In a bit of a break from the norm, I was contracted to produce some images of a house recently. The owners wanted a package of photographs to hand to their estate agent to help with the sale.
So out came the 17-40 f/4 lens and tripod. All the images (except the garden panorama) were shot in HDR (+/- 2 stops) as the sun was shining brightly causing too wide a contrast range for a single exposure.
When you are at the World famous Silverstone circuit and you’ve got access to the pit lane, it’s just plain rude not to use it as a location. Especially when you’ve got the lovely Sarah and her equally lovely VW Polo as your subject.
The plan here was twofold – firstly I wanted to get some good shots in the can for Sarah and secondly I wanted to find out just how well my new lighting rig coped in a typical car show situation. Fortunately, it passed with flying colours.
To work in this situation, a lighting rig, for me at least, needs to be;
Light enough to carry: No matter how close you can park, it’s always a distance to anywhere you would want to shoot. I’ve got both heads, both packs and all cabling in a Crumpler Company Gigolo 9500 bag. With my light stands, a few modifiers, and some grip equipment in a fishing rod bag, I am able to move the whole lot short distances on my own. Although this time I had help from Chris Wynne and Darren Skidmore.
Quick to set up: You’ve got to move quickly at a car show as you’ve likely borrowed the girls from a trade stand or a car from a Show n Shine area so time is limited. Another box ticked by the Quadras. The heads are small enough for a Manfrotto Nano 001B stand to support with the pack hanging to add stability and the Elinchrom Deep Octa goes up swiftly. Cheaper eBay softboxes take a while to assemble though.
Power: I don’t always get to choose when a shoot is going to happen and areas in shade aren’t always the best looking locations, so I need some punch to overpower and control the ambient light. For this shoot the solution was to use 3 hot shoe flashes for example. At 400w/s the Quadra packs aren’t the most powerful, but still had plenty to tame the light spilling into the pit lane in this case. Although I’ve yet to try, I am certain 2 bare heads could handle full sun.
Enough talk, onto some images! Firstly to underexpose the pit lane enough to be able to add my own light I had to shoot at around f/18 at my max sync speed. I should probably take this opportunity to mention the Elinchrom Skyport Speed controller syncs withe the receivers in the Quadra packs at my max sync speed of 1/200th without trouble.
All I had to do now was bring in the lights. A simple, bare head setup for just the car and the Deep Octa softbox (in beauty dish mode) added to the camera right flash for the shots with Sarah.
Here are a few more images fr the shoot, feel free to leave a comment.
Last week I finally pulled the trigger on some more powerful lighting.
Originally I was drawn to the Elinchrom Quadra’s but the price and the reported issues (poor battery clips and no protective caps for the heads while in transit) put me off. So I looked into alternatives like the Bowens TravelPak system and the Lencarta Safari but held off from making a purchase because both were far bulkier. Then Elinchrom released the Quadra RX – basically a Quadra with bug fixes!
So far I can’t praise these Quadra RX’s enough – solid build quality, power, speed and the ability to adjust power from camera.
The only slight downside are the included reflectors. They don’t focus or control the light at all, giving almost 180 of spill as you can see in the image below. I shall be ordering the 18cm ones today.
Stay tuned for some more sample images and opinions.
Another weekend, another car show and this time it was USC (Ultimate Street Car) at Santa Pod.
I wasn’t lucky enough to have any secluded barns to shoot in this time so it was a case of making the best of a bad lot. And at car shows, it’s a very bad lot – even when your subjects are the Sextons Direct / Ripraw girls!
You’ve got cluttered backgrounds, harsh mid afternoon light and crowds.
First of all, I toured Santa Pod looking for a location without people, cars or fairground rides lurking in the background. Luckily Santa Pod is out in the middle of the Northamptonshire countryside and backs onto some open fields and I was able to find this on the edge of the showground.
I chose this partly for the view but also as facing in the this direction the sun was be coming from behind the subjects – about 2 o’clock from this view. This way, the girls weren’t squinting into the bright light and I’d be able to add my own soft, diffused light from camera left.
Which leads nicely onto Problem Number 2 – the harsh sunlight. As it was coming from over the left shoulders of the girls it served as a nice separation light which, if I under exposed the background slightly, would make them really ‘pop’. But that would also leave faces in shadow, so out came the lighting.
Working in manual mode, I set my 5D MkII to sync at it’s max sync speed (1/200th) but in order to get some detail in the bright sky I was having to shoot at f/10 which meant needing to drive the flashes hard. So hard in fact that in order to keep a decent recycle time I had to gang 3 SB-28 at 1/2 power though a single shoot through umbrella. Think Joe McNally‘s speedlight tree on a budget!
With lights and locations sorted, it was time to bring on the car and the girls. This always draws an instant crowd at car shows but due to the location, apart from a few passing cars, the onlookers were behind the camera.
And onto the results. Well worth a bit of location scouting and 5 minutes of set-up I think.
Big thanks to Chris for the loan of the car and of course for the girls for doing their thing in front of my camera.
If you have even a passing interest in cars or motorsport you can’t help but love the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Every July, Lord March opens his grounds to tens of thousands of petrolheads. All the major car manufacturers build what can only be described as huge showrooms and the top F1 teams roll up in their trailers.
An event not to be missed by any respecting car nut!
The Sextons Grid Girls weren’t the only thing I shot whilst at Modified Nationals this year. Here are some more shots from the show.
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