Last week I led a car photography workshop for the Guild of Motoring Writers at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu.
It was designed to cater for journalists who are asked to shoot their own photos on car launches and for magazine shoots. As much as photographers might not like this it’s a fact of life that budgets are being squeezed and we are all being asked to do more for less.
We had a great mix of young and old, classic and modern car writers who learnt everything from the rule of thirds, choosing sympathetic locations, featuring our two vehicles, a Peugeot 3008 and MGB as well as brushing up on their panning and cornering image skills.
The afternoon was spent in the museum dealing with mixed and low light situations and planning a portfolio of images suitable for a magazine to include establishing shots , informative photos and details as well as the star cars on display.
I was recently on a magazine shoot with this stunning restored 1973 Porsche 911 Targa in the home counties around London.It’s often difficult to find decent driving roads to shoot the necessary action shots required for a full feature shoot in the South East so it was a great to find this open corner on a common just a few miles from the owner’s home.
This sequence shows how the car progresses through the corner.I use my Canon EOS 5DSR set to high speed motor-drive mode for cornering but only shoot in short bursts of 4-6 frames as the files are large and buffering occurs. The shot above shows the approach to the corner which was a full 90 degree bend.
The idea of a cornering shot if to show the handling capabilities of the car and the critical point where this is best demonstrated is when the car changes direction from coming towards you in the frame to crossing the viewfinder. The frame above with this head on view is not quite there.
Without panning you’ll need a shutter speed of 1/500th second or more to freeze the car.The faster the speed of the car the faster you’ll need to set your shutter speed, up to about 1/1250th second when the car will be frozen and look like it’s parked on the corner if you are not careful.This was a fairly slow corner so I shot it at 1/640th second which at 200ASA on a cloudy day gave me an aperture of F5.6 on my 70-300mm lens. The frame above here is nearly there.
You will need a good driver to get the best out of a cornering shot. We didn’t want tail hanging out …loss of grip doesn’t show handling and the road wasn’t suitable here. Ideally you’ll want to get a low perspective and be able to see all four wheels. The shot above is usable but improving…..
…to this frame which shows the front inner wheel almost lifting and a 3/4 view of the car pin sharp with with the tyres blurred.
I’m still recovering from this year’s fantastic Goodwood Festival of Speed.The event has grown from a small gathering of motoring enthusiasts with their cars going up Lord March’s Sussex country home’s drive into the largest motoring event in the UK .
With a slow pan of 1/60th second the grandstands blur nicely making the awesome 1973 Porsche 917 stand out in this image.A faster shutter speed would make the busy background sharper and the car trickier to pick out. 70-300mm f5.6 1/60th second
I caught this grabbed image of the brand new Aston Martin Hybrid as it headed back from it’s run up the hill…I like the excited people in the shot and the dust kicking up behind the car. 70-300mm f5.6 1/250th second
The super cars very often light up their tyres on their way up the hill like this 2016 Camaro burning rubber. Don’t centre the car in the frame but leave more space in front to give the idea of it moving forward.70-300mm f5.6 1/500th second
This is one of my favourite views looking down the drive to the start line, here with the awesome 730bhp 1972 McLaren M8F driven by Andrew Newell.It’s a difficult shot as the car drives through the shadow and highlight from the trees above.Pre-shoot a few frames to work out the best balance of contrast.70-300mm f5.6 1/640th second
Another good place to catch all the action is the start line.Here the Renault Streamliner takes off at quite a sedate pace. 17-40mm f9 1/250th second
If you only have one place to shoot over the weekend this image of the car driving past Goodwood house is probably the shot to go for.Here the 1906 Grand Prix Renault is nicely framed in a medium speed panning shot.To make sure you don’t lose the focal point during your pan switch off auto focus and pre-focus on the point where the car will be when you want to shoot it. 70-300mm f8 1/25th second