Help: Vehicle shoot in the Desert

[poker]

I'll be in Death Valley this weekend and I'm considering bringing my off-camera flash setup.

I have a Canon 580EX, 430EX, transmitter, 30D, and a variety of lenses. It was recommended to me that I bring umbrellas and keep the flashes 20-30 feet away.

Any other advice (or samples) would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Loupey]

While I don't have any experience shooting cars (nor lighting much anything), I did shoot industrial equipment of similar size for many years.

I used floods instead of strobes so I could see and control the reflections. But in your case, you'll just have to experiment a lot with positioning. But you'll have to have the strobes spread quite a bit to hit the car oblique enough to not have it reflected in the paint. So you'll end up basically lighting the ends of the vehicle with just enough grazing the sides.

And to prevent the ends from getting too hot, I'd pull the strobes back as far as possible so that the fall-off at the center of the vehicle is minimized. You'll have to shoot longer exposures or wider apertures so be prepared in that respect.

Also, make sure you bring a black tripod and wear black clothes (or have a remote shutter release).

Good luck. Show us what you got.

[ianjenn]

You may be able to bring a clean white sheet and use that to diffuse also. But the car may show it in reflections.

[poker]

Thanks for the response. The cars won't be so shiny since it will be after a day of 4-wheeling in the desert. I'm not sure how a dusty truck will show up in a flash photo.

Looks like a couple of hours of trial and error in Death Valley for me.

I hope to have something worth sharing.

Thanks again.