A few Car Lighting Tips

frank love your car shots, because most of the cars are from the 60's!!!! i joined the navy in 65 so you got my age. i'm about to get the rebel xt but i don't know what lens to start with i take lot of car shots mostly out side and some of the grand-daughter????????? thanks

LENSES:

I guess it depends on your needs & budget. For the first year I used the kit lens & it's not bad at f/8 & above. The car did most of the work in this one:
Blown '37 Willys - A Beauty with a Beast!
You find yourself needing a tripod for 1sec sunset shots & I should have used one for that shot.

I also used a 20mm Nikkor (Shelby GT). A shorter lens would be better for those "extreme" shots, or when it's a crowded car meet with a lot of people in the way.

Now the 28-70 f/2.8 L is my main "walk-around" lens, but it's a bit high priced & sometimes not quite wide enough. 28mm is a bit long but not bad for cars, except for profile shots where 50-70mm gives a better perspective. One advantage is that, with the hood, it's big & fat, & people give me some respect & move out of my way. It doesn't hurt that the rig is more impressive than the owner's P&S, too.

When you have room, use a longer focal length for rear shots, especially when there is big rubber on the car. Otherwise, it's not going to look very good. See the last image here:
A "GREAT car": '69 Plymouth Road Runner 440

Look in the Canon Lenses threads & see what will work for you. There's a lot of info there. For half the price, I'd suggest the 17-40mm f/4, or maybe the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM.

For "People portraits", something in the 50-100mm range would work well, depending on the distance & crop (head vs head to waist). I usually work with the 70-200 f/4.

Good luck. You're going to have a lot of fun with the XT.

Leave it to some guy in S. E. Michigan to know what he is doing with cars.

---Bob Gross---

Thanks, Bob, but as I said somewhere above, "This stuff ain't all that hard!" What you do is WAY harder!

Frank you should set up a PS course! I would attend for sure.

Great shots as usual!!

Dan

PS: I tried some framing in PS elements tonight on a few pics, if you get a chance have alook and tell me how I could improve!!!

PhotosGuy, the Barracuda appears to be an E-body from the 1970-1974 era. Is that correct?

Lots of us were Mopar fans back in those days, B.C.

(B.C. means before Canon)

---Bob Gross---

Dan, all my "secrets" are already in the "Sticky"s!
Framing: which area did you put them in?

Bob, always room for another Mopar guy! It was a early '70 one-off built by Chrysler for the "Rapid Transit System" ads. It came with a 'chute! Click the top-right image twice to read the text.
(Excuse the crappy dupe from a 4X5" transparency)


This thing was a bear to shoot. The "normal" highlights we put in the body would hide the paint details, like the 440, so it was a case of trying to find a happy compromise.

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There are a few shots taken with a 20mm prime here. They could easily have been taken with the kit lens, too.
'66 Ford Shelby GT-350 clone *9 shots*

Thanks for sharing all your tips of the trade. Being new to SLR I need all the help I can get....

Paul

It's all in the light, Paul. And we can all use some help sometimes, too!

Edit: Late light works for trains, too: Sunset on the east coast main line.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #735009
Dan, all my "secrets" are already in the "Sticky"s! Framing: which area did you put them in?

Bob, always room for another Mopar guy! It was a early '70 one-off built by Chrysler for the "Rapid Transit System" ads. It came with a 'chute!
(Excuse the crappy dupe from a 4X5" transparency)

Im sorry to bring up such an old post, but it was interesting and its refering to and old thread that i am unable to find

Could someone please point me in the right direction?
"Sticky"s! Framing: which area did you put them in?" is the thread im looking for

EDIT: That should have been "Dan, all my "secrets" are already in the "Sticky"s!
Framing: which area did you put them in?"
See post #30.

It might be in here: Canon Digital Photography Forums > 'Sharing Knowhow' section > RAW, Post processing and printing
-= FAQ & IMPORTANT LINKS =-

Or try looking in the "Sticky"s in "Talk about". An Advanced Search of thread titles for frame rings up this link, but it won't be active for very long...
https://photography-on-the.net …arch.php?search​id=1543912

PhotosGuy wrote in post #2035303
It might be in here: Canon Digital Photography Forums > 'Sharing Knowhow' section > RAW, Post processing and printing
-= FAQ & IMPORTANT LINKS =-

Or try looking in the "Sticky"s in "Talk about". An Advanced Search of thread titles for frame rings up this link, but it won't be active for very long...
https://photography-on-the.net …arch.php?search​id=1543912

I did use the advanced search and searched both for the entire thread title and just framing but i could not locate the thread.
Then i thought that you where the Original poster of the thread and went throu all of your new posts and still could not find it, so i did actually bother quite a bit before posting

On the good side i have done some very interesting reading today

Still not finding it under any section or FAQ, maybe its lost somewhere?

Best wishes from Andreas.

Sorry, I should have made it look like this:
Dan, all my "secrets" are already in the "Sticky"s! (Meaning the "Sticky"s at the top of various different Share sections. Then...

Framing: which area did you put them in? As in "Where did Dan put the thread he refers to when he said, "if you get a chance have alook and tell me how I could improve!!!"
I didn't find it.

Look in the "RAW, Post processing and printing"Stickys.

Just as a point of interest, did you know that the matt, or frame around the pic, or background, like a bright sky, can make the subject look lighter or darker?

The gray bar at the center is the same density all the way across.

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