Tutorial: Photographing moving vehicles

Found this a good read for some guidelines/tips:

http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php?lesson=12

FWIW, sticking stuff on the outside of your car will get the attention of the police. One of our guys heading down to Bimmerfest last spring had his camera stuck on the side of his car with a suction cup mount. The CHP pulled him over and told him to remove it.

How do you focus if your camera is hanging on the outside of the car????

You don't need to mount your camera to the car to get shots like that. You can just as easily hand-hold and shoot through an open window of the travelling car, or out the hatch.

The only advantage of mounting the camera, is that you could mount it lower on the car than you could reach, and get a lower perspective shot.

Cliff3 wrote

FWIW, sticking stuff on the outside of your car will get the attention of the police. One of our guys heading down to Bimmerfest last spring had his camera stuck on the side of his car with a suction cup mount. The CHP pulled him over and told him to remove it.

For rig shots, the car should not even be on let alone driving 50+mph on the freeway. If your recording video, thats a whole other subject. But as far rig shots go, the engine should not be on because the vibration will cause the rig/camera to shake. Also, the car should probably be moving less then 5mph. Anymore is just overkill imo.

Just learn Photoshop!

thats awesome! thanks for the tips!

Thanks for posting, thats great!

the link in first post isn't working for me

Phiberglass wrote

Yea, link isn't working, but for rolling shots, just set AI servo lean out the window and shoot away. Rig shots as said above, the car should be turned off with someone pushing the car or on a slight downhill, etc.

+1 (if you have the open roads for it)

then again, if you dont have open roads, you cant be using a rig anyways...so I guess, +2

Here are some more rig pics...
http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/articles/37-kick-ass-rig-car-photography-shots

And a small write up done by the guy that took em...
http://mattwatkinson.com/blog/?p=60

The original link is busted. Here is the corrected link:
http://www.morguefile.com/docs/Classroom:_Moving_Vehicles

what shutter speed are you guys using?

I have a 17-50mm 2.8, and been trying to use 1/25 and shots wont come right. Any suggestions?

ssabripo wrote

what shutter speed are you guys using?

I have a 17-50mm 2.8, and been trying to use 1/25 and shots wont come right. Any suggestions?

Hey,

I'm new to the forums, but have been into photography for a while.

It depends on what focal range you're shooting, but a general rule to follow, is 1/<focal range> at minimum. So..if you're shooting at 17mm, you should be ok but at 50mm your shutter isn't fast enough.

To compound the issue further, if you're using a crop body sensor, you need to take your focal range times your crop. For instance.

A Canon 50D has a sensor crop size of 1.6. So with a standard EF lens at 17mm, you're actually shooting at an effective range of 27.2mm, so your shutter still isn't fast enough. This doesn't take into account shooting from a moving car either, so you will want even faster for that. Might have to sacrifice some noise and bump up your ISO.

I have never handheld a rolling shot using anything slower than 1/60th shutter speed... 1/25th is too long and the image becomes blurry and over exposed(depending on aperture settings)

here are a couple of mine at 1/60th handheld, out a window of a moving car at about 40mph.








Edit: I also shoot with shutter priority, I believe it is Tv mode on the canon I use, I don't want to adjust aperture and shutter when I shoot my rollers due to the fact that I shoot in the morning or evening and the light is always changing. Now I am not saying you cannot do rolling shots on full manual mode, but I am suggesting that you save yourself some time and get in more shots instead of messing with the aperture and shutter settings after every 5-10 shots.

TV MODE, AI SERVO, keep it 1/60 and up.
Sit in the rear passenger of a car, and stick your head out with the camera.
Be safe.

I really need to try this. I've been cheating with PS all along.

Great Thread!

link is dead

TheProduct wrote

link is dead

http://www.morguefile.com/docs/Classroom:_Moving_Vehicles ?