timsdd aka Tim's Digital Darkroom

Herein are the last few from this set of pictures using the auto rig to take pictures of the Rav4 while in motion.

As luck would have it, I now have time to go out and get some more shots but wouldn’t you know it, the weather outlook is grim over the next 3.8-5.57 days.

No matter, I need to remind myself to always be on the look out for potential locations and you know what, come to think of it, now might be a good time to check out the parking garage @ Round Rock city hall; that should provide cover from the weather (of course the car might get dirty on the road!) Maybe I’ll just scout the location!

One of the funniest things about this night were the looks I got from some of the Tinseltown patrons.

They must have been like, waaaaaaat is he doing?? :D

The other (not so) funny thing was that it took me 16.8mins to figure out the self timer setting on my camera which enables you to take consecutive pictures. I’ve never had this feature on any Canon before but bravo to whomever thought it up, it’s brilliant. You can tell it to take 2-8(or so) consecutive pictures. It would have been even better if I had timed or calculated the entire sequence though, so I knew when to stop the car! Next time I go out I’ll definitely have to run the time elapsed on that!

I was loving how evenly most of the shots came out in terms of the car being exposed. Really not a lot of uneven areas or weird shadows which pleasantly surprised me.

The only thing I guess I didn’t like, sometimes the parking lot lights ate up too much real estate on the top of the frame or were too “strong”.

Ok! Yes, the windows are filthy! They’re actually clean but have huge amounts of water spots from the water drying. Note to self: wipe those windows down!

The rims look pretty uniform from picture to picture. I really like how they came out in the shot above, a really cool star pattern. I am not sure if that was due to the light or length of exposure or what, I suspect the lighting.

So does anyone want to volenteer their vehicle for my next series?? :)

This is something my friend Andy and I have talked about for a LONG time. We wanted to give it a shot and see what we could come up with constructing a (photo auto) rig ourselves that would allow us to photograph autos in motion….without spending $300-500!

It’s something he has researched far before I even knew about it, and thankfully the very generous photographers online have posted and discussed their own rigs for some time now which was integral in our attempt.

This was my first time out. I picked night b/c it was convenient and I figured there would be ample places that had cool lights that would make interesting backgrounds.

I loved this lens flare I got so I had to include it

Cruising around and while you can’t see it, my eyes are GLUED to the suction cups on the hood of the car.

The hardest part is maintaining the same color balance between the car and the background. While one white balance setting makes the cars look best, the original setting makes the lights look best. The car is suited for ~2K to 2.5K under the lights that exposed the Rav4.

For such a long exposure (5-10s) I was surprised by the clarity of the images. The (focus) falloff is due to the F/5 setting, though I ran to 6.3 towards the end of the night.

I thought these would make excellent stock photos but the wizards @ istock deem that the body shape of the SUV is © material….even though they have LOTS of full featured cars and SUV’s on their website (I do not care for them much!!)

BUT, that was just to be an added bonus. The real reason for us creating this rig and trying these shots was to build a client base here in Austin, Round Rock, Pflugerville, and surrounding areas.

We hope to tap into the large market of car enthusiasts in the area and provide some unique pictures for those folks that really LOVE their autos!!