From One Car to Another
On the cover of the July Pano we used an action shot, provided by Porsche AG, of a white GT3; afterwards I got an inquiry from PCA member Lyle Schulte, who wanted to take a similar picture of his Arctic Silver 997 from another car. He observed “I am hoping that if both cars are moving at the same speed, the picture would result in an in-focus car, with a motion blurred background. I have a DSLR and would love a shutter speed recommendation, as well as any other thoughts you may have.” Thinking that others might be interested in trying a similar shot, I’m offering a somewhat augmented version of my response to Lyle.
Car-to-car photography can be difficult to perfect, but fun to work on. Here are some ideas on how to approach the problem.
1. Shoot from a camera car that provides a comfortable platform; hatch backs, convertibles, SUV’s and pickups are all good; sun roofs may work but are awkward. Shooting out a side window can be done, but is quite limiting. You’ll need a competent and cooperative pair of drivers, one for the camera car and one for the target car.
2. Low angles are usually better; I’ve shot off the top of a van and don’t recommend it for either safety or aesthetics (the fact that the driver of my van ran me under a small roadside waterfall didn’t enhance the experience, either). Very low angles—inches off the ground—are doable, and can produce very dramatic pictures, but I wouldn’t start there.
1/50th second, f7.6 handheld; there is good rotational blur of wheels with background blurring closer to camera. Car is a little foreshortened by an 87mm effective focal length.
LEONARD TURNER
1/50th second, 36mm effective focal length, handheld. Lower angle, more lateral view showing more of wheels, and shorter focal length with longer looking car all make this a more effective car-to-car picture.
LEONARD TURNER
3. You will need a smooth quiet road with little traffic and a background that will be pleasing in the shot. I’ve had good luck with vegetation close to the road for showing a good blur, and I’ve had shots spoiled by a road signs, houses, and the like. Some motion blurring drama will be lost if the background is an open field. Things close to the car will blur much more than objects in the background because they are moving faster in relation to the camera. (Incidentally, you can sometimes use this knowledge to distinguish an honest blur shot from one that has been digitally worked and has an equally dramatic blur on both near and far background. I once even saw a shot in a German magazine that showed two cars approaching each other, both sharp, with wheel blur and a motion blurred background—impossible!)
4. I would try a lens in the 28 to 50 mm effective range (remember, the smaller digital sensors magnify so that a 50 mm lens acts like a 75); a 35mm on these cameras may be near ideal.
5. I would set the camera to shutter preferred or, if headlights (which can fool the cameras sensor and give you underexposure) are in the picture, the manual setting, with a shutter speed in the 1/30 to 1/125 range—split the difference and go for 1/60th for starters. You should be using an iso sensitivity sufficient to allow an aperture of around f5.6 or higher for adequate depth of field.
6. Both target and camera cars should be moving at the same speed, as Lyle surmised, and it should be slow, around 15 mph. You want the wheels to blur through their rotation, and the background to blur through its movement in relation to the camera during the exposure.
7. I usually shoot hand held, but have had good results with a small tripod from the back of a Cayenne. The road has to be very smooth to use the tripod, though; hand holding damps out some road shocks.
1/60th second. Shot from tripod on bed of Cayenne. Head-on shot of this type allows blurring of road but leaves background sharp.
LEONARD TURNER
8. Focus on an area more to the front of the car, between the front wheels and the windshield; optical mechanics give more depth of field behind the point of focus than in front.
9. Squeeze off your shots; don’t be jerky. I sometimes shoot a burst with the motor drive; some shots will be sharper than others. Camera movement is the greatest problem. Making lots of exposures improves your chances of getting a good shot.
10. Be very secure in the camera car, belted in or otherwise restrained in the event of something unexpected. I once foolishly shot the high speed parade lap before a race from the rear deck of a hatchback with my arm looped around the one of the hydraulic struts of the rear deck lid as my only restraint. I was scared spitless, and all the pics were terrible.
11. Having said all of this, these are starting points, not rules (except the one about restraint). Don’t be discouraged if your results aren’t what you want first time out; experiment and keep trying. Some blurring of the target car is not always bad, and even slower shutter speeds in the 1/4th to 1/30th second range can add to the drama of the shot. You should also know that Porsche’s shooters and others better financed than you and I use a gyro-stabilizer, which allows ridiculously low shutter speeds. I borrowed one once, and they work miracles.
1/15th second, 63mm effective focal length. Handheld gyro stabilizer allowed very slow shutter speed with more global blurring behind a sharp car with excellent wheel blur.
LEONARD TURNER
The same general principles work whether you are shooting from the rear, side, or front of the target car. Give it a try, and let me know what you think. I'm leonardt@pca.org.