Help with Night shot of my Car

[440GTX]

I could use a little help with night shooting of my car.
Its for our car club calander.
I was using a tripod but it is still a bit blury.
I am looking for a location with no buildings
Thanks for any suggestions

Attempt No 1

[caleb]

You could try using the camera's self timer + tripod. The car looks a little dark still. Maybe look into light painting if you want to really separate it from the background

[Frog]

No expert, for sure, but I think you have exposed for the running/parking lights which look fine and aren't blown out but that left the car itself too dark.
I played a bit with shadows/highlights and levels but could get nothing satisfactory.
You're going to need more even light and/or perhaps do an hdr on it.

[440GTX]

This is the Best I can do with some photo editing of light effects.
No painting etc.
Next. More shots.

[jetrim]

A couple suggestions.
1 as already stated set the self timer for 2 seconds - this gives camera time to "settle" after the jar of pressing the shutter
2 make sure car isn't running (probably obvoius but maybe not LOL
3 local parks make excellent backdrops
4 shoot about 15 minutes earlier than you did this time (background will still be plenty dark)

Now, if you want to get really creative, bring an assistant to drive the car. Determine where yyou want the car to be in the photo and set the camera up pre focused and whatever combination of shutter, aperture, and ISO it takes to get a 15 sec+ exposure. Now move the car straight ahead 30 feet. Hit the shutter and signal the assistant to back up at idle speed when shutter opens (after the 2 sec delay) now guide them to the spot you determined earlier. When they reach that point turn engine and lights off until exposure completes. This should yeild a shot of the still car with beams of light shooting from the front markers and headlights.

Oh yeah one more thing, tape up the side markers w/ black electrical tape on the first shot and take a second shot exposed for the lights that you can overlay on the first before moving camera or car.

[caleb]

Jetrim, would slowly zooming in for the first few seconds produce the same effect?

[OldClicker]

Jetrim, would slowly zooming in for the first few seconds produce the same effect?

Wouldn't the space between the beams get wider? - TF

[caleb]

Oh right, it took me a while to visualize it, I meant out. I think. Although I guess depending on the lenses you have this won't work as well

[jetrim]

Hadn't ever tried it but I expect that would produce a cloud around the lights rather than that cool X-Files flashlight effect which is more of a tube of light coming out from the headlights.

[caleb]

zooming out produces the desired effect i think. started at 55, ended at 18. the other photo is zooming in. 15" exposure, hit shutter and zoomed out for the first 3 seconds give or take. I have a really sturdy tripod/head though, not sure how well it would turn out otherwise. You can see bumps in it from not zooming at a constant rate though. the blur/overlay is caused by a lot of ambient light

[jetrim]

OK, a few minutes ago I went through all the motions described and came up with a sample of my 99 Dodge.

1. look at fuse block, pull fuse for parking lights and back-up lights
2. back truck up in parking lot of my Apt and straighten the wheels.
3. set up tripod and camera (timer set to 20 seconds/exposure set to 30 seconds, manual mode)
4. Start truck and move it ahead to point where I could just barely see camera out passenger side window)
5. Leave truck door open, run over to camera, press shutter, run back, throw it in reverse
6. when timer indication light went off backed truck up, threw it in park, turned out lights, turned off engine - waited 15 more seconds to make sure exposure was complete, then rolled down drivers window
7. turned on parking lights and fog lights
8. reset exposure for new light composition, pressed shutter again
9. walked over to truck and when shutter opened, counted to 10 and reached through open drivers window to turn off lights, then let second exposure complete
10. packed everything back up and took it in the house

*at this point 12 minutes has elapsed since going out to set up the camera*

11. upload to computer, overlay the headlight shot on top of the parked shot using "lighten" blend mode.
12. I didn't care for the hard tube look so I used Gaussian blur on the upper layer to get the effect you see.

Total time for the PP waas about half as long as it took to type this up

[Frog]

jetrim, you're the MAN! I never would have thought of all that.

[caleb]

oh wow much better effect that what I was imagining, nice job

[JonW]

Buildings in the background are not necessarily evil. Trees growing out of the roof are evil. Scope out some night locations and you might find that buildings will be dark enough at night and they won't look as cluttered as they do during the day.

[440GTX]

Thanks for the tip jetrim.
I will have to try this. I looks Great.
I am a slow typer so I can do it faster than typing this. LOL...