Long exposure from inside car - on the move.

Dan.Hodson

Dan.Hodson

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Name
Daniel Hodson
Edit My Images
Yes
I dont think its done any justice at this size. was an experimental shot using a secured tripod and a remote switch:

2452669079_d9e8f90511.jpg


Please, PLEASE view it in a larger size here

feedback welcome, bare in mind it was an experiment :)

UPDATE:

I revisited this last night after loving the first results

and the result:

2455590288_e03210aabf.jpg


Once again please view in Large as to appreciate the image.
 
better than my effort I find securing the tripod the be the hardest part
 
Thank you for the feedback :)

I used both seatbelts either side. layed the tripod against the rear seats and extended one leg to hold the balance. I then looped a scarf round the front leg and tied it to the front seats.
 
Hi,

I actually like that a lot, like you say, the bigger version does look much better (y)
 
Cheers Mark, Id like to find a way to secure the tripod to the actual chassis, and tight at that. obviously the outside would be blurred which is what I want, but the inside as crisp as morning frost.

I shot it at 100 ISO as I saw that it could potentially be quite a noisey image due to the nature of it.
 
Is the car lowered by any chance?

What about snapping the inside of the car while still and merge a still and motion pic.. Or are you going for an original one shot?
 
leon1p said:
Is the car lowered by any chance?

What about snapping the inside of the car while still and merge a still and motion pic.. Or are you going for an original one shot?
Click to expand...

car is on standard shocks and suspension, just the minor bumps in the road, are major camera shakes. you know how it is with long exposure shots.

The lighting is different on a still shot due street lighting being in the same place. where as when your moving it gets distributed.
 
leon1p said:
What about snapping the inside of the car while still and merge a still and motion pic.. Or are you going for an original one shot?
Click to expand...

You could try a daytime one? I'm sure a shutter of 1/10th sec would be enough to blur at say 60-70mph? :)
 
You have me quite tempted to try a shot like that.. I don't have a remote but i'm sure I can use the self timer. I can totally understand how difficult it is to get a secure mounting. Even a parcel shelf rattles about with the bumps. You could I suppose mount a bracket onto the back of the rear seats but that means drilling.

Perhaps you could use a couple of those spring loaded poles (curtain rail that adjusts to different sizes for shower curtains etc) across the width of the car to brace the tripod.
 
you've got me thinking now. one of those lorry straps that crank tight would be handy!
 
Good thinking.. you could strap the tripod sideways across the top of the rear seats and whip the straps round the seat backs. Trip to b&q for you then :D
 
Nicely done :) I have played around with this idea a few times and never got anything I am really happy with. No matter what I try I just cant get a steady enough shot to keep the interior sharp. I think my problem that my tripod has to much recoil (so to speak) it doesnt hold firm on a bump so it moves more than the car. I think if you can get a rock solid support you should get some amazing results :)

If the lorry straps dont work you could try creating your own suction cup system that secures onto both windows either side with may a leg coming down the footwell. Like a monopod with two arms....though saying that it, there is a fair chance of movement in that I guess :(
 
Nice effect Dan, though for me there's a bit too much of the inside of the car and not enough beyond the screen. I do like how much light you've got on the road.

Re setup, I've done a few of these recently (see recent Clio 197 thread) and positioned the tripod with a leg in each corner of the rear seat and the third leg somewhere between the two front seats (behind the handbrake). Then I've wrapped a motorbike cargo net or a bungee spider over the top of the tripod and secured it at various points around the car (to front headrests, prevents tripod tipping under acceleration; to rear headrests, prevents tripod tipping under braking; to front seat runners, prevents tripod bouncing over bumps).

For streetlit shots I've shot ISO100 at 1-2s with a wide aperture. I also experimented with ISO200 and 6-8s exposure and let the headlights pick out the detail.

What were the settings for yours?
 
I've been playing with this for a while. My best mount is with back seats folded down and tripod fastened to the securing rings in the back of my VRS estate. I then zoom to loose the folded seats.

I'm also working on doing shots with the GF's Merc SLK and trying to fasten to the roll bar type hoops behind the seat using ratchet straps.
 
I bungied my tripod into the back seat, placing one leg between the seat "squab" and the back rest, and the other two legs behind the front seats.

It takes a lot of experimenting to get the best viewpoint/field of vision.

Nice effort, looks better than when I tried it, but the suspension on my ST can be quiet harsh at times.

Steve
 
ive folded my seat down and resecured it using the seat belts etc. i've wedged the feet so its tight, gotta wait for it to get dark now :)
 
great photo :) i like the idea, years back me and a mate done some filming with a camcorder, we had a piece of wood with 2 holes in it, the same pitch as the headrest on the passenger seat, we removed the headrest put the wood on the seat and re-fitted the headrest, we drilled a hole in the wood and secured the camcorder from undernieth with a bolt, I suppose it wont be as good an in the back (unless you have rear headrests) but you could maybe get a passenger perspective,

Just an Idea

Scott
 
I did this a while back in my girl friends car when she was drive. You could just a Super Clamp and clamp down the camera to a head rest or any other pole/beam in the car.

Nice work thou and I will defo having to try this again :)
 
Dan.Hodson said:
ive folded my seat down and resecured it using the seat belts etc. i've wedged the feet so its tight, gotta wait for it to get dark now :)
Click to expand...

and the result:

2455590288_e03210aabf.jpg


Once again please view in Large as to appreciate the image.

some nice feedback on here, would love to see others results.:naughty:
 
Dan.Hodson said:
and the result:

2455590288_e03210aabf.jpg
Click to expand...

Fair play for getting straight back out there.

That's got a really good feel to it. I can imagine it as a still from a film, either something like a futuristic thriller or urban. Really like the simplicity of your dashboard lighting.

Dan.Hodson said:
some nice feedback on here, would love to see others results.:naughty:
Click to expand...

ISO100, 1.3s, c20mph
80501_4248.jpg


ISO200, 1.6s, c60mph
80427_Clio197-f5019.jpg
 
nice. I like them, mine was shot at 100 ISO, for wait for it... 15 seconds @ 30 mph. aperture was 8.0 didnt want to reduce the DOF too much.

Like my dash? lol retro 'N' Reg corsa. its amazing how cars have changed interior wise in such a short time period.
 
Dan.Hodson said:
Like my dash? lol retro 'N' Reg corsa. its amazing how cars have changed interior wise in such a short time period.
Click to expand...

Oh, I was a year or so out. Had it down mentally as a '97 Corsa. Not sure on spec *** - LS (think that age GLS had elec front windows)? Top one of mine is a '98 P306 so not that much newer.

15s seems long but a slow (vehicle) speed is effective.
 
AndWhy said:
Oh, I was a year or so out. Had it down mentally as a '97 Corsa. Not sure on spec *** - LS (think that age GLS had elec front windows)? Top one of mine is a '98 P306 so not that much newer.

15s seems long but a slow (vehicle) speed is effective.
Click to expand...


Its registered as a '96 N, but yea its a 'Montana' branded LS with pretty bog standard features. cabling there for heated mirrors etc. the clocks might of thrown you out as mine orignally had non-rev counter clocks, but I wired the coil to the rev counter version because I wanted a rev-counter.

I wanted as bigger F-stop as possible as to retain the crispness. hence the 15 seconds. that and It wasnt far from my house to hit 50/60 Id have to go further a field.:bang:
 
Dan, a really interesting result. Like Andwhy says, it's got a futuristic feel to it!
 
You seem to have cracked the camera shake problem...

I tried this a couple of weeks ago, my results are in my gallery (link)

Steve
 
cheers for comments! Its been realy exciting to experiment. I sorted the camera shake quite easily. I folded the rear seat forward so the tripod was resting on a firm surface. I then secured them using the seatbelts. I then extended the tripod legs as to remove any movement. and now for the the funny bit.

I took 3 single socks, and wedged them underneath the already tight tripod feet which virtually removed camerashake as the image shows. :LOL:
 
Well done Dan, it was worth trying again! My first thought that would make it better is to see your hand on the wheel.. Seeing your hand on your knee kinda makes it look like you aren't actually driving. The angle of the pic should let you do that without blocking out some of the features of the dash. (What am I saying I should try to get a shot like that before saying that :) )

The interior lighting effect you were hoping to maintain looks 10x better, you especially notice how soft an effect it has produced around your passenger door handle.

Can't wait to try this some time!
 
leon1p said:
Well done Dan, it was worth trying again! My first thought that would make it better is to see your hand on the wheel.. Seeing your hand on your knee kinda makes it look like you aren't actually driving. The angle of the pic should let you do that without blocking out some of the features of the dash. (What am I saying I should try to get a shot like that before saying that :) )

The interior lighting effect you were hoping to maintain looks 10x better, you especially notice how soft an effect it has produced around your passenger door handle.

Can't wait to try this some time!
Click to expand...

thanx for feedback, look forward to your results.

I'll let you into a little secret

I originally had my hand on thwe wheel but it was heavily ghosted, so I used another shot and blended it in. not sure which is better.
 
I also have plans to try this on a bus.. could be quite cool so look out for that one day.
 
Excellent shots using a very cool technique. I've seen it a few times and I think I'm gonna have to give it a blast before I sell my D80 with the remote control.

Nice to see you're using a quality head unit too (Alpine if I'm correct!). :)

Paul C
 
Psmeg said:
Excellent shots using a very cool technique. I've seen it a few times and I think I'm gonna have to give it a blast before I sell my D80 with the remote control.

Nice to see you're using a quality head unit too (Alpine if I'm correct!). :)

Paul C
Click to expand...

thanx a lot :) do it, give it a shot its really rewarding :)

the headunit is actually a random branded one off ebay:


vrcd500sdu_06.jpg


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-VR3-SD-US...oryZ3293QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Cracking head unit as well!
 
wow yeah you sorted that camera shake out perfectly! That dash is really nice and sharp :)
 
Dan.Hodson said:
Like my dash? lol retro 'N' Reg corsa. its amazing how cars have changed interior wise in such a short time period.
Click to expand...

I hang my head in shame was trying to work out what car it was. I've only had my new one a month and I've forgotten what the dash looked like on my old one, even though I had her 8 1/2 years.

The second shot is definitely an improvement on the first. Looks like you removed the headrests which gives a better view through. I like the travelling through time effect.
 
a lot of cars have metal hooks under the rear seats welded to the chasis, "ISOFIX" child seat mounting points. With a couple of clamps might be able to use one from each side to secure the tripod?
 
AndWhy said:
Fair play for getting straight back out there.

That's got a really good feel to it. I can imagine it as a still from a film, either something like a futuristic thriller or urban. Really like the simplicity of your dashboard lighting.



ISO100, 1.3s, c20mph
80501_4248.jpg


ISO200, 1.6s, c60mph
80427_Clio197-f5019.jpg
Click to expand...

last picture taken in a clio 197 am i right;):D nice choice what colour car is it?
 
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