Impreza WRX 300S

[8bit]

Shot an old friend's Subaru Impreza recently. As it was getting later in the day a few of the shots ended up with some very bright, low sun highlighting areas of the buildings and some dark shadows out of the light. I fought in Lightroom for a while trying to balance it out but it wasn't working, so I decided to take a different approach - I increased highlights, decreased saturation, cranked up the contrast and clarity sliders a bit and added some heavy vignette, to give a sort of cinematic look in a gritty industrial environment. Open to constructive criticism, how did I do?

DSC_0650-Pano by niallporter1, on Flickr

DSC_0688 by niallporter1, on Flickr

DSC_0726-Pano by niallporter1, on Flickr

DSC_0745 by niallporter1, on Flickr

DSC_0763-Pano by niallporter1, on Flickr

DSC_0820-Pano by niallporter1, on Flickr

DSC_0785 by niallporter1, on Flickr

DSC_0837-Pano by niallporter1, on Flickr

 

[ancient_mariner]

Number 3 is the pick of the set for me. In some of the others, the building out-competes the car and looks more interesting

 

[8bit]

Thanks for that. That's probably my favourite shot too, along with number 2. I knew the silver car in a busy environment with harsh shadow transitions was going to be a bit tricky, I did most of the shots as Brenzier method panoramas to try and soften the backgrounds a bit further and I added a fair bit of vignette, clarity, masked sharpness and contrast in post to try and lift the car out a bit more.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

It's a good effort but there are some elements that are a little distracting. Let me try to go through them quickly.

1. Personally I'd say its the best take. Framing is very clear leading the viewer straight to the car that is again parked in a simple but effective stance. I would have dug out my polariser to cut through the reflections of the windscreen and to be more adventurous maybe tried a composite with some flashes.

2. I want more sharpness, but more critically the car was really parked in the wrong place and the highlights are working totally against you. The gravel behind the front wheel is grabbing most of the attention and then there is the white gritty plate on the left. Bright elements always steal attention.

3. Again the super bright highlights steal the show. The shot may have worked perfectly at a different time of the day or with flashes.

4. Very reasonable attempt to frame the car. The yellow railing is too distracting (because its yellow) but luckily you can and should desaturate it. A quick perspective correction and we may be good with this one.

5. see 3

6. I want the car to be closer, the sky is blown out and behind the car is pure busy mess

 

[8bit]

Thanks for the input! To respond to your points in order (assuming your point numbers correspond to the images in my post):

1 - I did actually use a CPL for the whole shoot - that said I think it was only the second time I've ever used one so either that was the best I could do for that shot or I simply forgot to adjust it. Regarding flashes and composites, flash is still a bit of a mystery to me, as is compositing.

2 - Personally I find my eye drawn to the STI logo and then outwards around the tyre and wheel from there. I thought the detail on the tyre and mudflap were pretty sharp, or do you mean a wider DoF?

3 - Assuming you mean my third image, that one was tough to work with. The time of day meant low, bright, golden sun contrasting sharply with dark grey buildings in dark shade. The car's owner picked the location and the weather forecast was for light cloud which would have softened the light/shadow transitions a lot but it didn't pan out that way. This was what I was talking about in my original post - the SOOC gave pretty dull, flat, grey foreground but very bright, yellowish highlights where the light falls on the buildings to the right. In hindsight, we should maybe have put the car back round there just after the sun dropped below the horizon.

4 - Noted, thanks - I don't find the yellow too distracting personally but my colour perception isn't brilliant. What would you suggest regarding perspective correction?

5 - Noted again, thanks

6 - Agree with your points, wish I'd had the car a bit further from the background to soften the background a touch.

As above, the owner picked the location, we knew we could really only do the shoot on a Sunday afternoon/evening otherwise we'd be getting in folks' way and the weather didn't play out as forecast so we went ahead. I'll play with these some more and try what you suggest, thanks again for the input.