Car to Car - camera car

[Justin Miller]

I've never done a car to car shoot, but i'm ready to give it a shot. what type of vehicle is best?
truck/suv/wagon? my wife drives an xterra, i'm thinking that might be a good choice even though it's not the smoothing riding car or maybe laying down in the back of a truck bed?
does anyone have pics of them shooting in there camera cars?
what cars have you shot from ?

Thanx

[John Thawley]

I've never done a car to car shoot, but i'm ready to give it a shot. what type of vehicle is best?
truck/suv/wagon? my wife drives an xterra, i'm thinking that might be a good choice even though it's not the smoothing riding car or maybe laying down in the back of a truck bed?
does anyone have pics of them shooting in there camera cars?
what cars have you shot from ?

Thanx

http://www.johnthawley.com/journal/2009/2/7/this-is-how-we-roll.html

[Chad Truss]

I own a Scion xB, it makes a great camera car because of the size in the back seat and the large windows to hang out of. The ride is a bit too rough though, I think you would run into this problem with your Extera as well.

I have a friend that bought a dirt cheap and beat up Dodge Caravan. He took out the center bench and installed a seat that faces the sliding door. When he does a shoot, he shoots right out of the side of the vehicle.

If you aren't going to have a car purposely for that like my friend, I think mini van or SUZ would be the best type of vehicle. Then you just pop open the hatch and shoot out of the back.

[John Jackson]

We use a 08 scion xb we love it plenty of room, relatively smooth ride, and large windows. Alot better than my 64 corvair van lol

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=103



I want a old school 70's movie truck they use to hang motion picture cameras off of with the seat on the back lol

[John Jovic]

I hardley ever do tracking shots but I've always found that a smooth car/van whatever really helps. If you are in the back of a ute/truck and bouncing around then you'll have a lot of trouble keeping a camera steady at 1/30-1/60th of a second!

Shooting out the side window of most cars works quite well. If the ride is very harsh then you can let down the tyre pressure a little.

JJ

[Todd Corzett]

I've shot out the back of a Suburban with a tailgate... it worked nicely because I could be un-belted and free to move around the back of the car (left/right) without being in a truck bed (very illegal). It was great because I could 'hide' when not shooting. Shooting over the tailgate made it difficult to get the camera low, so the angles were slightly limited.

I have also driven a photo car (minivan) with a hatch in the back. It was great for getting the camera really low (you could almost touch the ground if you wanted to). The bad part of the minivan was the rear hatch had to be up while driving... which is noticeable to say the least.

I find that for car-to-car stuff I like the photos that are shot at an angle (not directly at the front of the chase car), so would shoot out the side windows on a two-lane road. There are some minivans with nice large roll-down side windows (ie. Honda Odyssey). Also, with a minivan you can have sliding doors (if you want to go that route). The rides tend to be 'soft' compared to other types of vehicles.

JT's article is a very good one to read. One thing I can not stress enough is to have a good assistant (in addition to the driver) when doing this stuff. When I was driving I had a pair of motorcycles within a foot from the rear bumper of a minivan on public roads. We're talking I couldn't touch the brakes... look back... nothing (basically I told the guys on the bikes that if anything jumped in front of the van I was going through it (not slamming on the brakes). I was so focused on keeping the speed consistent so the photographer/subjects could get their job done. I had to relay speed-up/down and stop commands to the assistant who would use hand signals to the motorcyclists. If I had to do that communication job myself it would have been (even more) dangerous. Safety should be #1!

-Todd...

[Curtis Creager]

I've used Mini's, Mini vans, Blazers and will use a truck on the next shot. Here are a couple examples from Thunderhill this past Dec. I was really happy with the way these turned out and I only had one hour to put this all together and get off the track before practice resumed.

As for gear I have a climbing harness that I will use while in the truck this weekend. I was low enough in the back of the mini and was set far back in the mini-van and blazer and didn't need the harness. The drivers subject and camera car all know what was going on and had no problem with my hand signals.

1. This was used for a cover on a local rag.
http://creagerimages.smugmug.com/photos/434340362_ocQ85-M.jpg

2.
http://creagerimages.smugmug.com/photos/434340877_DmgkN-M.jpg

3.
http://creagerimages.smugmug.com/photos/434340530_Asw8D-M.jpg

4.
http://creagerimages.smugmug.com/photos/484779292_M6jZr-M.jpg

5. This was Samuel Hübinette the same weekend
http://creagerimages.smugmug.com/photos/434513060_UsdxJ-M.jpg

6.
http://creagerimages.smugmug.com/photos/434530635_YiH5K-M.jpg

And read John's article!

[Chad Truss]

JT's article is a VERY informative read. I just went through it and discovered simple things I am missing out on that could really improve my work.

1. I have been trying to do this in areas that are too close to civilization and I don't have access to a track.

2. I need to get an assistant so I can feel safer in my car and take a few more risks that I can't on my own.

3. I have been shooting blind or using the eyepiece. I need to use the preview screen.

4. I need to get my subject cars even closer to my car.

Just to show you what I have done and how much I am struggling with rolling shots......

Going too slow. The speed limit on the bridge was 30, we were doing 40, and my shutter speed was probably 1/80 to try to reduce shake.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3281/2697863483_02bda1022e_o.jpg

This one was out of the rear of my xB. We were able to get up to almost 50mph, but we didn't have much road, so I wasn't able to click off a huge amount of photos.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1159/1213317171_c994bb5d92_o.jpg

In this one, I somehow managed to shoot it on the busiest bridge in LaCrosse, Wisconsin with no cars present AT ALL. I don't know how it happened, but it made me wish I knew what I was doing so I could have taken advantage of it.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1194/1223409430_cd7e649980_o.jpg

[Justin Miller]

thanx for all of the replies, that is a good article.

[Bill Jurasz]

JT's article was one I should have read before I attempted my own rolling shots. I was shooting out the side window of my Accord with my wife driving. We were at normal highway speeds. I was using a 70-200 lens with IS enabled. I started with my 24-70 but I found the pics too shaky. The 70-200 is way too long but I did get better results.

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/photos/375760751_g5jHX-S-6.jpg
http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/photos/358813604_QTuzs-S-7.jpg

I think I'm pretty lucky we never ran into any police, as I had me head and camera out the side window, and my seat belt undone. Looking back not very wise!