Still being a bit obsessed with my recently purchased car (don’t think I’ve ever cleaned a car so much!) and wanting to try out some new photography techniques, I got in touch with my friend, Rob Pepe from Shutter Life.
I asked Rob if he would be OK with lending me his car rig and a bit of his time to go through the basics with me so I can have a go on my own car and perhaps a few friends I knew wouldn’t pay for such photos, but wouldn’t mind some all the same.
We set off for the Butterfield industrial estate in Luton as I knew it would be fairly quiet, and hopefully we wouldn’t be ejected by security as we wouldn’t be doing much more than 10mph (think it was less than that in the end) to get the motion required for the rig shots.
Equipment wise, the rig consisted of various clamps, two heavy duty suction pads with a clamp each to hold the pole, 3 lengths of aluminium tubing and various connections to ensure the camera was held on safely via a Manfrotto tripod mount. I used my Canon 5D classic with my Canon 17-40 F4 L lens (the wide angle when mounted on the 5D can make for some interesting shots) a 0.9 ND filter and a remote trigger.
We started of with a shot of the rear of the car, one suction cup on the rear screen, one on the drivers side window, once everything was attached we set a suitable shutter speed and Rob operated the camera with the remote trigger whilst I drove as smoothly as possible between 5 and 10 mph.
We then moved on to do the above the wheel shot (one pad on the rear screen one on the passenger side window) then a shot to show the car driving forward from the front left (one pad on windscreen, one on the front passenger side of the bonnet) the same steps to get the shots were repeated as above, but with me trying different combos of moving the wheels etc..
That was then that! The hard part was then yet to come… the editing, I’d like to think I was pretty handy with Photoshop, but this was a real challenge for me, basically adding in parts of the car that just Werner there! I got a few tips on how Rob has done this in the past and persevered. The results can be seen below. I plan to do some more in the next couple of weeks with my Brothers MX-5 (he’s a hairdresser, you can let him off) and my friend Marc’s BMW M3 Convertible, I’ll update this post once that happens!
For now, enjoy the photos I took, feel free to leave any comments or ask any questions.
Dave.
After owning my trusty Audi A3 diesel (1.9 Quattro Sport Diesel to be pedantic) for over 3 years, and covering over 40k miles (which is a record for me!) I decided I could take the derv no more!.
I originally set out to get an Impreza, blow some of the cobwebs away and stick with a AWD car, but after looking at a couple of dogs and missing out on all the others that seemed to be on sale I thought I’d broaden my options, on the drive home from a very unsucessful mission to look at and test drive some cars, I stopped of at Mastercars in Hitchin.
Having originally been drawn to stop by a convertible BMW on display, I was quickly disappointed, firstly it was an auto, and secondly it just didn’t look all that special up close…. and then I spotted it, the beast! Dark blue (Mystic Blue), mint condition black leather, xenons etc… even though out of the price range I’d planned on spending, I had to know how it drove… I can tell you, it felt good! 3 ltr straight six with such smooth power delivery! Very strange to drive at first, very torquey but doesn’t feel that quick until you drop a gear and give it some revs!
A part exchange was done, and I collected the car on the 4th of May 2011.
So far, I’ve replaced the headunit with a Kenwood unit to control my iPod (including fitting a central centre column) and had the two wishbones and eye bushes at the front replaced under warranty. I do my daily commute in the car, and with a journey every other day of 70 mixed miles I’m getting 30mpg or slightly above! Can’t complain about that.
Anyway, some pictures.
