need some ideas and help

[racedraper]

A local low rider truck club wants me to do a photo shoot for them but at night. plus they would like the down town Kansas city sky line in it. I know I will have to get a generator and use some halogen flood lights but how many needed. All I have for flash is my New SB800 and I also have a 4'x6' reflector /refuser.

were would be the best placements for the lights . up high or low or should I just move the lights around and take shots for the best look. Also what about filters, think I need a polarizer for the flash ans lens for more contrast?

Thanks for any ideas and tips

[SmartWombat]

You're right, it needs polarised light to cut the reflections, so you need polarisers (in the same orientation!) on every light and the usual adjustable polariser on the lens.
I'm not sure it's worth it.

What is going to be the cost of the generator & lights rental ?
Compared to buying remote triggers and manual flashes (not automatic, not Nikon) and doing the exposure manually ?

[Loupey]

Since it's at night, I would expose for the background city scene, setting the ISO and aperture such that I could have a 30 second shutter speed, and simply walk the one strobe in hand to specific spots to fire manually.

Depending on the recycle time, you might get 6 flashes shot off within that time. It would be identical to a shot done with 6 strobes. Who said they all had to go off at the same time?

[racedraper]

Loupey thats is a good idea. My buddy has a generator and was thinking about getting 72" florescent lights with 10k bulbs and mount them kinda low and was also thinking about bringing water sprayers to give the ground a wet look and even do a shot with the truck being wet since its gloss black. will this trick work.
So should I or shouldn't I get polarizer?

[Loupey]

Sounds tough! Like photographing brown bats in flight at night Although I seem to remember (mjs1973?) doing that.

I'm no expert on the subject but a black car at night seems to require an extremely W I D E lighting with backlighting to bring out the contour. So for a black vehicle, forget my previous post. But I think the main lighting should be high and soft with fill coming in from low.

I think you may have an interesting challenge here. Balancing the foreground and background exposure and color balance while maintaining shadow detail ...at night - wow! Whatever you do, please post your results as I'm definitely curious. Right now my brain is lost in the details.

I'm sure others with more experience will help you out though.

[racedraper]

I m thinking this will be a shoot that will start about 1/2 hour before dusk and keep shooting and adjusting until my batteries or my Card is done.lol making sure to capture the light changes in the sky .

Im thinking about forgetting about the skyline because of the diffaculty unless I fine the right shop and do a pre-shoot with my own car or with out it and document every setting.

[Byron Lentz]

I would really like to know how this works out. Let me know what you end up doing, I have seen a local car club in my area and would like to do the same.

[racedraper]

well I think I found he spot. I took a quick shot but I messed up and had ISO to high so it came out real grainy It was one 1000 ISO. I didnt have time to do a proper shot my wife and kids were wanting to leave. Here it is

[SmartWombat]

It looks like there is sodium lighting behind you, illuminating the car and road.
I think you'll find the orange from those lights a problem with colour balance.
Is there a part of this location where there are no lights?
Or maybe you can get a cherry picker for the photo shoot and cover the lights with black bags !

The background looks good.

[racedraper]

The bad thing about Kansas City is that they love those sodium lights. I parked in gravel and I was thinking about bringing a water sprayer to dark the ground and maybe help with the lights also. plus Since the truck will be gloss black maybe that color might brig it out a little more and or do the shoot before they turn the lights on as the sun sets.

[SmartWombat]

Because the Sodium light is a line spectral emission, not a broad range of wavelengths, Astronomers can use filters to block out just that glow and let all other light through.

"The effect is quite startling as you can stand under a low pressure sodium street lamp and look up at it without seeing any yellow light."

At around $100 it's perhaps worth having in the kitbag...

http://www.nezumi.demon.co.uk/nonad/nonad.htm
http://www.nezumi.demon.co.uk/nonad/spectra.htm

[racedraper]

nice links I will buy them. Also at the camera shop there is an add for a white balance filter, do you know anything about them

[SmartWombat]

On the sodium filters, remember they are fairly thick at 2mm and as the website said they are not suitable for lenses wider then 50mm. I would want to test them first. They're quite expensive too, so I would only spend on them if you do a lot of night photography in colour, I'm inquiring about the cost of 77mm for the 70-200 f2.8 - probably over $200

White balance filter?
It might help in setting the balance.
Basically it's a diffuser that spreads out the light from the scene over a white core.
Then you set the white balance from that instead of from an image of the scene.

But if you're still fighting against the orange lights, then it may not help.
Another alternative is to shoot in RAW and do the colour balance in software.

But I agree getting the balance right in the camera is a good start, if you can block out or avoid the orange lights your worst problems will go away ...