Cleaning silver cars: unrewarding =[ PIC HEAVY

Unrewarding? in the many times I have washed & polished my Mums e46 (Silver also) I have never got it close to looking like yours Tom!

Nice photo's - all of them. :)


Tom, that ///M Tax disc holder is pants.
 
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rG-tom said:
taxdisc_1.JPG


Should hopefully look quite good in the flesh, should gel with the black interior and is much smaller.
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That thing WILL keep dropping off your windscreen. I have a plain silver one in my car, and it dropped off every day. In the end I used little squares of outdoor sticky fixers (double sided sticky foam), and that did the trick.
 
Scenic ones are great :) Industrial ones look underexposed but then I'm at work on this horrible excuse for an uncalibrated Dell Ultrasharp Ultracrap monitor again :D

I need to give my car a clean and practice my car photography I think
 
lol wndered how long it'd take for you to pop in and tell me that howard! they are intentionally dark, there is heavy vignetting and high contrast, so the bg I going to be very dark and the car, being silver, can't be exposed any more or it blows the highlights!

Tom.
 
Beautiful pics tom, a lot of that is your photography skills, but still you have done a great job on that car.

You should do a thread on how to photograph a BMW like that, I need to know!
 
rG-tom said:
lol wndered how long it'd take for you to pop in and tell me that howard! they are intentionally dark, there is heavy vignetting and high contrast, so the bg I going to be very dark and the car, being silver, can't be exposed any more or it blows the highlights!

Tom.
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I know :) They look much worse on this monitor than any of my others though due to it being rubbish so it's not your fault :) The vignetting does give it a nice aggressive industrial look, I might have fiddled with the levels a teeny bit more to get the midtones/hightlights a little brighter though. I know it's hard to expose silver cars properly though, lol!


This Dell monitor is actually the worst monitor I've ever used :-/ I think I might break out a cheapy Acer from the cupboard
 
not a fan of that tax disc holder due to the M symbol but the free bmw one looks even more crap - being big, obtrusive and old fashioned looking.

I've had engraved richbrook tax disc holders before and they've never fallen off, the 3M adhesive pads stick hard as hell! Beware it's easy to put the tax disc in the first time but when you come to change your disc it's such an effort to do when it's stuck on your windscreen :(

Nice photos, I really need to get a good camera

Try layering a sealant to get the best out of silver, go for sharp reflections and flake pop rather than depth and gloss as that path is a lost cause with silver
 
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Toker said:
not a fan of that tax disc holder due to the M symbol but the free bmw one looks even more crap - being big, obtrusive and old fashioned looking.

I've had engraved richbrook tax disc holders before and they've never fallen off, the 3M adhesive pads stick hard as hell! Beware it's easy to put the tax disc in the first time but when you come to change your disc it's such an effort once to do when it's stuck on your windscreen :(
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So true about putting a new tax disk in. I spent 10minutes messing around with the alan key and getting the screws back in place!
And mine has never fallen off the windscreen either.
 
oh yea I just remembered another pain with them, the 3M pads... the side stuck to the waxy paper is fine but they have a red waxy plastic circle on the other side, with the sticky bit under it...what an effort it is to get that off sometimes
 
I had a silver one in the mondeo, i think especially from the outside they look FAR tidier than the big plastic ones!

I'm in 2 minds as to how the ////M will look but im completely willing to give it a spray black if it looks pants :)
 
cheers mate =]


the exif data is correct, was using a manfrotto 055PROB and a uniloc 60 ball head....prefer the manfrotto for car stuff as my carbon fibre gitzo is too light without carrying loads of ballast with me.

Just checked the photos on our calibrated lab monitors at work and they seem fine to me? The mids are as bright as they could be without making the car look white :p

Tom.
 
I think it was worth cleaning, I know it doesn't pop out at you, but it looks 'clean' and that's the main thing!..

As for the industrial shots, I'm not a fan of those, the backgrounds are too in focus and dominate the car, I prefer something with DOF or the industrial element not directy behind the car.. but then I am no expert..
 
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