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i wanted to give this a go, so i phoned a mate up to get some pictures of his car. i was sitting in the back seat of my gf's car as this gave a better position without the side mirror getting in the way. it was right before sunset so the lighting was ok, a little bit bright in a few occassions.

1)

2)

3)

4)

and while we were up in the hills, after the sun had gone down. i thought id give the softbox technique ago in another location

5)

we were in the shadow of a tree, but the tungsten street light gave off a redish light to the surrounding background.

Great shots, I have always wondered about that technique, did you have to pan or were you matching speed?

Great work I love how this style of shot gives you the feel of the speed that the cars are moving it (even a bit exaggerated)

we were driving along at the same speed. alot easier than panning.

thanks for the comment

good shots! i have heard that at 140km/h things become much easier, but there arent many places you can try this legally

Nice mate. This is where I see myself heading, hence my interest in rigshots also

Not much of a fan of the middle two though. I prefer car portraits etc to be from either the side or the front 3/4 angle, not from the rear. A personal thing I think. I think the harsh shadows in 3 detract from the image also.

Really like number 1, wonder how much easier it will be with a mounted rig, a fair bit more PPing I'd guess.

Really like your soft box technique in the last image, lovely and even. Care to share technique?

Oh, I like the B&W image also.

from what i have been told, most rig shots the car is acutally turned off and is just being pushed the create motion. something to do with the engine causing the car to vibrate and blurring the image.

cheers for the feedback

Nice rolling shots, they are relatively easy to get right in daylight... at night is another story....

As for rigs, i have been doing a lot of research into this, and myself and another photographer and going halves in a setup. Most rigshots are done with the car off and just rolling it at walking pace with an extended shutter speed, as you mentioned, running a car while having a rig attatched can make the rig vibrate, but that comes down to a few variables, a brand new, stock as a rock car, should have little vibration when running, and especially if its an automatic, a modified car with a cam/supercharger/turbo, trans mods etc an vibrate and shake more violently and as a result, destroy what could be good photos.... By rolling the car at low speeds you also lessen the risk of if something were to fail on the rig and the camera were to fall, with the car rolling it only has to drop to the ground, not bounce along it at speed if it were being driven... This has happened at 190km/h+ and although the camera and lens survived and worked it was a little worse for wear...

You also need to remember that suction mounting can damage paint and panels of cars, i have seen examples of suction mounted rigs destroying the roof panel of Supra's and other things. Mounting on glass if possible is a better idea, and near as you can get to folds and bends in the panels. A lot of car owners will not let photographers attatch rigs to cars in fear of damage, knowing what repairing show winning paint, or even exotic car paint, can cost, i dont blame them!

I have played with small rig's, getting stuff like this

http://drmphotography.net/wp-content/ga ... g_2246.jpg

Image too big to post, but just an example

Nice work, looks so much better than the overprocessed shots you see in Wheels and Motor trying to emulate in PP what you have genuinely achieved in real life. ! and 4 look great, though in 1 I wonder if your mate is accelerating, the car seems to be dragging its arse. Then again it may be set up like that. 5 works.

running a car while having a rig attatched can make the rig vibrate

vibration should not be that big of an issue, if you are gettting serious about your rig the incorporation of some 'Barry Controls' vibration mounts will remove just about any level and frequency of vibration.

I was involved with the fitment of a D200 DSLR to the CASA212 aircraft (the ones that go to antarctic for the AAD - Australian Antarctic Division). The camera was part of a low cost imagery solution for whale watching and similiar - the rig also included infrared and video. The rig was designed (by yours truly) to mount the camera equip. and to remove vibration thru correctly selected vibration isolation mounts, this assembly sat in the base of the aircraft and looked thru a lexan cover. The rig was mounted on 4 vibration isolation mounts, these mounts were selected based on propeller frequency and airframe transmissability and also alittle quantative measuring

Now the vibration from a car piston engine is very different to that of a turboprop, however there are isolation mounts out for this job.

take a look at the 'T' style ones;

http://www.barrycontrols.com/defenseandindustrial/productselectionguide/data/TMountSeries.aspx


and FYI the end result



quite an effective solution at a very nice price, especially considering real cameras cost 1/4 of million bucks normally.

give us a pm if you want more info or if you need help determining a suitable isolator

gerry

biggery i understand how you can buy effective gear for removing 'vibration' but if a car has lumpy cams = lumpy idle, i wouldnt really call it vibration, more like the whole car shaking. this would be too large a movement and too slow for some equipment to counteract - in the range or 2-5Hz.

i have seen some serious v8's kangaroo around when idling in gear, they run that rough.

in the range or 2-5Hz

the frequency range in this case would not be the issue, more the sheer deflection, i would imagine 12" deflection would not be unreasonable in some 'muscle' style cars and yes, good luck removing that

Correct me if I am wrong here, especially considering I have never taken a picture of a car... but would i would imagine the primary use of the camera would be cruising around when *ideally* vibration is consistent and rpm relatively high. This is the same as aircraft (piston - general aviation), the idle on the ground is quite rough, but once rpm increases things smooth out.

I would be keen to see some of the various rigs that people have got for this type of thing

Bringing this thread back on topic (who? me?) ...

The last two of these images (in the OP) are the best that you have done to date.

In the last image, the red lighting on the tree helps to offset and contrast the image of the car, and makes this a very nice shot.

In the prior one, the composition is very good; rear three-quarter view, with good negative space to the front of the vehicle allowing the car some room to "move forward" in the eye of the viewer.

The first three images seem to be suffering from variable wb issues. You need to be aware that for two hours or so around sunrise and sunset, wb becomes affected by atmospheric conditions as well, as the sun travels through a greater linear distance in the atmosphere to where you are located due to its lower angle in the sky. That's partly why sunrises and sunsets appear orange/red, and it can and will affect your images.

You should be able to correct for this in post if you shoot in raw, but you should always try to be aware of the ambient conditions when you're shooting, and adjust your technique as needed.