"Cars"... a DPS Weekly Assignment

This is my attempt for the Digital Photography School weekly assignment and the topic for week 25 Aug ~ 8 Sep is "Cars". Again, many interesting posts by other forumers and some are very good.


After reading through the Car Photography Tutorials and Guide provided by the DPS forum moderator, I spent a few days brainstorming about the topic but most ideas need a dedicated car. Be it a drop dead Lamborghini sports car on asphalt track in the morning sun... an image of "Ready to burn rubber" (my only Lamborghini is in PS3's GranTurismo) or a mud stained awesome Hummer 4x4 on rugged terrain in the evening sunset... a picture of "Been there, done that".

Well... I don't have a car so I need to go out and shoot one. Initially thought of borrowing a car from a friend but all of them don't have a Ferrari are busy people and I don't want to disrupt their schedule or trouble them. Decided to go out on my motorbike and try my luck.

A basic question popped during my brainstorm - do I want the car static or moving?

If i have a dedicated car, I can do it static in the way I want, the background i want and the lighting i want... following the many tips in the car photography tutorials. The sad fact is I don't, so I entertained the thought of shooting other people's parked car, and indeed went around and tried, but all of them do not offer any good lighting, angles or background, and many had distracting weird reflection on their bodies.

Next... motion... if I want motion, I want a sports car in motion. Decided to do panning shots on moving sports cars. Stationed myself safely along the East Coast Parkway (ECP), I tried my luck in getting a fix on some of the cool sports cars rich Singaporeans drive. The cost of owning a car here in Singapore is high and for sports cars, they can be in the stratospheric region.

Lady Luck showed up briefly when this sliver Mercedes Benz SLK came whizzing by as rain clouds began to gather. Shot it at 200mm, IS Mode 2, min focusing distance @ 3m for faster auto focus. Camera focusing mode @ AI Servo, Multi shots High.

The picture on the right is the original picture minus the license plate number. Many distractions are present, like the big road signboard, tree trunk, untidy stray branches from the bushes, leaf in front grille, white lane markings, etc. All these were removed using the "Clone" and "Heal" functions in GIMP (a free alternative to expensive Photoshop).

It was tedious and time consuming as I am not proficient in post processing. I always try to get the shot right first time and minimize any post processing work in my pictures. My usual post-processing routine goes like this: Auto Levels, Unsharp Mask (1.0 radius, 1.0 amount, 1 threshold) and Crop. So one thing I learned this time round was to scout for a good background even if it's doing motion panning shots.

Why Black & White? After a side by side comparison, I find the B&W version to be more contrasty... the car stood out immediately with less distraction. In the color version, I feel the green bushes and little red flowers do cause a bit of distraction and the car don't "come out" as much  :)


Shooting Notes:
Camera Body: Canon 40D
Lens: EF 70-200mm f4 L IS USM with Hood
Mode: Tv @ 1/125, f4.5
ISO: 400
Focusing: Auto
Monopod: Manfrotto 680B with Manfrotto 234RC Quick Release Head