advice needed on the following - motorway photpgraphy|in car photography

Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell

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11 Jun 2004
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ive just been out and taken a load of shots from these two perspectives. my aim was to use Tv to get some nice blurring etc - unfortunately they all came out a little crap!

firstly can i just ask for some advice on both of these methods (and examples if possible!)

my findings

motorway

- got terrible lens flare which seems to have come from my UV filter? is that normal?

- focusing was an issue i had it in manual and tried to guess where would bring the most area into focus but it wasn't all that successful. any tips?

- what settings work well? ISO, EXP compensation, shutter speeds etc

in car shots

- focusing... where should you aim to focus? the interior? or ahead of the car? i did this myself while driving so im afraid i didnt have much scope to change stuff but largely everything was out of focus!!

- setting? as above what kind of setting work well?

---

i plan to try again tomorrow perhaps so i would appreciate any advice. if i can ill post what i did for reference but i'd rather not bother proccessing them and just posting what results i have when they improve! anyway please post any advice it would be appreciated greatly!
 
heres the best i could manage in photoshop to correct the problems

i had to lower the exposure compensation massively to eliminate the damn flare i had.... anyway thought it was looking ok so i would post it

undilutedethics-motorwaysmall.jpg
 
For taking pictures of traffic from a bridge, it kinda depends on what time of day you're taking it - ie, is there any ambient light left in the sky, are there any streetlights etc. Ideally (and depending on traffic volumes) you'll need a 15-30 second exposure to get decent traffic trails.

Here is a couple of example pictures that I took a few weeks ago. Note that there is a lot of ambient light from street lights, so you will probably need to open your aperture wider than this or have longer exposure times.

Both are 15secs, F22, ISO100

0006.jpg


0007.jpg



With regards to photography from inside a car, I've only tried this once and my results are fairly crap, so I'll be interested in finding out how to do it successfully as well. I believe cykey is the man to ask, going on this photograph that is displayed on his website here.
cykey-incar.jpg


I guess the best tips might be: set up the tripod in a secure position in the rear of the car. Focus on the dash as the outside is going to be blurred anyway. Low ISO, medium aperture and 2-10 secs exposure
 
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When I did in car stuff last year I manually focused a few metres in front of the car

Stuck it on a High-ish aperture and let the shutter speed do its thing.

My results were different to what cyKey got though, as my shutter was much shorter.

drivingdark2.jpg


drivingdark4.jpg
 
AdWright said:
F
cykey-incar.jpg


I guess the best tips might be: set up the tripod in a secure position in the rear of the car. Focus on the dash as the outside is going to be blurred anyway. Low ISO, medium aperture and 2-10 secs exposure
Click to expand...

EXIF tells me that that is:
Focal Length: 10.0mm
Exposure Time: 15.000 s
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO equiv: 100

So you were pretty close.

undilutedethics, I really like that second shot, nice work.
 
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