Lotus 340R by night

[Rainey]

Took some photos with my mates car last night. This is probably the first completely organised shoot I have done since I got my camera and I was pretty impressed with the results. I was using my Canon 350D with the kit lens (18-55mm) and the standard 75-300mm telefocal lens, my settings were varied but I used ISO200 and MF, surprised myself that I got the focus right with most of them. The only PP I have done was adjusting the warmth of the image during the RAW processing.





You can see some more of my shots here:
http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k12/rainey06au/dslr/lotus340r/

C&C encouraged.

[Glen]

Rainey, nice shots. I prefer the first and some of the images on your site where the car is centrally located. Three looks like the car is about to drive out of the frame.

Your mate is selling his car isn't he?

[Justin]

#1 - just a bit too much of an angle for me - It's a small car and as it is sitting on the cluttered horizon does not have a lot of impact as a strong focal point
#2 - I'd crop this right down - this is the best shot of the car. It does need sharpening though you've got some slight softening from the longer exposure.
#3 is your best here - I'd try to bring up the blue/purple of the car as it still disappears a little. I also did a quick convert to B&W - if you run a strong red filter (to boost contrast) and convert to B&W you may like the result?

[Justin]

In fact I was bored - so in IrfanView I did:

Boosted Red all the way, converted to greyscale, boosted red again, greyscale again, boosted contrast and sharpened



What I think the only issue here is insufficient light on the car.

[Rainey]

Glen, thank you for your comments. Yes my mate will be selling his car, we wanted to get some good shots of it before he passes it on. I don't know if its on the market yet but there are only a few 340R's in Australia because they weren't locally delivered, only the personal imports got in so it is probably more valuable than it was in the UK.

Justin, I cropped number 2 down to what it is there but I could crop it even further as well. If you look on my photobucket you will see that I took the same shot but used the car to fill the frame, unfortunately another car drove through my shot and 'streaked' it. I also agree that the angle in the first shot is extreme, but I liked the way things were oriented like that, for example the pylons come out of the bottom-left, the lights point to the top-left and the car is centered in the middle-right.

[TassieD]

Hi there Rainey,

nice shots and a great car. my comments would be:

#1 - Have you tried cropping in a landscape orientation from just above the light in the back ground to below the car. Or even from the bottom right corner to just above the second light pole.

#2 I really like this image but would feel it to be better if the two poles were not there.

#3 Is my pick, the colouring realy compliments the shot.

these are just my 2 cents worth, well done on a good job.

[Jonas]

Jaysus, that is a nice looking car.

I agree that the car is a little lost among the background and perhaps a shallower depth of field by opening up the lens or using the zoom might give it more punch.

[Rainey]

Thanks for the comments David and Jonas.

I haven't played around with any of my shots apart from removing that dirty old tag from my 3rd picture. Might be taking some more shots of it on the weekend, perhaps in the sunlight. I'm hoping my 3rd picture might be a contender for pic of the week!