Car show in black & white

vintagemxr · December 28, 2008

Every Saturday night at the Pavilions shopping center in Scottsdale the hot rodders, custom car guys, and motorcycle guys gather. Below are a few photos converted to B&W from the NEF images and with some other corrections and cropping to removed spectator arms, legs, and butts.

All were shots were hand held; I'd have liked them to be a little less grainy but I was in too much of a hurry to drag the tripod around with me so some shots were at higher ISO (3200!) than I would have liked after the sun went down.

I'm still fumbling with the Nikon D90 and forgetting too many things but I feel like I am slowly getting a handle on the camera. My next adventure is to set WB manually when shooting under the parking lot lights and see if that helps with the basic image. C&C are appreciated.

clemensphoto's · December 28, 2008

Very nice photo series. The B&W kinda give the scene a 50's -60's feeling to them.

redleash · December 29, 2008

I do like the B&W conversions--you've done a nice job with them. I especially like #3--it belongs in a magazine! And #2 is great with the guy in a school jacket--adds to the retro feel.

How did you do your conversions?

Skippy · December 29, 2008

vintagemxr wrote:

Every Saturday night at the Pavilions shopping center in Scottsdale the hot rodders, custom car guys, and motorcycle guys gather. Below are a few photos converted to B&W from the NEF images and with some other corrections and cropping to removed spectator arms, legs, and butts.

All were shots were hand held; I'd have liked them to be a little less grainy but I was in too much of a hurry to drag the tripod around with me so some shots were at higher ISO (3200!) than I would have liked after the sun went down.

I'm still fumbling with the Nikon D90 and forgetting too many things but I feel like I am slowly getting a handle on the camera. My next adventure is to set WB manually when shooting under the parking lot lights and see if that helps with the basic image. C&C are appreciated.

Yeah that's part and parcel of learning to use new gear,
it's fun and frustrating too, I dunno about you, but I learn more from shooting than I do from reading.

I like the 3rd shot

you did very well for ISO of 3200 they look pretty clean to me

all the best in your learning curve Vintagemxr

..... Skippy

.

black mamba · December 29, 2008

Nice images. Shooting car shows is one of my favorite activities, but one of the most challenging of photographic endeavors. There are so many extraneous factors....lighting you can't control, reflections, people in the way, etc., etc. It's very rewarding, though, when you get those few shots that are just what you were after. Good luck with your shooting.

Tom

vintagemxr · December 29, 2008

Thanks for the comments, folks. There are so many top notch photographers on Dgrin that it's a little scary posting photos.

Tom is correct, it can be really frustrating shooting at a public car show. I have one photo of two guys looking under the hood of an old Chevy and talking but thanks to a passerby the one man has a leg growing out of his butt. Sorta spoils the image.

Other people would see me crouching down to shoot and be careful not to walk between me and the cars so they'd stand behind me and cast a nice long shadow on the subject. Ah well, if it was easy we'd all be as good Ansel Adams!

Skippy, only the first photo is at ISO 3200, the last three are at ISO200 shot before the sun went down. What had me kicking myself was that I thought I had the camera set for ISO 200 and didn't realize that it was (or got changed to) Auto ISO. Perfection continues to elude me. Still, for such a high ISO and with just some digital camera noise removal in PSP X2 they cleaned up pretty well. I think too that sometimes it is easier to tolerate some noise with B&W than with color.

Lauren, the conversion to B&W was done in PaintShop Pro X2. They have improved the B&W conversion feature and now allow you to apply a color filter from a gradiant RGB selector. It's really interesting to see how the filter choice affects the outcome. Much nicer than just hitting "Greyscale", adding contrast, and calling it good.

Doug

redleash · December 29, 2008

Thanks for the info. I just got PS CS4 from Santa and am trying to learn its BW conversion, along with everything else. Sounds very similar to Paint Shop (which is what I used to use before I switched to Apple and opted for Photoshop).

Dooginfif20 · December 31, 2008

I really like them! After seeing these it has slightly pushed me more towards the D90. I am thinking about upgrading to it and this is helping! I really like #3.

vintagemxr · December 31, 2008

Dooginfif20 wrote:

I really like them! After seeing these it has slightly pushed me more towards the D90. I am thinking about upgrading to it and this is helping! I really like #3.

Thanks, Doogie,

I'm really happy with the D90. Yes, it would have been nice to go to a full frame sensor camera but I've not won the lottery yet so the D90 was about as good as I could get on my budget and have something left over for a couple of lenses. Realistically, unless I were a real pro shooter I doubt that I'll ever find the limits of what the D90 can do anyway. I was tempted a little by the Canon equipment but I've been shooting Nikon film and digital for so long that I'm afraid Nikon Ninjas would show up in the night to deal with any camera brand heresy on my part.

I still have a Linhof 4x5 view camera stashed away and if I really believe I need more image than the D90 can give I can always "man up" and drag out the Linhof again. :rutt

Doug

Car show in black & white

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