lightbrushing on cars.... and other low light stuff

[Vladimir Bace]

hi...

had a few difficult assingements lately...

fist, a black car for the cover... no propper location available due to short notice, decided to stick it in a empty warehouse and do a lightbrush shot... (no automobile sized studios over here..)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/naslovna1-1.jpg

this is basically how it came out of the camera.. only PS work was to "sandwich" it with a empty shot in which I exposed for just the front lights.. as my lightbrush exposure was 30 sec. and that was too much for the lights... although I personally liked the original shot without the lights better...


then came the difficulties with the light on location.... working on tight schedule means we can not always wait for the ideal light... so I started using my visatec litepac and an umbrella to light up specific parts of the scene... these are basically multiple exposures, but instead of doing it in camera (as there are no multiple exposures in a digital world..) I combined them in PS...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/panda2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/uvodna-slog.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/c2uvodna.jpg


running out of time, and still having to do action shots, I decided to wind up the ISO, and luckily, 5D has very fine grain for such high ISO...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/panda5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/panda1.jpg

[Vladimir Bace]

ah, one more...

we did some rig shots in the snow... did not end up as I wanted as I forgot my 17mm and had t ouse extra long rig extension and 24 mm lens.. too much shake...

also, the driver forgot about the rig and managed to park the end of the rig, with the camera included into a snow bank... luckily, no damage done, we continued to work...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/twingo.jpg

[Chris Brasher]

Great stuff here, thanks for sharing.

[Aaron Kupferman]

Really nice work! I'd love to see a breakdown of your different exposures on one of those group shots.

Thanks!

[Vladimir Bace]

ok, will post them this WE, I do not have them with me right now..

[Aaron Kupferman]

Thanks Vladimir. Really appreciate it.

[Vladimir Bace]

hi, here are a few, there are probably aroud 20-25 shots in this composition, I lost count,
I hope this answers your questions.... due to very little time available, all lighting is by a single visatec unit, mostly with an umbrella.. although I'd rather do it the old fashioned way ;)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/crap/_MG_9989.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/crap/_MG_9985.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/crap/_MG_9978.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/crap/_MG_9968.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/crap/_MG_9964.jpg

[Mark Delbrueck]

Thanks for the info! Great shots, this is why I frequent this site!

[Keith Schoeler]

Cool stuff.

Love this shot.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/panda1.jpg

[Vladimir Bace]

thx, although it is very un EVO like to be driving with just one hand on the steering wheel, but I need to put togeather a different remote trigger.. :)

[Greg Tivadar]

Now with that group shot, did you then use an hdr to merge them, or layering masks?>

just kinda curious because I do love the idea of the shot, and I often have a very hard time shooting multiple cars, I just for some reason can't do it properly.

thanks
Greg

[Vladimir Bace]

well, the big group shot was done using the simplest method, compositing one layer at a time, by deleting the darker areas from the top layer over the light areas in the layer below...

the others, red citroens and blue mazda/fiat, was done in a similar fashion but you can adjust the way two layers are interacting, by changing their property in the layers menue,.... so, for the top layer, you choose :Lighten and it will show trough the areas from the layer below that are lighter... then you just delete the parts from the layer below that you do not need and merge those two..... simple and fast, just need some imagination when you shoot...
a tablet is a must...

[Brian Lalor]

Great shots, Vladimir. I need to go back and look at these in more detail when I'm not at work. :)

I love the Panda shot; the fading light in the sky and dirty, leaf-littered curve of road really draws me in.

What did you use to create the swath of light over the black car at the top? I see that there are light brush tools out there...

I'm an avid evo reader in the US ($10/month at Barnes & Noble with my member discount...) and was just analyzing the 135i night photos in the December (?) issue. Night shots are fairly rare in the magazine and as an aspiring Strobist with a single flash I've been trying to figure out how to reproduce some of them.

[Greg Tivadar]

well, the big group shot was done using the simplest method, compositing one layer at a time, by deleting the darker areas from the top layer over the light areas in the layer below...

the others, red citroens and blue mazda/fiat, was done in a similar fashion but you can adjust the way two layers are interacting, by changing their property in the layers menue,.... so, for the top layer, you choose :Lighten and it will show trough the areas from the layer below that are lighter... then you just delete the parts from the layer below that you do not need and merge those two..... simple and fast, just need some imagination when you shoot...
a tablet is a must...


thanks for the explanations, I really do enjoy the type of shots alot :)

[Steve Ridges]

Wow. Excellent shots! I really love the first one and would like a little more info on how you did it. I've tried the same thing and never got my reflections looking right. I always end up with lots of "spot" reflections instead of long, smooth, lines like yours. I've tried using umbrellas as well as soft boxes. Any help you can provide would be great!

Thanks!

[Vladimir Bace]

the black car was done using a 30 sec exposure and me walking around with a 300W lamp with a 15x60 cm soft box on it.. the big white line is when the softbox is turned towards the camera.... otherwise it is pointed towards the car. and what you see is the reflection of the softbox in the car... you litterally paint the car with the light...

getting a clean exposure is the trick.. I missed a bit, should had the big white line a bit higher....

[Vladimir Bace]

these were done in a similar fashion (just on large format film :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/sijecanj-copy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/p27.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/turbolimac/portfolio/ozujak.jpg

the light in the first one is a softbox, in the other two it is a flash head, with a 30 cm reflector and a honeycomb filter in front... which gives you a nice fall of light intensity from the centre of the light spot to the edge...

[STEPHEN HALL]

Astonishing stuff, fantastic. Have been playing with multiple exposure's from my SB800 recently, very early days but I cant wait to be able to do stuff like that!

I'm really not sure where to go next with my kit, there's so much lighting gear out there its difficult to know where to start!

[Vladimir Bace]

that depends on how much you want to spend... you can do amazing stuff with a couple of compact flash units.. I do not use them at all, but I do have a powerfull battery operated external unit that accepts all sort of accesories, like softboxes, umbrellas etc..

[STEPHEN HALL]

Yeah my current thinking is that I can 'cheat' multiple exposures with my SB800 to get reasonably 'normal' but still attractive results - maybe I'll add an SB600 to double up on that side. However I think that to achieve the results I really want then the next step is portable battery + very powerful strobe(s) and then of course assortmented attachments. Do you use Bowens?

[Vladimir Bace]

I use Broncolor and Visatec units... Visatec litepac and broncolor mobil units (practically identical units, with mobil being somewhat more powerfull). Both are battery powered..

in the studio, and where 220V is available, I use a bit larger broncolor units... I also have a broncolor flash head that is converted to work as a pilot light only (at about 300W) that can be used with my flash accesories and I use that one for lightbush effects in the studio...

[Kavita Sooknarine]

Really great stuff.. a bit new term to be.. the "lighbrushing"? - All PS?

[Brian Lalor]

Really great stuff.. a bit new term to be.. the "lighbrushing"? - All PS?
The post above yours explains how he does it. It is *not* all Photoshop.

[Kavita Sooknarine]

oops! Thanks:) I missed that section