Automotive Flash Photography (How To)

[Guest]

How To Take a photo like this

This is going to be pretty long so I’ll break it up into 3 posts

Post 1, will be some basic camera info mainly directed at DSLR users.

post 2, will be how to take the photos

Post 3, will be post processing in adobe photoshop.

So to start of with to make this work you will need:

A DSLR or high end point and shoot.

A tripod

An off Camera flash or a spare camera will built in flash.

optional is a wireless flash trigger and receiver.

For post processing and to really make this work you will need adobe photoshop.

KNOW HOW YOUR CAMERA WORKS? GOTO POST 2

Using your camera.

your camera has 3 shooting modes you need to worry about, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual.

Aperture Priority, I use this mode 98% of the time. You set the Aperture and the camera sets everything else to get a correct exposure.

Aperture is the opening in the camera lens and determines how much light is let into the camera sensor, and is measured in f stops, (eg. f/2.8)

You can use the aperture to control 2 things, Shutter Speed and Depth Of Field (DOF).

Using the Aperture to control Shutter Speed:

If for example your lens ranges from f/4 to f/22, f/4 would give you the fastest possible shutter speed for the current settings, and f/22 found give you the slowest

Using the Aperture to control DOF.

DOF is how much of the image is in focus. You have all seen photos where the subject is sharp and the background is blurred, that is an example of a shallow DOF and is created by using a SMALL f/ number like f/2.8

For landscapes where you want everything to be sharp use an aperture like f/22, but be aware this is going to cause a slow Shutter Speed.

If you don’t really care about DOF an Aperture of f/11 is good…

Shutter Priority, I hardly ever use this mode, and when I do it’s to sync the camera with a flash.

You set the shutter the speed and the camera sets everything else to get a correct exposure.

Full Manual Mode.

This is the mode we are going to be using to create the photo.

You set the Aperture and the Shutter Speed.

[Guest]

Taking the shot.

There is a bunch or different ways to do this, I’ll tell you what I did and then tell you a bunch of variations to the shot.

OK so how this shot is made is 3 different photos, 1 of the flash on the left side, one of the right side and 1 of the interior.

Park your car up on the angle you want, and set your Tripod up, I like to have the tripod nice and low, around bumper or headlight level. Zoom your lens in, and stand far away. (this reduces background clutter, and stops lens distortion from wider angle lens)

Setting up the camera.

Your going to use the Aperture to control the brightness of flash ONLY not how bright or dark the sky or city is.

A low f/number(f/4) is going to give a bright flash, and a high f/number (f/22) will be dark (note this doesn’t actually make the flash brighter or darker, just makes it appear darker on the photo)

for this photo I wanted the city to be sharper so I used f/8, this made the flash appear to dark, to combat this I used an ISO of 800 I think. Be aware that high ISO will decrease the quality of the photo by making it noisy.

and your going to use the Shutter Speed to control the brightness of the sky and city ect

For this shoot, my wireless trigger was not working so the flash needed to be manually triggered, so I needed a slow enough shutter speed so my mate had time to trigger the flash.

I ended up using 2.5 sec exposure which allowed the light from the city to show up on the camera…too long shutter speed will make it look like you took the photo during the day.

So here are the 3 photo. ISO 800 f/8 at 2.5sec

[Guest]

Processing theses photo into one image

Very easy

open photoshop

then click

file>scripts>statistics

this will open a new window, from the drop down click “maximum” then select your 3 or more photos and click OK

Job done.

Make some adjustments.

[Guest]

Option 2 for taking the photos.

Use a wireless flash trigger and receiver. This will give you a wider range of usable shutter speeds. Using a shutter speed of 1/200th in a dark area will create a nice black background.

Option 3, don't have a flash?

you can do it the same way as option one, but use a spare camera for the flash.

[pharnos]

sweet, gonna try this out

[Volcanix]

imo sticky this

[Guest]

On a Budget?

This will set you up.

http://camera-shop.co.nz/universal-hot-shoe-mini-flash-p-58.html

http://camera-shop.co.nz/16-channel-wireless-flash-trigger-set-mt16-with-umbrella-holder-p-217.html

[ReubenH]

A+++

Good shit man.

[chrisjunkie]

Nice write up! Was trying to take some night shots the other night and all I knew was the exposure / shutter speed haha... So will definitely be embedding this info in my brain!

[ReubenH]

Maybe i'll finally be able to take a photo of my car at night. It's hard to photograph a black car at night. Though with this method, it might actually make it very easy.

[Guest]

I actually was down there photographing my mates black car for a trade me ad.

Point the flash away from the camera, so it doesn't bounce off the car at the camera.

also a longer exposure will brighten up the sky ect, which will help the car stand out.

[Volcanix]

can we sticky this? its really awesome!

[Guest]

 greentape said:

I actually was down there photographing my mates black car for a trade me ad.

Point the flash away from the camera, so it doesn't bounce off the car at the camera.

also a longer exposure will brighten up the sky ect, which will help the car stand out.

another way i played with is pointing the flash at the floor infront of the car so the reflected light lights the car

-smurff