Car Photography Carlisle

December 23rd, 2024

Car Photography Carlisle

car photography carlisle

I photograph for a number of specialist auction sites that cater for classic or high value rare cars. This is a GSM Delta, one of a very few in this country, and in stunning condition too. The brief for shoots such as these is very straightforward. They want everything! Well, let me explain. They want pretty much every detail, every angle and all supporting paperwork. Imagine if you were looking to buy a one-off vehicle, and your only real chance to view the vehicle ahead of the auction is an online gallery. You would want to view every single detail. I then also supply a number of what I would call signature shots. Something the auction site can use to headline the vehicle in their listings. Something that would catch the eye of potential buyers. Images such as the above.

This was towards the end of the shoot. It was late January and the shoot was scheduled for mid afternoon, allowing me to get on with the detail imagery as soon as I got there. These are images of such things as the dashboard, wheels, springs/struts, engine bay, boot, seats etc. Once all this has been photographed, and I’ve got pretty much everything in the bag, I can then concentrate on the “Hero” shots. And what do you know!, the light is just nicely starting starting to fade, as it heads towards four o’clock. Well, well, well.

Frame right, I placed an ELB500 firing through a high intensity reflector. The head was at a height of about seven feet, and angled down towards the side of the car. The output was set to 5.0 (Equivalent to an output of 200Ws). The head is approximately ten feet away, and pretty much square on to the Door. The angle of incidence means it will greatly reduce the chances of any reflection of the head being seen by the camera.

Frame left, and again, square on to the front of the car, was a second ELB500. The head was at a height of eight feet, and firing through another high intensity reflector at an output of 5.0 (Equivalent to an output of 200Ws). It was placed at a similar distance from the vehicle.

The base exposure was at 1/320th sec and f11 at ISO200. I then took four additional exposures at the same shutter speed and aperture, but with the ISO at 64, 100, 400 and 800, giving me a five frame ISO bracketed exposure sequence. This allowed me to blend the images to create a wider dynamic range.

Bear in mind, as this is a lit shot, if I did a standard bracket sequence using the shutter speed, it would only affect the ambient light, and not the flash that’s lighting our subject. If I bracketed using the aperture settings, it would affect both the ambient and flash light, but we would get some pretty funky goings on with the depth of field. Erm, I might try that one day just to demonstrate, although I think most HDR software would fail to blend the final image.

I bracket using the ISO, which affects both ambient and flash light. I used to take three frames, as I didn’t want too wide a range of images, so as to avoid getting into high ISO country, and all the issues such as noise that would be associated with it. However, my post processing routine has changed, and with the sensor advances, I now find that five images for bracketing actually creates less noise issues than three used to. You also need to bear in mind that the HDR blending procedure tends to reduce the effect of noise within the final image too.

Olympus E-M1 mkII 1/320th sec ISO64, 100, 200, 400 & 800 12-40mm f2.8 @f11

car photography cumbria

Rear quarter view taken with the lights in similar positions to the first image. One ELB 500 straight on towards the door of the car frame left, and a second ELB 500 directed towards the back of the car frame right. Both lights still using the 26cm high intensity reflectors and both at the same output of 5.0. The same bracketing technique was used too.

Incidentally, another shift in my technique when bracketing for automotive work is to make use of the Olympus / OM app. This allows quite rapid changes to the ISO without disturbing the camera. I originally used to make the changes manually, albeit whilst holding my breath and hoping for the best!

My automotive photography portfolio can be found here.