Lighting of cars on location

JonathanRyan said:
Interesting stuff.

I spent all yesterday with a car photographer. He doesn't use flash - everything is continuous light. He seems to do alright. http://www.ripleyandripley.com/
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Is it just me? I click the link and go to their home page, and can't get any further. It just shows the title and that's it.

I presume there should be an image or two on their site?
 
Michael Sewell said:
Yep, clicked on the names. Clicked on the year. Clicked on the background.
After ten minutes, I gave up.

Google Chrome 18.0.1025.162 m
Windoze XP
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Do you have popups blocked by any chance? Looking at the HTML code, the gallery bit of the site runs in a popup window.

Steve
 
Thanks Steven, the link worked fine.
Very nice images, but not exactly photographs any more. I would describe them as digital art.
Back on topic, I wouldn't say they were ambient only, judging by the way the panels reflect the light. That said, they may well have been manipulated to show that way.

Hard to tell
 
GFWilliams said:
All I had to do was unscrew 3 screws, lift the front off while making sure I don't touch the bulb or any connections, then screw the connector back into place. I might superglue it so it doesn't happen again...
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Ouch. I'd definitely glue that. Or send it back for repair. Don't want to be mucking about with high voltage kit.

POAH said:
and how long in photoshop after :LOL:
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About a day per image.

Michael Sewell said:
Back on topic, I wouldn't say they were ambient only
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Ah no, I didn't mean ambient - these are continuous light. Arris and Dedos. As far as I know there's very little manipulation of the cars themselves post shot. The post work is mainly adding the backgrounds.
 
I hate these conversations when people discuss a style of photography which has a lot of photoshop or CGI involved. Okay, you think it looks a bit fake, get over it, 99% of the time these guys are right at the top of their game and also 99% of the time they're working for such huge clients that they probably have a stupidly strict brief to stick to...
 
JonathanRyan said:
About a day per image.



Ah no, I didn't mean ambient - these are continuous light. Arris and Dedos. As far as I know there's very little manipulation of the cars themselves post shot. The post work is mainly adding the backgrounds.
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Very pretty artwork, rather than real photos.
Unless they were shot in the dark, continuous lighting couldn't produce those lighting effects, the light would just be totally overwhelmed by the ambient, which is why we use flash in the first place. And there aren't any modifiers that can produce genuine lighting effects like those.
Just as a very simple, obvious example, this picture shows texture in the offside rear tyre that can't be revealed by the light from that direction, but the offside front tyre, with the same lighting, is in shadow - as it should be.
That's the problem with faking light on the computer - it can striking but it can't ever look real, largely because light is 3 dimensional and a computer monitor is 2 dimensional. Even people who know nothing about light can see that there's something wrong.
 
GFWilliams said:
Pretty sure you could do that with continuous light Garry
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Simple physics, it can't be done unless it's dark, because continuous lighting can't compete with (and overpower) daylight.

Let's put it like this...
You have the Safari Li-on kit, that's 600 watt-seconds of power, which means that it delivers the equivalent of 600 watts of power during the very brief flash. Now, shooting with a decent DSLR (AKA Nikon:)) that's effectively 1/250th second.

In theory, to get the same actual power delivery from a continuous light at 1/250th second you'd need 600 (watts) x 250 = 150,000 watts of lighting power That's just theory. In practice it gets even worse, because even if you're shooting with HMI or CFL lighting, quite a lot of the energy is output in the form of heat rather than light, so you'd get a lot less light than you expect. I've never seen 150,000 watts of HMI or CFL lighting and don't know the figures, but with a tungsten source such as Quartz Halogen you'd be looking at a heat/light ratio of around 67%, so the 150,000 watts would need to be 450,000 watts.

It isn't about whether or not it can be done with continuous lighting - of course it can, in the dark - it's about whether or not it can be done at a high enough shutter speed to limit the contribution made by sunlight, and it can't, so it can only be done when there is virtually no ambient light.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Simple physics, it can't be done unless it's dark, because continuous lighting can't compete with (and overpower) daylight.
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You see, this is where it actually gets funny.

There's a bunch of people asking how to light cars. Several other people have a guess at how it might be done. And there are lots of ways to do this - for example Tim Wallace uses Prophoto flashes for some of his shots when he's shooting for Aston Martin and the like. And I suspect he has a couple of other tricks up his sleeve.

People who like flash seem to believe that the only way this can be done is by using flash.

And then by chance (really - my name came up in a draw and I got sent a ticket) I happened to spend a day with a guy who shoots lots of stuff for Top Gear and a bunch of manufacturers. To my surprise he doesn't use flash - if I understood him he doesn't use flash at all. Certainly every image he explained to me he told me which continuous lights he used and never mentioned flash.

And now apparently that defies the laws of physics.

To the OP - if you get a chance to spend the day with Rip then grab it. You may decide to do things completely differently from him. But at least you'll see what's possible ;)
 
Garry Edwards said:
Simple physics, it can't be done unless it's dark, because continuous lighting can't compete with (and overpower) daylight.

Let's put it like this...
You have the Safari Li-on kit, that's 600 watt-seconds of power, which means that it delivers the equivalent of 600 watts of power during the very brief flash. Now, shooting with a decent DSLR (AKA Nikon:)) that's effectively 1/250th second.

In theory, to get the same actual power delivery from a continuous light at 1/250th second you'd need 600 (watts) x 250 = 150,000 watts of lighting power That's just theory. In practice it gets even worse, because even if you're shooting with HMI or CFL lighting, quite a lot of the energy is output in the form of heat rather than light, so you'd get a lot less light than you expect. I've never seen 150,000 watts of HMI or CFL lighting and don't know the figures, but with a tungsten source such as Quartz Halogen you'd be looking at a heat/light ratio of around 67%, so the 150,000 watts would need to be 450,000 watts.

It isn't about whether or not it can be done with continuous lighting - of course it can, in the dark - it's about whether or not it can be done at a high enough shutter speed to limit the contribution made by sunlight, and it can't, so it can only be done when there is virtually no ambient light.
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You realise most of that stuff was when it was dark or has comped backgrounds right?

Seems like you know a lot of theory, but sounds as if you haven't done much of this stuff in practise... If you reverse engineer a lot of the shots you can find out a lot about how they were taken :)
 
60221654 said:
digital art they may be but still a distinct take on shooting cars. were you assisting or working as a digi operator?
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Neither. Hasselblad had a master class at their gallery - my name came out of a hat. Since it's something I know absolutely nothing about I thought it would be interesting to watch. It's always fun to watch professionals work.

Details - including finished image http://www.hasselbladstudio.com/blog/?p=1406

Trust me. That one was continuous ;)
 
GFWilliams said:
You realise most of that stuff was when it was dark or has comped backgrounds right?

Seems like you know a lot of theory, but sounds as if you haven't done much of this stuff in practise... If you reverse engineer a lot of the shots you can find out a lot about how they were taken :)
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Actually I had almost finished writing a detailed reply to Jonathan when life got in the way, and I lost everything I'd written - and I'm not going to through all that again.

Yes, Of course I realise that those shots were done in the dark, and I also realise that all the backgrounds are comped - I said that earlier. That's why I keep making the point that continuous lighting doesn't have anywhere near enough power to produce those results when competing with ambient light. The laws of physics are absolute and immutable, it's obvious that they were done in the dark but my point is that most people don't have the resources needed to do them in the dark, in a huge warehouse or similar, so use a powerful flash that allows them to shoot in the light.

And yes, I have done a lot of this stuff in practice.
 
If I remembered right, "sometime" ago Garry was commissioned to shoot the very first UK launch of a now very well-known Korean car marque.

Just a little bit of trivia. :D

Photography has become much more intertwined with computer graphics. I think that trade show has got the name bang on, "Focus on Imaging". :) At the end of the day, good image making is what photography is all about, same with CG - two means to the same end.
 
To the OP, I'm extremely sorry about the socket issue. Today I have spoken to the factory, and we've changed the fixture design so it will not happen again on this product.

If there's any further problem with this head you've got, please let us know to have it serviced free for you.
 
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Lencarta said:
To the OP, I'm extremely sorry about the socket issue. Today I have spoken to the factory, and we've changed the fixture design so it will not happen again on this product.

If there's any further problem with this head you've got, please let us know to have it serviced free for you.
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No worries, I've now superglued it so it won't happen again (y)
 
Garry Edwards said:
Very pretty artwork, rather than real photos.
Unless they were shot in the dark, continuous lighting couldn't produce those lighting effects, the light would just be totally overwhelmed by the ambient, which is why we use flash in the first place.
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They were shot in the dark. Problem solved. :bonk: (y)
 
Lencarta said:
If I remembered right, "sometime" ago Garry was commissioned to shoot the very first UK launch of a now very well-known Korean car marque.

Just a little bit of trivia. :D

Photography has become much more intertwined with computer graphics. I think that trade show has got the name bang on, "Focus on Imaging". :) At the end of the day, good image making is what photography is all about, same with CG - two means to the same end.
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Yeah, they were crap cars but I made them look good:)
 
GFWilliams said:
I hate these conversations when people discuss a style of photography which has a lot of photoshop or CGI involved. Okay, you think it looks a bit fake, get over it, 99% of the time these guys are right at the top of their game and also 99% of the time they're working for such huge clients that they probably have a stupidly strict brief to stick to...
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Calm down, I said it was Digital Art rather than photography, and it was meant as a compliment. In my opinion, it's elevated to the state of digital Art. something more than a photograph.

I can certainly appreciate the work that has gone into them
 
GFWilliams said:
:thinking:

:wave: :shrug:
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These were shot on 6 x 7 tranny film, I no longer have any copies, if I ever did keep any. The scanning was done by the ad agency, I just supplied the processed film. They always used to promise to supply copies of the digital files but didn't always actually do it.

"Studio" shots taken on a North Wales beach, large scrim overhead, big Sunbounce reflectors, hotshoe flashes illuminating the black holes (wheel arches and so on - what I would have given for a real battery kit back then:) and splashy shots of it being driven through the water before the water got into the electrics:)

2 cars, 2 car cleaners, 1 excellent assistant and 3 week shooting budget.
 
Bet you wish you had computers back in the good old days too eh! :baby:

I'd love to see the results as I shot a car for a car manufacturer on a beach in wales recently totally natural light and with a rubbish assistant in about 2 hours.

If they were proper press/marketing shots, surely they'll be on the web somewhere if you google the car?
 
GFWilliams said:
Bet you wish you had computers back in the good old days too eh! :baby:

I'd love to see the results as I shot a car for a car manufacturer on a beach in wales recently totally natural light and with a rubbish assistant in about 2 hours.

If they were proper press/marketing shots, surely they'll be on the web somewhere if you google the car?
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Well, we did have computers and film shots were scanned in, but as with a lot of agency work my job was to produce the shots, the agency did the PP work and there was little or no direct contact with the client.

Back then, PP work was very much a speciality carried out by/for the agencies rather than by the photographers - generally I see this as a good thing, because the photographer had to get it right in camera or face a lot of hassle from the agency.

I've looked on the net, there seems to be absolutely nothing out there. It was the original of the Hyundai Santa Fe 4x4, which seemed to me to be loosely based on the Nissan Terrano LWB but with FWD that changed to AWD electronically.

The biggest part of these jobs is always the same - 1% photography, when the light is absolutely right, and the other 99% of the time spent is either on waiting for the right light/weather or waiting for one of the cars to be cleaned again after the last shot, and of course the tide times need to be right too, to coincide with the right tide at the right time of day (very early morning the right weather and the right light. That's what makes these jobs so expensive, you have my respect for attempting to do something similar in a couple of hours, this isn't something that I would even consider.
 
Back to the very original item - looks like you got a very nice bit of kit the George. Very interesting.

CGI and car advertising is used an awful lot these days.
Moofe was started a couple of years ago for providing back plate images and HDR generated 'Environments' that can be used to actually light wire frame CGI models with accurate scene lighting:
https://www.moofe.com/
Ivan Basso is a digital illustrator who uses Moofe's imagery:
http://www.ivanbasso.com/
 
Yes, that's the way that car advertising has gone, and generally it's good because the shots can be far more creative than before.

Car advertising is a bit of an oddity though, the 'truth' requirements that apply to other types of products don't seem to apply to cars - and never have, it isn't a retouching/CGI thing.
 
Byker28i said:
Back to the very original item - looks like you got a very nice bit of kit the George. Very interesting.

CGI and car advertising is used an awful lot these days.
Moofe was started a couple of years ago for providing back plate images and HDR generated 'Environments' that can be used to actually light wire frame CGI models with accurate scene lighting:
https://www.moofe.com/
Ivan Basso is a digital illustrator who uses Moofe's imagery:
http://www.ivanbasso.com/
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CGI is an interesting business. I'm not sure where the crossover between retouching and CGI is to be honest.
Recently I had to composite a prototype car which I photographed in a warehouse into backingplates I took in wales on a cloudy day the week before. I had to pretty much redraw every panel on the car. In the end it actually looked pretty believable (about 10-15 hours spent on each shot). In fact I heard from the MD that he was very impressed :D
I wouldn't say that it's CGI, but a lot of people would argue that it is CGI...
 
GFWilliams said:
...I'm not sure where the crossover between retouching and CGI is to be honest.....
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Retouching is just that - retouching a photo, whether it's to clone areas out or just to make an adjustment. CGI is generating new material without the use of a camera IMO. Both have their place and the latter obviously helps in situations where reality can't oblige.

I can't say that I prefer one over the other but I do find some CGI detracts from the image when done in a heavy-handed fashion. Like you say George, if the client is happy then there's no issue.....
 
Hmmm.
I usually light parts of the vehicle, and then stack in photoshop to get the final image. However, following the brief exchange with Graham regarding different techniques, I opted to go for his technique(ish) for this assignment.
42435206175b.jpg
 
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