Which would you shoot?

[Keith Upton]

A local car shop is going to let me use one of their cars for a project I'm doing. They have offered up two original cars. The first is a black '66 Corvette 427 Turbo Jet (L72). The other is a green '67 Shelby GT500. Both cars are in very nice condition and all original except for the paint (both have been re-sprayed in the last couple of years). There were 5258 L72s produced and 2048 GT500s.

So, which would you like to photograph if you had the choice?

[Jeff Boerio]

First I'd ask what the project is. Sometimes that might help guide what the car in the shot could be.

Second I'd ask why use a Ford. But I'm biased :D

Jeff

[Mike Ditz]

Black is always very hard to shoot, but when you have the time and the location and the lighting under control, it can llok very good.
It depends on your project...

[Daniel Buck]

if it were a 69, I'd shoot the GT500, I just love the nose on those 69 GT350/500s! Since it's a 67 that looks similar to a regular fast back (and the fast backs have had alot of attention lately, due to movies where they were featured in), I'd probably shoot the Vette!

What location/lighting are you looking at? The color of the car might made the choice itself then. Though black pretty much goes with anything, if the light/reflections are good. If the Mustang is the lighter lime green (versus the darker green) then some locations might not work as well with the lime green.

[David Adolphus]

Sounds like a comparo to me...

[Keith Upton]

The project is a portfolio submission to an editor. The GT500 is the dark green version. I've yet to decide on the location, but I'm thinking some thing up in the mountains. Lighting will be natural and/or strobes. I don't think either car will take strobes very well since they are both dark and non metallic. The GT500 might.

[E. John Thawley III]

Shoot the one you like the best.

You'll have a better time shooting it and do better work.

[Keith Upton]

Good point John, I'm leaning towards the Vette right now.

[Keith Upton]

I've decided to shoot the black 66 Vette next weekend. Should I even attempt to use any fill flash on a black car?

[Daniel Buck]

nice choice!

I've never really use flash fills for black cars (or any cars for that matter) I suppose you could try with and without. the black paint won't get much change from the flash (other than reflecting the ground a bit brighter if it's dark out, the part of the ground that gets the flash). Chrome will sometimes get some pings, rubbers, lights, and signal lamps will get some pop. If you're using a small flash fill (like an on-camera flash, or a flash gun mounted off camera) you'll probably notice scratches in the paint (if it's scratched up) as they will probably catch some glint. Probably won't happen with a softbox though.

something I like doing, is shooting one shot with the headlights off, and one shot with the headlights on, then blend in the "on" lights a bit. Or if it's a long exposure, sometimes I'll do it in one capture, have someone sitting in the car, flick the headlights on and off real quick (if it's a several second exposure) so that the lights are on, but not super bright. (or click the 'lock/unlock' keychain button on modern cars, to get the signal lamps to blink once or twice within the exposure). With this body style vette, you could do one of the first two techniques, but since the headlights need to swivel around to be turned on, you could blend in just the signal lamps instead, and leave the headlights closed.

Good luck with the shoot, I look forward to seeing your results!!

[Keith Upton]

Well, I have every thing from a 580EX I to an Alien Bees B1600 with a 30x60" softbox. I also have two sheets of 4x8 silver sided insulation boards.

[Daniel Buck]

If you have some time, I would have someone walk around the car to key places with the silver card (or possibly the softbox) and take a few exposures bouncing (or flashing) the light onto several areas of the car. One per each wheel, one or two for the side of the car, and one or two for the front/rear of the car. Then you can brush/blend these all together, and adjust their intensities by how much opacity you give each layer (I usually set the layers to 'lighten', and mask out the areas I don't need for each layer) Communicating with the person doing this isn't difficult, but it may take a few minutes to get it down. You can tell them to rotate or pivot their body left/right to angle the reflector, move it up/down, and closer/farther from the body of the car.

The terms I like to use are Closer/Farther (from the car), Front/Rear (move towards the front or rear of the car), Left/Right (rotate the card left/right) and move Up/Down or rotate Up/Down (move or rotate the card up/down). Once everyone knows what that means, you can slowly direct the light where you want it. You'll need to be looking through the camera (or just to the side of the camera, but I like looking through) to get the accurate view of the reflections.

I usually have the car owner do this for me, but it usually happens to be that the car owner is a friend of mine, not really a formal shoot (just for fun) and doesn't bother them to assist me while I'm doing this. If the shoot was a paid shoot, I'd probably bring along someone with me to do this, instead of haveing the owner do it.

[Keith Upton]

Thanks for the ideas about the lights, I've shot a few like that my self. I will have an assistant on this shoot, so I think I will go the way of the reflector. I think flash on this car would be to much of a pain.