Time lapse photography at the Frankfurt Motor show

I’ve recently been working for Renault at the the largest motor show in on the planet in Frankfurt,Germany. One of the Renault press team asked me to shoot some time lapse photography of their stand. I’ve never been asked for this before so hadn’t a clue how to do it but another photographer had supplied some clips to them before so I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know how to do it.

However Mr Google came up trumps with enough information and an online tutorial which I watched in my hotel room and experimented shooting traffic out of the window. Every camera is different when it comes to built in processes but my Canon EOS 5DSR features time lapse in one of it’s menus.Here’s a clip from my first attempt.

It allows you to set the interval and total time and even displays how long the finished animation will be. Mine was set to 1 frame every 3 seconds over 15 minutes which delivered 12 seconds of .mov file. It’s best to keep time laspe clips short as ,like any .mov file, they  can get too big to be useful. The camera must be mounted on a tripod on other secure platform and on initiation automatically shoots 300 frames building the clip without the use any editing soft ware.

It seems to work best with a mix of fixed and moving subjects in the frame although you can get a motor that will pan your camera during the time lapse.

Note that during the shooting sequence there is no shutter noise but the LED menu screen will show progress and count down to completion.

It is definitely something I will add to my repertoire now that I know how to do it…all you need is plenty of time, some patience and the results speak for themselves.

Best 5 places to shoot at Goodwood Festival of Speed

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 .

917 pan
917 pan

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

Aston Martin Vulcan
Aston Martin Vulcan

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

Chevy smokin'
Chevy smokin’

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

McLaren M8F
McLaren M8F

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

Renault Streamliner
Renault Streamliner

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

1906 Renault GP
1906 Renault GP

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