective is probably one of the most important tools one needs to understand as you control your image results.

American cars of the from the mid 50's to early 70's in particular were all about lower, longer and wider.  The ultra-wide lens will emphasise the the width up close and really exaggerate the length.  The car didn't change, the lens changed how the angles were viewed by altering the perspective or horizon point where the angles converge. 

All three of these cars were shot with a Canon 20-35mm lens at the 20mm setting.   This allowed me to make them appear much longer and broader than they would have been with a "normal" 50mm lens.  Even the old Chevy looks longer and more streamlined than it really is. 

The tech bits for those of you who care.  The final images are HDR images generated from 3 raw files bracketed +/- 2 stops.  They were done mapped for detail enhancement and run through virtual photographer to clean up some haze and purify the colors.

Enjoy the cars a 1949 Chevy Sedan, 1960 Cadillac Convertible and 1961 Ford Thunderbird.  You will need to click the image to get to a larger size as they are "clipped" to fit the columns.