How is this photo taken? Car moving pic

robscomputer

Hi,

I know about general panning with slower shutter speeds but these photos always confused me how they were taken. I don't understand how they keep the front of the car in focus while the rest is blurred. At first I thought they just panned while the car was moving but the car would move on a different axis than the camera. :scratch

Any ideas or comments? Hoping this isn't Photoshopped! lol

(Images are copyright Super Street Magazine 2005)







Thanks,
Rob

pathfinder

robscomputer wrote:

Hi,

I know about general panning with slower shutter speeds but these photos always confused me how they were taken. I don't understand how they keep the front of the car in focus while the rest is blurred. At first I thought they just panned while the car was moving but the car would move on a different axis than the camera.

Any ideas or comments? Hoping this isn't Photoshopped! lol

(Images are copyright Super Street Magazine 2005)







Thanks,
Rob

I think the photographer was not standing on the ground stationary, but riding in another vehicle parallel to the subject, thus allowing the slower shutter speed that blurred the wheels, and the wide aperature that gave the shallow DOF. They may have used a neutral density filter to allow a slow enough shutter speed with the wide aperature used for the shallow DOF.

Lucky Hack

pathfinder wrote:

I think the photographer was not standing on the ground stationary, but riding in another vehicle parallel to the subject, thus allowing the slower shutter speed that blurred the wheels, and the wide aperature that gave the shallow DOF. They may have used a neutral density filter to allow a slow enough shutter speed with the wide aperature used for the shallow DOF.

I'd bet pathfinder is right except I wonder about the first shot. The camera's gotta be scrapping the ground on that shot. These kind of shots are photoshoped all the time in car magazines, every once in a while you'll see a "picture" of a car that doesn't exist yet driving down the road. it's amazing, they can make a drawing look like the real thing. I'm not saying that is the case here, but if it was photoshoped the way it can be done is to take a first shot with long exposure & pan to get the blur. Immediately after that, you park the car in the same shot and photograph the car at the same angle so that all the light and reflections match and make sense. Then you cut the car out, paste it into the first shot, add blur to the wheels and voila! I know I make it sound easy but it's not, it's incredibly time consuming.
On second thought, the more I look at the shot, the more I think it's the real thing because in fake shots they often don't bother to blur the reflections of stationary objects in the car, or they delete them alltogether. But in the first shot, the lights reflected in the paint of the car are also blurred. I guess I just can't figure out how they got a camera that low while moving that fast. I'm stumped!

hoping this message finds you well -Ian

robscomputer

Thanks for the replies,

Last night I started to think more about the pictures and think I might be on to something. As posted eariler it does appear that the second picture was taken from another car following in the same path as the car. Looks like both cars were making a left hand turn, this would explain the curveature of the lights in the background.

For the first picture the lights in the background are confusing. It almost looks like the picture was taken using the zoom method to make the car appear moving. Still wouldn't explain how the wheel is blurred and not the rest of the car.

Very confusing!

Rob

Shay Stephens

If I had to get a low shot like that, I would attach a boom frame or platform to the chase car and operate the camera remotely.

wxwax

Shay Stephens wrote:

If I had to get a low shot like that, I would attach a boom frame or platform to the chase car and operate the camera remotely.

Car shooters do some crazy things. I've seen pics of a guy hanging out the rear of a truck, super close to the ground. The link may have been here on dgrin. I think the shooter was famous.

The lens flare in the first shot is either a very nice touch, or real. I vote for real on both shots.

wxwax

robscomputer wrote:

For the first picture the lights in the background are confusing. It almost looks like the picture was taken using the zoom method to make the car appear moving. Still wouldn't explain how the wheel is blurred and not the rest of the car.

Very confusing!

Rob

Slow-ish shutter speed from a car moving at high speed will give streets lights that long blur and will also blur the wheels.

bkriete

I would bet on "Angle Finder C" and a guy in a pickup lying on his stomach, but maybe that's just the redneck in me coming out.

DigitalGem

I think the boom is mounted on the car being photographed and they PS out the boom. I've seen it done this way, especially in car TV commercials.

Cheers!

Jim

robscomputer

DigitalGem wrote:

I think the boom is mounted on the car being photographed and they PS out the boom. I've seen it done this way, especially in car TV commercials.

Cheers!

Jim

Hi,

I was wondering what kind of boom would you need to hold a camera. I would intend to take a shot like with with a SLR, can I rig something up with basic PVC tubing and a tripod head?

Rob

Lucky Hack

robscomputer wrote:

Hi,

I was wondering what kind of boom would you need to hold a camera. I would intend to take a shot like with with a SLR, can I rig something up with basic PVC tubing and a tripod head?

Rob

1st. I wouldn't do this unless you can afford to loose your camera, 2nd. I wouldn't trust my camera to pvc, I would weld a couple of pieces of steel tubing, or if you can't weld em, then drill and bolt em' but be sure to use two bolts at each joint so that there is no possible way the joint can articulate. This way, the camera can't pivot into the ground. also, the tubing can't be flimsy or rattle because you have to leave the shutter open for a while to get a shot like that, so the boom has to be heavy guage and rock solid.

If you choose to accept this assignment and are caught the United States will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, this message will self destruct in 5,4,3,2...

tadpole

wxwax wrote:

Car shooters do some crazy things. I've seen pics of a guy hanging out the rear of a truck, super close to the ground. The link may have been here on dgrin. I think the shooter was famous.

The lens flare in the first shot is either a very nice touch, or real. I vote for real on both shots.

I vote for real, even though at first I felt they were digitial models. I would guess they were using some kind of specialty camera car with a bank of lights and a boom for the camera. High f-stop - long exposure.

mercphoto

I read a book about photographing cars, can't remember the name, but they talked about some techniques for getting unique shots like this.

Now, the shots they talked about were not shots the included the entire car, and this is important. The shots you posted had the entire car in the shot, which makes this particular technique impossible (well, maybe not...), but I wanted to bounce it around here anyway.

Ever seen a shot of the front part of a car, showing the front tire, the front quarter panel, a view over the hood? And the tire is very blurry, the quarter panel very crisp, and the scenery very motion blurred? It turns out a very easy shot to take.

Mount a rig on the car's door to hold the camera in location. It will be a few feet out, looking forward and slightly up. Probably a wide-angle. Metal rigging for stability. Now, TURN OFF THE MOTOR. Put the camera for an exposure of several seconds. Start pushing the car, open the shutter, and keep pushing until it closes.

Little potential loss to camera (speeds are slow), no vibration due to the wind of high speeds, no vibration due to engine, no vibration due to road irregularities. Kinda neat, huh?

Since your shots had the entire car in view I don't know how you'd mount the rig to the subject camera. So I doubt this technique was used for these shots.

Oh, and also, don't use PVC for this. Its very flexible and hard to break and easy to work with. But did I mention its very flexible? Will never hold a camera steady.

whamilton101

I've had some experience shooting cars and getting results similar to this one.


There's definetly an arm attached behind the back wheel of the car and the camera is attached and operated by a remote.

Then the boom is PS'd out in post.

I'd investigate rigging the arm with grip arms and all metal grip material found at a video/film supply store.

Also i've used suction mounts to get this similar result. I know they have some at:

http://www.microdolly.com

robscomputer

I have experimented with this suction mount with interior shots of my car but never on the out side. Guess I'm scared of making an insurance claim.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cinemasupplies/gripexsucvac.html

Here's a photo taken with a G3 from the inside of my car. It's not like the outside shot of the photo in question but is very stable and could be mounted on a car's body for short amount of time. After a while the suction will loose vacumm and fall off.

whamilton101 wrote:

I've had some experience shooting cars and getting results similar to this one.


There's definetly an arm attached behind the back wheel of the car and the camera is attached and operated by a remote.

Then the boom is PS'd out in post.

I'd investigate rigging the arm with grip arms and all metal grip material found at a video/film supply store.

Also i've used suction mounts to get this similar result. I know they have some at:

http://www.microdolly.com

ian408

Rob, I bet it's one of these gizmos.

Ian