Car photo shoot using speedlites.

[robbins.photo]

Whats in them? Nuclear waste ?

Run its a trap !

Hey pal, it's not a trap till the fish headed guy says it's a trap.

Ok, sweet.. so now it's official. Yup, it's a trap. You have to admit the man's ability to spot these things is simply uncanny. I mean who else would have noticed a battlestation the size of a small planet surrounded by half the imperial fleet and think to themselves, huh.. I think there might be something amiss here.

Yup.. without a doubt the finest ichthyoid tactician that ever lived.

So there you have it folks. It's official. Trap.

 

[minicoop1985]

Since those barrels are filled with oil or nuclear waste, as our illustrious Admiral Ackbar pointed out, light painting with fire might not be the best idea. I'd stick to light painting with a flashlight or something of the like. I just bought a $10 LED shop light that should do the trick (trying to learn how to light paint too), but I've made do with a flashlight. Wasn't great, but it worked.

 

[Derrel]

. What's better than a softbox? How about and entire ceiling or wall?

I agree with this, but I think that due to the limited power of speedlights, it would be a delicate balancing act to determine how close to position the speedlight(s) to the ceiling. Too far away and you just don't have enough light coming back and you'd need to crank the ISO (especially if using f/11-ish apertures). Too close and your effective light source would be an ellipse not much bigger than the frontal area of the softbox.

Regardless, I'm interested to see the results because I'm a speedlight guy and have not tried anything like this before, myself.

He does not need to shoot this with "one pop" of the lights...in a darkened shooting area with the shutter locked open, the speedlights can be fired 3,4,5,6 times, however many times are needed to get to the right exposure level. This is called multi-pop open flash.

A lot of commercial car photography over the years has been done using very large silks, stretched on frames or roped overhead, and the flashes fired through those large scrims...but what Village Idiot was suggesting is that, lacking huge, $3,000 silks and frames and grip gear, that he could fire the flashes off the ceiling/walls and get a BIG light source....and again, yeah, to pull deep depth of field like at f/11 with a low ISO, this might take more than one,single firing of the flash units. The exposure is cumulative....just do not knock the tripod in between firings!

 

[HighOutput]

Well, from start to finish, this was a 5-6 hour job. I had to clean the floor, setup the oil, clean the vehicles and setup my gear. The mustang was done using 2 x Speedlites with 26" softboxes, on stands, trigger buy my ST-E3 remote. The F150 was done on long exposure with manual pop of the flash. Now both pictures where stacked in photoshop CS6 and edited by me (just learning Photoshop, so go easy on me). Here's what I learned tonight...Bring extra batteries for your flash, bring extension cords, turn off cell phone, trucks are bigger than cars, bring more beer and I know nothing about light. It was fun, I had thought of this awhile back, and now I got to do it. Am I discouraged?...yes! Will I try it again?...Hell yes!

 

[Derrel]

This turned out better than I thought it would. You picked a heck of a shot to learn on...not something easy-peasey!

 

[minicoop1985]

Not too shabby, actually. I've seen a LOT worse. For a first automotive shoot, really, that's pretty damned good. Hell, it's just pretty damned good in general.

 

[IzzieK]

That was an excellent first time shoots! I have to look at these ones downstairs on my laptop as it is more faster access image wise than this 27" monitor...but you did a good job.

 

[Braineack]

The truck turned out pretty well, the mustang could use more lighting on the front.

good job. I trust those links I gave helped?

 

[HighOutput]

The truck turned out pretty well, the mustang could use more lighting on the front.

good job. I trust those links I gave helped?

It did, I wasn't quite sure how to tackle it. I was definitely under powered with the speedlites. Painting with flash was the way to go here. I also was judging my work through the camera's preview screen. A laptop might have been better to helped to see where I needed adjusting.

 

[cynicaster]

Nice work!

I applaud your determination and effort to plan and execute such an ambitious shot just for the fun of it.

When I got into this hobby, whenever I had an idea, I would scramble to do whatever I could in the shortest amount of time to get the shot. Looking back at that stuff now, it’s obvious I was cutting corners out of laziness. For example, if I were doing a shot like yours, I’d probably look at the dirty floor and say “hmph, I’ll just clean up the floor in photoshop”, which of course is the wrong way to do it. Eventually I accepted that you simply have to factor in preparation and setup time if you want to do justice to your creative ideas. Some setups take longer than others, but it’s always worth it.

 

[IzzieK]

The truck turned out pretty well, the mustang could use more lighting on the front.

good job. I trust those links I gave helped?

It did, I wasn't quite sure how to tackle it. I was definitely under powered with the speedlites. Painting with flash was the way to go here. I also was judging my work through the camera's preview screen. A laptop might have been better to helped to see where I needed adjusting.

Get yourself a tethering software for your laptop. I have one connected to mine and then I can also access it through HDMI on a big screen tv. Breeze Systems - Photo booth and camera control software is a good one. But I have an el cheapo called CameraRC www.camerarc.com/ which does a good job for my studio needs.

 

[JustJazzie]

I think these turned out really nice considering what you had to work with!!

 

[fokker]

Very well done I would say. I've seen worse photos in magazines...

 

[scotts2014se]

Nice! I wouldnt feel discouraged with those results.