Author Topic: Tips Needed - Moving Car Photography  (Read 1413 times)

  • Offline Jaimz

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Tips Needed - Moving Car Photography
on: December 23, 2007, 21:56:54 PM
Am going out with my Dad on Christmas Day to do some photography - something he wants to try is capturing moving objects, and I want some in-motion shots of my car so to kill two birds with one stone gonna go out and hell be passenger in my Mums car and will be photographing my car - just wondering if people have any tips on anything that will produce some good pics.

Camera is a Fuji F50fd, and so has some reasonable control over settings and such.

Cheers,

Jaimz :rock:


Tips Needed
Reply #1 on: December 24, 2007, 00:33:46 AM
Get a window tripod mount if you can.

Long shutter time = motion blur.

That said I follow the below if taking photos at a stationary place.

Focus on the track at a point.

Set up shutter and aperture to suit conditions by doing some test shots first.

Shove camera into "last 5 mode" hold down shutter button as action begins. Keep camera pointing at the same place, dont move it (tripod obviously), release shutter once car passes.

Voila you have 5 shots of all the action. At least one should result in a decent capture.

As for a moving vehicle to moving vehicle... pot luck mate, youll have changing lighting conditions, and huge vibration to worry about so cant set long shutter times, distance to target car will also vary so even focusing will be a bastard.

  • Offline Serious

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Re:Tips Needed
Reply #2 on: December 24, 2007, 01:21:45 AM
I wouldnt suggest doing it when you are both in cars that are moving. The distance between the two cars and relative speeds may not give good results.

If you really want to try it though just follow below but you may need to take a lot of photographs, the cars movement will judder the camera a bit and produce unwanted movements

For a still cameraman. Choose a spot, the cameraman gets out, driver starts a run past, for motion blur choose an aperture priority mode if you have one, or something that will give you a reasonable fraction of a second exposure. If all you have is program modes just try several and avoid sports modes.

Take pictures as the car goes by by actually following it in the viewfinder and pressing the button at the right moment. Being a bit further back from the road will give you a little more time to aim but will make the car smaller on the picture.

If its still not good enough then fake it in photoshop or PSP :D

  • Offline Alien8

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Re:Tips Needed - Moving Car Photography
Reply #3 on: December 24, 2007, 02:55:00 AM
if your shooting out the window of the car as M3 says I window mount is good but in good light 60th of a sec will get motion blur of say the wheel and the road as at 60MPH the wheel will still be at the same distance from the camera it was at at the start of the exposure,but the tarmac that was under the wheel will be almost half a meter away from the wheel at the end of the 60th/sec exposure

125th of a sec at 120MPH is almost the same
30th of a sec at 30MPH is the same
15th of a sec at 15MPH is the same

but faster the shutter time the less likely the body work will be blury

a small bean bag about size of a DVD case could help, to flatten out the window so you can press the cam into the body work to hold it steady

if you have a cam strap wrap it round your hand tightly rather than your neck as will reduce risk of dropping the cam

try dropping a the PSI out the tires on the car with the cam in for this, to reduce the vibrations from the road through the car

  • Offline jamieL

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Re:Tips Needed - Moving Car Photography
Reply #4 on: January 04, 2008, 18:11:04 PM
Not to hijack the thread, but while were on the talk of photographing cars does anyone have any tips for photographing a still car at night? More specifically, a white car!

Re:Tips Needed - Moving Car Photography
Reply #5 on: January 07, 2008, 20:18:04 PM
Ive got one of these:
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=99648

Good for a drag race, but honestly, Ive never used it...

and one of these:
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=101502

But really good for filming driving, but can give a stable platform for a camera.

  • Offline jamieL

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Re:Tips Needed - Moving Car Photography
Reply #6 on: January 12, 2008, 12:52:10 PM
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=101571

Just ordered that aswell as one of those suction cup mounts for the dash :) (Along with a bunch of filters and things)

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