Car of the Day for March 9th, 2009: Aurora AFX Ferrari 512M #6 open scoop

Ray. Here are my basic tried and trusted tips and thoughts for photographing slotties.

What affects our ability to see things in real life is a combination of light and composition. Change just one of these elements and your eyes will see vastly different things.

Our eyes adjust to changing light by dilating to allow more or less light to enter the eyeball which directs light onto the retina where it is then processed by the brain to produce an image.

Now consider the camera set up to be a similar design. The lens is in effect the eyeball, the film or digital sensor the retina and the electronics in the camera the brain.

And, just as with our eyes, if you alter the light coming into a camera or alter the speed of the lens shutter, the image a camera captures will be vastly different.

This is the basic rule of Light and is fairly easy to master and holds true for all types of photography.

Light – Remember that what you see is what you want to capture, so if your eyes can’t see the subject very well, then your camera will struggle to capture it too. That is just plain common sense. So lighting up your subject will give your eyes and camera a good start.

First off, natural daylight is best but for dark situations or at night I suggest artificially lighting a subject with a “cool” fluorescent desk lamp or a quartz halogen lamp which both give off a white light. Avoid standard “warm” incandescent lamps which give off an orange light. Even during the day using artificial light will help. Using multiple light sources is even better and try to use a white or single coloured background like cardboard, bed linen or painted board.

I sometimes use a handmade light box to set cars up in for macro shots. It is basically a 5 sided cube of white board with a square opening at the top where a cool fluorescent lamp shines down. This light can be diffused through opaque plastic sticky sheets similar to school book covers. The front is open of course and the white internal sides reflect and bounce light onto the subject. I then have the freedom to change composition and perspective as I wish with excellent light available to me. I will shortly include a link on how to make one. It’s dead easy.

Composition -  This is a little harder to understand but remember that photographing stationary slot cars won’t be a case of missed opportunity so don’t treat it like you’ve just spotted a Yeti and you need to rush to get that shot of a lifetime. Keep the subject composition basic but try different things.

Our eyes see in 3D but a camera does not. To deflect a cameras’ inability to shoot in 3D, compose shots from above eye level and move the car to give a non-linear perspective. It’s really bland seeing a one dimensional photo of purely one side of the car showing at eye level. In any case, and particularly when shooting racing cars, you will get far more detail in the shot if you try this. Again, this is common sense and not rocket science.

Composing the subject to look natural or right is paramount here. The beauty of macro photography is the subject is obvious and there is little else to distract the photographer or viewer of the photo. The terror in macro photography is casting shadows on the subject because of the close working space. If you use telephoto lenses with inbuilt flash, shadows will become a REAL problem because simply the long lens gets in the damn way! To overcome this, get an external flash which sits nice and high above the camera and limits or eliminates shadows. Concentrate on what you need to shoot and get that right. Try different focus points and camera settings and don’t always go for the full focus shot. Believe it or not, when shooting macro subjects, top or bottom focusing works equally well, as does left or right. Have a look at some of my collection photos and you will see that only some are fully focused as most are indeed not. Depending on my creative mood, I often alter focus points. This is quite deliberate I assure you and just makes every photo a little different from the others.

General tips

- No matter what camera you use, READ THE CAMERA INSTRUCTIONS FIRST.  Then get the basics of light and composition sorted out and you have more than half the battle won.

- I highly recommend using a light box.

- Change viewer perspective to above eye level and move around a bit but basically keep in front of the car or at the side. Car photos give a more realistic feel when photographed from in front, not behind. Only shoot from the rear when you are depicting a set of several photos.

- Zoom in and get some detail down. If the car is not the subject and Riverside Raceway is, then zoom out and make the track the focus of attention.

- Take several shots at different camera settings and pick which shot works best at the time. Keep a record if you have to.

- If you have the capability, change lenses from fixed length to macro to wide to zoom and if you can, tilt your flash up and down or use bounce flash to achieve what you want.

- If you use good lighting, you may not even need a flash but use one anyway.

- Try using a flash diffuser so you can get a softer flash effect. Try to use an external flash as inbuilt flashes are sometimes very limiting. Avoid casting shadows with any means you can.

- I like variety but you may want consistency so use a tripod for extended photo shoots because once you find that ideal combination of settings, you can go crazy shooting hundreds of cars.

- I don’t use point and shoot cameras because I much prefer the personal settings available with SLR’s but if you have an auto camera, set it up for automatic metering/flash and let the camera decide if flash is needed. I have seen excellent results with these cameras and some even come with macro function. The auto metering on modern non-SLR cameras is pretty good.

- Experiment and have fun!

Of course we could go on for days but these are pretty good tips for starters.

To be continued….

Angel.