Lighting a static vehicle at night

Natty94

Natty94

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Name
Nathan
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Hi all

When ever I get some spare time (probably after christmas) I'd like to take a few night time shots of my car somewhere in the countryside or by the sea. I know roughly how to take night shots, from doing light trails and painting but how would be best way to light the car? I am getting a speedlite for christmas but apart from that I have no other lights other than a few torches.

Thanks in advance
Nathan :)
 
Camera on a tripod, long exposure and experiment. Sometimes you can light the car enough with one go, sometimes if you are balancing the exposure against the background, you can light the car in parts then merge the photos together.

Beware of reflections of the light source. This was taken in canary wharfe and I walked the car lighting it with multiple flashes of the hand held flashgun, hence the line of lights along the bodywork. It really should have been a diffused source, such as a softbox.

138518813.jpg


As it was a long exposure, the camera didn't record me walking along the vehicle in shot.

Multiple exposures. Messing about outside my house with 4 wireless triggered flashguns on a lightstand moving to predefined spots marked with tape. Take a shot, move the stand, take a shot...

137783120.jpg


I've also made light modifiers in all shapes and sizes such as this carpet cardboard tube with flashguns at each end (wedged in with a car sponge) to give me a narrow beam of light.
138490644.jpg

so you get things like:
137882953.jpg
 
Also, fluorescent tubes are good fun. You can use them to light the vehicle, or tape parts of them off and then apply colour gel to make for an interesting background

123911848.jpg


This was a test shot with a model car
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You could of course go low key and moody
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It's all good fun and limited only by your imagination. Have an idea, experiment and don't be afraid to work out what works and doesn't and retry. Hopefully that's given you a few ideas.

Also have a look at some of the car photographers. Tim Wallace (http://www.ambientlife.co.uk/), Neil Watson (http://www.neillwatson.com) and Matt Woods (http://www.mwoods.co.uk/) or even GF Williams on here. Georges website is: http://www.gfwilliams.net/ and his Flickr account is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gfwilliams

If you really want to be impressed, Ivan Basso uses CGI modelling as well.
http://www.ivanbasso.com/
 
u can

a, take a car photo on long exposuer and paint in with a tourch?

b, set up the flash with a remote and shoot laods of images iwth flash lighting diff bits of the car and stitch them all 2gether

c, get 3 flashes and remote triggers :)
 
I have tried a single flash and couldnt get a consistent lighting across the car, I looked for an LED baton torch idea but couldnt see anything. May invest in a third flash to try out th 3 flash method, any adivce on tipd for position/flash settings?

Cheers
Scott
 
if u look at that image above mate my 3 flashes are right corner of the car about 1,5m in the air one at the front left and one high up at the back left.

i dont think the one in the front left corner is bright enough tho
 
just a thout spank me if im wrong but what about some neon 12v tubes ran off a car battery set up on some tripods
 
When I've done this I used a pair of fluorescent tubes, powered off a cheap inverter in the back of my car, to light the subject.

Cheap and worked well for me.
 
There's a few shots of my old A4 in the flickr link in my sig - the front end shots were lit with 2 speedlights through softboxes, and the "max headroom" shot was 3 speedlights and a torch to light the sign - the rest are long exposure - but they were shot in a car park, which was pretty well lit - exposure times reflect this though.

As has been said, get out there and mess around. The biggest problem I found was finding a location that I liked, and where I wasn't completely mugged by security patrols, yet left me feeling relatively safe.

If you can, get someone to go with you - nothing worse than rushing a shoot because you don't feel safe with a lot of expensive gear with you on your own.
 
Since getting involved with this thread I invested in a few cheap flashes and triggers and have been experimenting, trying to get the car lit with one shot.

Currently my two attempts aren't quite there but I'm going to stick at it :) The first batch is in the transport section.
 
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