Autoshite photography thread.

[Tayne]

I have a glass clamp for doing stuff like this.

Union Terrace by Tayne, on Flickr

 

And the joby pod has come in handy when the tripod foot has been elsewhere.

Don't forget your tripod foot! by Tayne, on Flickr

Its wrapped around the top of the tripod and worked well enough that night.

 

Have a non-car one as well.

Horse Cross by Tayne, on Flickr

[STUNO]

I managed this with a Brownie box camera about 50 years ago !

1962 Ardmore by stuno602, on Flickr

1962 Ardmore by stuno602, on Flickr

[willswitchengage]

Not a great photo, but a wicked location: Liechtenstein

 

 

Anybody else experimented with panorama mode? My old GE camera had it but it's now in camera heaven . It makes even the wankest of snaps look decent.

 

My set is here, this is my favourite

 

 

Also, Tayne, your photos are sick!

[trigger]

I was quite pleased with this one i took at Brooklands last week.

 

1974 BAC Aerospatiale Concorde G-BBDG by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

[Tayne]

sick!

 

Thanks.

I'll be sure to send them to the doctors in the morning.

 

I prefer to blend my photos to create panoramas on the computer.

Both of these hang in my living room.

 

Brick Mill Panorama by Tayne, on Flickr

 

Koh Tao Panorama by Tayne, on Flickr

 

There's a how to on the Brick Mill image of you scroll down through the comments.

[MonsterMaster]

On one of my many cycle trips

 

One of my dog benji

 

Took when cleaning up the streets in blackridge.

[Guest]

Gonna throw this one open again, because I'm super crap at capturing motion. Might be one for Tayne.

After the show, I followed WTC and MM5 to Higher Bebington to try and get some moody shots of the W124 hitting the high road. I had Pete's 2.8 135mm Pentacon, shooting between 1/80 and 1/100 at 800 ISO. The light was fading at this point so I had to try and keep things reasonably lit.

 

 

Told Warren to do between 20-30 mph, and this was the only shot of 40 that came out in focus. I'm still getting the hang of fully manual shooting ; having to track the car, pull focus and set the aperture was a bit of a sod. I was trying to use bits of the scenery as a focal point. And then the W124 drove past.

 

How do I get this better?

 

The show was another change of pace - I realised I'd never shot in strong sunlight before. Was running between 1/640 and 1/1000 for most shots, alternating between the Pentacon 135 and my Olympus 2.8 50 FTL and Helios 44-2. The latter takes sodding beautiful portraits but has the wankiest aperture action ever.

 

That Pentacon 135 of Pete's - fuck can it take some beautiful shots, even with a dummkopf like me at the helm. It ain't called the bokeh monster for nowt.........

[Minimad5]

Great picture

[warren t claim]

I need yellow foglamp bulbs.

[Tayne]

Gonna throw this one open again, because I'm super crap at capturing motion. Might be one for Tayne.

 

 

Told Warren to do between 20-30 mph, and this was the only shot of 40 that came out in focus. I'm still getting the hang of fully manual shooting ; having to track the car, pull focus and set the aperture was a bit of a sod. I was trying to use bits of the scenery as a focal point. And then the W124 drove past.

 

How do I get this better?

 

 

Well if the car (or boat/plane/bicycle) is moving then you need to do less messing about with the camera while its moving.

To that end, stop messing about with the aperture, give yourself enough depth of field to have the car (and a good margin of error) in focus. Panning will blur the background and negate the need for wide apertures.

I don't really get on with manual focusing at the best of times and I wouldn't even consider it here. I'd rather use a fixed lens compact for a moving car shot than an SLR with a manual lens.

 

 

Panning is all about shutter speed and moving the camera.

 

A loose rule of thumb is that 1 over the speed of the object in mph should give you your shutter speed. In this case a 30th of a second would have given more motion blur.

 

And you can't move your head for the above shot as the car isn't really moving within the frame, you were at too acute an angle to the axis of motion and should have been nearer a right angle.

You really want the car to move across your frame.

Try and pan with it from two o'clock to ten o'clock (or vice versa) and press the shutter just before you get to twelve.

That way the car will be sharp and the background blurry.

 

Note the angle of me (the photographer) relative to object in these shots.

Porsche 911 GT2 by Tayne, on Flickr

 

Touchdown by Tayne, on Flickr

 

And this was done with a fixed lens AF compact.

The future's bright... by Tayne, on Flickr

 

 

Or if you want the car to be all blurred, then keep your slow shutter speed, keep the camera still and press the shutter just as it enters the frame. Its motion and your delay should centre it.

Too Fast by Tayne, on Flickr

Shame about the bloke in the hi-viz...

 

 

PS Love the whale-tale on WTC's car.

[retrogeezer]

[Lord Sterling]

Bit of a cheat as I didnt take this (I was the wierdy beardy driving the thing)

 

IMG_4960.jpg by Nicholas R Horne, on Flickr

 

I like the effect in this pic, are the colours enhanced in photoshop or something?

[Guest]

Depends on the camera and what mode he shot in.

 

I'd say he he probably brought the contrast up a crack and then either 'lens burnt' or 'lens distorted' the image to get those darkened edges.

 

The popularity of effects like this (essentially clever software filters) are why plastic Chinese landfill lenses like the Holga and Diana have made a comeback. A plastic lens by sheer dint of its shonkiness lets a lot of light in (so the edges of the image get sucked in) produce loads of aberrations and soften the edges of the image. A lot of these effects you can achieve by cocking around in GIMP 2 (I ended up working out what one of those 'vintage' iPhone filters did via this method).

 

I'm a massive cheapskate and have thus never used Photoshop. I use GIMP 2.

[Guest]

Also Tayne, thanks for the tips. I shall bear those in mind and let you know how I get on.

[MrDuke]

Re. using Gimp for OMGLOMO effects, one of the recent Linux mags had a really simple tutorial on how to achieve it, might still be on the shelves if anyone wants to go and look at it. Don't buy it mind, it's not worth it.

[loserone]

Another piece of neat software I've been playing with this week - Darktable

[Guest]

 

Wanted to know how you get this effect for ages, and last night I managed it. 30 second exposure and 100 ISO. First time I've used my 18-55 kit lens for ages. The auto focus is dopey as fuck, mind.

[Tayne]

You know you can use your flash to freeze your car's motion?

[Guest]

You know you can use your flash to freeze your car's motion?

 

I didn't, no. But the flash on my D60 is shite. It's a weird combination of useful bits and infuriating penny pinching, that camera is.

Please explain further. Wouldn't that light up the surroundings and look utterly shite?

[retrogeezer]

[dollywobbler]

 

Quite pleased with this one given that I guess the focus and was trying to balance the camera on a table (with the strap under the lens to get the right angle) at 1am in the morning. I was bloody freezing!

 

I illuminated the van with my torch. Nature did the rest.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

[image]

 

Wanted to know how you get this effect for ages, and last night I managed it. 30 second exposure and 100 ISO. First time I've used my 18-55 kit lens for ages. The auto focus is dopey as fuck, mind.

 

I like this a lot. I want to attempt something similar next time I get the chance.

[Cavcraft]

 

Wanted to know how you get this effect for ages, and last night I managed it. 30 second exposure and 100 ISO. First time I've used my 18-55 kit lens for ages. The auto focus is dopey as fuck, mind.

 

That's a stunning picture, Jon.

[Cavcraft]

Another piece of neat software I've been playing with this week - Darktable

 

Is there a simpleton's version of that do you know? I looked on that wesbite and think I understood about one in fifteen things at best

[Pillock]

For playing around at night, light painting is pretty good. The idea is you set a long exposure with the camera on a tripod, in as much darkness as you can find. You then shine a torch on the bits you want to come out in the photo, so it's almost like having multiple flashes pointed at different areas. Heavily used in urban exploration where setting off flashes would alert people but you can get away with directed light on internal walls.

[Station]

I found using manual focus on those exposures to work best.*

 

Does anyone know how to reduce the orangeyness on night photos on the camera??

[Pillock]

You can play with the white balance, but I know when I went out around town at night, my camera just didn't have the range of adjustment.

I was with a mate who had a nice new EOS550 and his photos were coming out really neutral, mine were orange and nothing could be done on the camera itself. I ended up converting most to B&W.

[Tayne]

You know you can use your flash to freeze your car's motion?

 

I didn't, no. But the flash on my D60 is shite. It's a weird combination of useful bits and infuriating penny pinching, that camera is.

Please explain further. Wouldn't that light up the surroundings and look utterly shite?

 

Sorry.

read this and then forgot all about it.

 

 

It all comes back to the idea of the correct amount of light.

An exterior shot with flash at night will only show up the thing you've aimed the flash at, the background will still be dark.

Likewise, your shot exposes the background and probably took 30-40 seconds or so.

 

When you combine the two the long exposure means that people or cars moving will create ghost trails but their motion will be frozen when you pop the flash in their direction.

If you're using on board flash then its the curtain synch setting, though external flash is better (you may need it for the car).

 

Here's a couple of examples.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteperil/4231230676/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cycle61/2200910463/

[Sulla]

Resurrecting this thread as I am quite proud of this photo I took on holiday last week. Messed around with on pixlr.com which is handy online editing tool. Acheived using some filter or other and a metal effect to finish, reminds me of the photos in car adverts in the 1980s.

 

The Xant by Sulla1105, on Flickr

[Pete-M]

I've not spotted this in 'ere, but Jon had another go at the old tail light blurry motion trick with my Impreza a month or so ago.

 

He's getting better at it