Automobile 101

[Ryogenetic]

Thanks Donald,
Took a second stab at the first:



Cleaned up the front end, kept the sharpening down to a minimum, but still blasted the Highlights and Shadows. Clarity between the two H/S keeps escaping me in post, but I think I am getting closer.

Thanks
Ryo

[Donald]

Thanks Donald,
Took a second stab at the first:

Oh yes. That, in my opinion, is a far superior rendering of the image.

[Ryogenetic]

Again, thank you Donald.

Here are the last two BW's from the set:





So in the last two weeks I have had some really thoughtful and insightful feed back on my automobile pictures. The first was from an elder gentleman, who after seeing a Chevy shot I did stated "that it had brought back a flood of memories", we conversed for about an hour about how the area I live in has changed, and how he owned the same model. And how fond he was of the car. The second came from a fellow photographer about this last set. Very much along the same lines, it refocused his efforts and reminded himself of why he loves photography. I had not considered automobile pics to trigger an emotional response. I thought they were great experiences and just wanted to share.

Thanks
Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

Boss 302:



Thanks
Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

A little Fix Or Repair Daily love:



Thanks
Ryo

[Colin Southern]

A little Fix Or Repair Daily love:



Thanks
Ryo

I'm sure it's Fix Or Replace Daily (I own one ... worse luck! )

[arith]

Re #225
Has it got a light under the bonnet? What a good idea, I had a Landrover that only broke down in the dark.

[Ryogenetic]

@ Colin, I own one too.. mine is a bit newer. Within the first month of ownership I had to replace the clutch.

@ Steve, I am not sure but I usually carry a torch in the trunk just for those unhappy breakdowns.

Ryo

[FrankMi]

A little Fix Or Repair Daily love

Sometime it's Found On Road Dead. In the case of my son's car the engine blew and from then on he refered to it as the Ford 'Exploder'.

[Ryogenetic]

Long shot from across the parking lot:



Thanks
Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

Stitched 3 shot pano:



Took this in three shots, rear focus is the tire, middle is the side, and front is the tire tread, which gives a tac tight image when stitched together.

Thanks
Ryo

[ronlane]

Here's a picture of my daily driver and toy.

[FrankMi]

Took this in three shots, rear focus is the tire, middle is the side, and front is the tire tread, which gives a tac tight image when stitched together.

That is a great way to increase the image sharpness for objects on the diagonal like this. By being able to retain the shallow DoF for each shot you can retain the bokeh for the overall image. My Canon SX40 has a Multi-Focus setting to do a three shot set like this But I'm never sure exactly where the 2nd and 3rd focal points are.

[Ryogenetic]

@ Ron, digging the lighting those long shadows work well I think.

@ Frank, yep yep, I have had pretty good success shooting cars with this method, it seems to pick up for lack of a Ultra wide lens.

408 Stroker:



Thanks
Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

330ci vs 330CI:



Thanks
Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

So the image above was the envisioned final image, after some positive feedback I decided to refine it and share the results and some of the processing for it. (that and I was bored)



and the revised edition:



Setup was pretty straight forward, positioned the cars in the driveway turned the wheels so the insides faced the camera. Using a single light, camera mounted on a tripod and a 13 second exposure (with a 2sec delay) f22 ISO 100. I took several shots (19) working out what I wanted highlight and the best path for the lights. The hardest part was getting the light to never bounce (glare) back to the camera. The original above is ACR WB and is close to what I started editing with.

In ACR I set the white balance, brought down the levels, sharpened to 15%, vib/sat +5. Opened it in CS5 and started working. First was to fix all the blemishes, leaves and odds and ends. Next I worked on getting the BW conversion just right. Once that was finished, I did successive (12 or more) layers just fixing light levels with Dodge/Burn tools. Next order of business was to eliminate the spots that I had capture some glare. Finally using the lasso tool and some selective leveling I reigned in the plates and lights.

Thanks
Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

Why not?



4 shot stitch...

Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

Been on an editing kick recently, attempting to learn the skills of the pro's. I contacted a friend about his M3 rolling shot:



And asked if I could take a stab at editing it. He graciously sent me the RAW:



First order of business was to crop it, and set the levels, clean it up, and get rid of the SUV down the road. Next Dodge/burn the car:



And not sure if it works but here is a BW as a final thought:



In hind sight should have spent more time cleaning up the tailpipes. The Final color has an almost HDR feel to it. But it was a fun project.

Thanks
Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

Not all 5.0's are created equal:



For the detail minded:



I do like the black on black

Ryo

[Ryogenetic]

Haven't gotten out much to get photos.... but I have gotten to edit a few for some friends. This is a wonderful shot from one of them:



This just shows the power of a Point and Shoot, and a perfectly set up shot. I really like the postion of the cars, and the way the light hits them.

With a little polish in CS5:



Took the time to clean up the image, dropped in a gradient on both sides and bottom. Centered the red light and cropped for balance. Finished up with some dodge/burn.

Final image:



Transitioned to BW, did some more cleaning and D/B. He liked the image so much he is using it as his signature on the forum.

Thanks
Ryo