Friday, October 2, 2009

Automotive Rig Test.

For some time now, I've been using some Photoshop motion in our images to achieve results that I like. Spinning of wheels, motion blur, etc. Motion in a vehicle shows life and is almost always has some appeal, even shot terrribly. However in Photoshop you're limited to a large extent to make the motion totally believable. You really need to get dirty and put something together to put some real life into the picture. I purchased a few Manfrotto F1000 Suction cups and a couple extra super clamps to create a simple vehicle rig. The piping you can purchase at automotiverigs.com also has a sweet magnet and crimp setup but in this case and the piping is nice, but I chose a little DIY and got some aluminum piping from Lowe's. I'm pretty sure the piping from automotiverigs.com is going to be a better choice, as the piping from Lowe's ended up being a bit like a skinny noodle and its harder to keep the ride smooth with slower shutter speeds. The camera bounces around pretty badly. This shot is about 1 in 200+ pictures. We tried mounting to the back fiberglass cover over the truck bed, however it didn't seem like a shot that was as appealing.

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This was of course a test and I wanted to illustrate the DIY rig so I left it in the picture. After some time in Photoshop you could obviously remove it and have a pretty nice shot. The great thing about these type of images is that they're appealing and totally marketable. Tonight we have a shoot with a nicely hooked up 350Z and on Sunday we have a REALLY nice blue R32 we're going to shoot up on Mullholland Drive off of California Highway 1 in Malibu. We'll keep you posted.