hey guys&gals

I'm going to the new york auto show which is starting on april 6th. Wondering if you guys can share any tips/tricks I can utilize while shooting there.

I am looking to take the 17-40 there which I believe should be sufficient. I also have the 28-105, 50 1.8,70-200 available. Please let me know if I can benefit from bringing another lens there.

I have not purchased an external flash unit, so I will be utilizing the built-in flash for the xti.

Let the tips begin.

tia

 

i think you'll be using the 17-40 primarily. Then maybe the nifty fifty for the girls if you plan on shooting girls...you probably wont need the 28-105. 70-200...maybe for detail shots.

if you can, try getting a PL filter b/c the cars are going to be reflecting light like crazy. make sure to take A LOT of batteries and memory cards.

 

The main reason I am leaning towards one lens is because I don't want to have to change lenses a lot. I would love to have detail shots but I don't think I can tolerate changing lenses for a lot of vehicles.

Is flash required when shooting in auto shows? Is there enough ambient lighting available? From my experience I would have to lean towards using a flash which sucks because it will drain my battery quickly. So far I haven't had the need to purchase extra batteries, but I might have to put in an order very very soon.

I am covered with mem cards. I have a total of 8 gigs available and I will be shooting in raw only.

 

Don't know if you saw my pics from the Chicago show but I didn't use flash for em. And I was at f/4. I don't think flash is required. Plenty of light available. Probably the only reason you might use one at such a setting is the same reason you would use one at an outdoor car show.

ps. Lightroom ftw.

 

Glad you chimed in as I won't need to get more batteries. From past use one charge on the battery without much use of the flash has lasted me a long time.

Can't wait to pp the pics in lightroom. Will be fun.

 

Oh yeah - what aperture are you going to be at? The tricky part at auto shows is cars on rotating platforms... It's easy to get blurring thereof. I usually take a few burst shots in such instances and one or 2 will come out. If you are at 2.8 it won't be as hard.

 

Well, that's easy. I don't have anything that's below f4 lol. Actually, I do have the 50 1.8, but not sure if I'll be using that much.

You bring up a good point, I didn't even think about that, and had you not mentioned it, my camera lcd would have told me that after I took the shot. Actually if the blur wasn't much, the lcd would have looked fine. You saved me a lot of trouble.

In this case if f4 doesn't give me a good ss, I'll have no choice but to use the built-in flash. I actually hate using a flash to photograph cars, because i always see the reflection of the flash somewhere in the body of the car. Yes, I can pp it out, but I still hate that. I guess it won't be an issue at the auto show since there will be tons of other light reflecting from the body.

 

What I hate about using flash on cars is the reflections from the sidemarkers and other lights. Totally kills the shot. Yeah the LCD is quite deceiving - sometimes you can zoom in and discern any blur that way. Unfortunately, most of the cars you really want to shoot are on rotating platforms.. so it's just something you have to deal with.

 

there will be plenty of light as srika said...just a lot of light from all different angles, power, and color. Like I said, PL filter should help.

 

hmm...I like the sound of using a pl filter, but wouldn't that reduce the light reaching the sensor even more?

 

it will by like 1 or 2 stops. crank up ISO to about 400 and 1/60 shutter speed and you should be okay with even f4... At least I was with most shots. But I didnt use the filter for all the cars, just those favorite cars I wanted a good picture to drool over after the show.

 

A polarizer doesn't help for metallic surfaces, just stuff you can see through like glass or water. The only time I've used one for car photography is when I'm outside and I want to darken the sky.

The polarizer will also cause rainbow effects in plastics like headlights, which may or may not be cool depending on what you're trying to do.


My car show kit includes:
30D
10-22
50 f/1.8
430EX
WhiBal
8 AA's and an extra BP-511A
lots of storage

All in my Crumpler 5 Million Dollar Home.


The 10-22 and 430EX are practically glued to my body for the day. Of the 300-400 shots I typically take, maybe 10 are with the 50mm. It's hard to use when you're in a sea of people. A 35mm prime would probably be more appropriate, but it would still get less than 5% use that my 10-22 would get. It's really nice being able to get up close to the cars, then zooming out to get the whole booth in the frame.

I have a handful of images from NAIAS 2007 on my Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/acurazi...7594490622507/

 

I always find it fascinating to hear how everyone else shoots. Dan I think I can assume that all of your shots are with a flash, then? Where is it pointing? I really can't tell from the pix.

 

Finally had a chance to go. Will post pics tomorrow.

Here is a little spoiler of what's to come:

 

oi. pics look hot. ic some LR action...

 

for sure, nothing but lightroom. I'm loving this piece of software. Well worth the money, considering this is the first piece of software I've bought.

 

I had a blast shooting even if the shooting conditions were horrid. I ended up taking the following gear:

xti
17-40 f/4L
1 battery (no extra)
2 cf cards (4gb each)
slrc-4 camera bag

I could have used a wider lens. I did not have a problem with only 40mm reach.
The onboard flash was utilized in very few pictures. Most of the time the lighting was enough, sometimes too much. There were some nice cars I wanted to shoot that did not have enough light and the onboard flash did little to help.

Overall, I was satisfied with the number of shots that I ended up using. I shot about 200 frames, out of which I am currently using 85. Of the 85, there are about 70 keepers.

I used Lightroom to post process all images. The saturation controls were used a lot as you can tell because of distracting colors shining through the paint of the cars.

Enough talking here are the complete set of 85 pics in a web gallery:

http://www.bboyhp.com/photos/nyauto/content/index.html

Please post your comments, and link the specific pics you want to comment about.
Anything that can help me learn would be greatly appreciated.

some random pics:

 

Shots came out great! Good job.

 

thanks

 

A-W-E-S-O-M-E Pics!

 

Thanks, man.

Any other opinions on the pics?? Need to know how I can improve. Thanks.

 

I like this one. It's a nice shot, and I like how it looks like the Aston Martin guy is daydreaming staring at the car.

 

WHOA! that s5 look fuzznickin sexy!

 

haha, it sure does look like he is day dreaming. I did speak to the guy, he seemed like a pompous prick.

 

that s5 picture above is my fav of the collection. I didn't know audi had an s5. I gotta check it out, it looks like a car I would want to own, someday.

 

youve been spending too much in the Photo section... time to check out Automotive News!

 

nice job with the pics man, looks like a great show

 

Really well done pics. More?

 

Yeah, this photo thing is addicting.

 

thanks jiggaman

I have to say I did enjoy the show more the last time I went, which was 2 years ago. I did not shoot any pics that time, which could be why I liked it more. Taking pics does take you away from the show as you're more focused on making the pics look good then checking out the cars.

 

thanks, I didn't expect this many positive responses, but I'm not complaining.

you can find the 85 pics I have from the auto show here:

http://www.bboyhp.com/photos/nyauto/

Here are a couple of more linked ones:

 

my guess is that he bounced it off the ceiling?

 

isnt the ceiling at an auto show like, kinda far? :P

I dont think he liked my question, looking back at it, it reads kinda bad, almost like, accusatorily (is that a word)... I didnt mean it to sound that way, I just was wondering how he used the flash.

 

i was wondering why he never responded.

anyways in some of the pictures the ceiling doesnt look that low so

 

the ceiling also appears to be black.. and not flat. kinda hard to bounce light off.

 

Lightroom is COOL! Is there a Mac version for it?

 

why yes! The same installation cd works on both macs and pcs.

 

Yes there is. It is sold as a Mac/Windows app.

 

Nice pics badboy. So you desaturated some colors that are reflecting on the cars? Some of the background looks desaturated and I saw your post says you used the saturation alot. It's kinda cool cuz the cars are in color and everything else is like grayscale.

 

THanks!!

Yeah, the saturation tool came in handy. Another reason I used it was to color out the people, makes the pic less distracting. I'll post a couple of examples of before and after in the pp thread when I have some time.