Critique and Exposure/Coloring/Post-Process Question?

[Evan55T]

Here are some shots i took of the interior of my volvo 740... Tell me everything that's wrong with it and what could be done way better like exposure, coloring, framing/composition, foreground/background, etc...

Thanks

Settings:
-Nikon d700
-50mm
-f/1.8
-1/320 ss
-1250 iso

Settings:
-Nikon d700
-50mm
-f/1.8
-1/1000 ss
-800 iso

---

Question:
Trying to go for the same coloring/exposure like in the pictures below, not sure what settings/technique or factors i'm missing, and are they post-processed?
^^^
http://i.imgur.com/tO59rdb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LSZwoM1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Hw71yXS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lIQinlj.jpg

 

[Derrel]

-f/1.8 = too wide of a lens aperture for car interior shots
-1/1000 ss = too fast a shutter speed; the car interior was not in motion, so no genuine, pressing need for this fast of a shutter speed
-800 iso = an ISO level where there is a tiny bit of noise visible in the blacks; not a huge amount, just a tiny bit of noise, but 800 ISO does cut color richness and dynamic range of the camera by a noticeable margin compared to base ISO.

Overall: the f/1.8 aperture at such close distance has caused a loss of depth of field that would have added to the feeling of "being there". I would say that the exposure triangle choices were not optimal. I would have gone for a lower ISO level, a smaller lens aperture (like f/8), and a necessarily much-slower shutter speed for this set. The steering wheeel shot is a good example of where f/1.8 really hurt the shot: I likely would have stopped the lens all the way down to f/16 for that shot, and set the focus distance "by eye", to try to get maximum DOF, or done some focus bracketing, or even a focus-stack sequence, to make that shot the most effective.

As to the four samples you link to: those do look like color-toning in post; #4 looks like a lens that has horrible purple color fringing.

 

[Evan55T]

-f/1.8 = too wide of a lens aperture for car interior shots
-1/1000 ss = too fast a shutter speed; the car interior was not in motion, so no genuine, pressing need for this fast of a shutter speed
-800 iso = an ISO level where there is a tiny bit of noise visible in the blacks; not a huge amount, just a tiny bit of noise, but 800 ISO does cut color richness and dynamic range of the camera by a noticeable margin compared to base ISO.

Overall: the f/1.8 aperture at such close distance has caused a loss of depth of field that would have added to the feeling of "being there". I would say that the exposure triangle choices were not optimal. I would have gone for a lower ISO level, a smaller lens aperture (like f/8), and a necessarily much-slower shutter speed for this set. The steering wheeel shot is a good example of where f/1.8 really hurt the shot: I likely would have stopped the lens all the way down to f/16 for that shot, and set the focus distance "by eye", to try to get maximum DOF, or done some focus bracketing, or even a focus-stack sequence, to make that shot the most effective.

As to the four samples you link to: those do look like color-toning in post; #4 looks like a lens that has horrible purple color fringing.

Thank you again derrel haha, dude i always see you reply to my posts thanks man

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Yeah your totally right i agree with a lot of things you are saying i needed to use a smaller aperture and i think i was compensating for the brightness/exposure by just uping the shutterspeed, wanted to go for an under-exposed photo for the most part here as well not that it matters but there was no sunlight when i took the photo it was over-casted mostly clouds.

About iso... Remind me again what it's actually good for lol i typically only rely on it when i'm shooting with indoor lighting. I didn't know what iso settings to set here given my surroundings/environment next time will def set it to base iso in this circumstance.

My reasoning for the wide aperture was because i wanted to show some contrast/lolfelt like blurring out parts of the foreground. My thinking was that i felt that the interior was really messy as well so i just wanted to blur some of the stuff out like the seats, and in regards to the steering wheel i wanted to just focus on the cluster.

And yeah shutterspeed was coz of my wideish aperture so it was just getting over-exposed

 

[Derrel]

At close distances, like inside of a car, it is very likely that there will be ample blurring of closer areas, areas closer than the focused-upon distance point. At apertures like f/1.8 or f/2 or even f/2.8, the in-focus zone will be very narrow. Inside of a vehicle, using a 50mm lens, the camera is pretty close to things, so the depth of field band will not be "deep", but will be "shallow". Moving the camera outside the car (outside of the driver's window for example, is pretty commonly done), or to the very back seat area, or even the rear window ledge area, or outside the rear windows and shooting inside! will get more in-focus, especially at small apertures like f/11 or f/16 or f/22.

Inside-of-car photogtraphy is often done at short focal lengths, in the 12-24mm lengths on APS-C sensors, which gives smaller images of things, a wider angle view, and brings a bit more DOF with it. This is a specialized type of photography; one of the keys is using a STEADY camera, held on some type of clamp or gorilla-pod, etc, or even using very carefully balanced LED or flash lighting.

In general, I would stay away from f/1.8, and think of f/5.6 or f/8 as starting apertures; nothing wider...skip on f/4 or f/4.5, and start at f/5.6, and close down to f/8 or f/9, 10, or 11, for many shots. Just make sure the camera is **steady**.

 

[snowbear]

Looks like you have some pieces missing.

Try this as an exercise: Set the ISO to something fairly low, 100 or 200, and leave it there. Put the camera in aperture priority (A) and take a shot of the same scene (your second shot above would be good) while running through all of the apertures. The camera will adjust the shutter speed for and you'll get a feel for how things work together.

A shorter version is to set up three things (bottles or cans work) - the second 12"-18" behind the first, the third about 12"-18" behind the second one. Put them slightly to the side so you can see all of them through the camera. Set the camera 12"-18" from the first can and focus on the middle one. Take a shot at f/1.8, one at the middle aperture (f/5.6 or f/8) and one at the smallest (f/22 most likely).