Photography & Creativity ...& stuff

Pretty lights and cars in the dark

Recently some locals invited me to join a group they’d set up, for local automotive photographers. I guess I count as one of those, so went along a few weeks ago to a casual meet up with some cool cars and nice people. I’m used to doing motorsport where everything is at race pace, so this was nice. We drove around, found some spots for sunset and made some photos. Usual nice sunset ones, etc.

Something we also had a stab at, was light painting. Now we didn’t actually have a “proper” light kit for this, however a couple of cellphones walked around the car by a voice-activated-lightstand and a 10 second exposure netted this result:

Which honestly I am pretty happy with for our first attempt. I say our, as there were a few of us, so we counted down then hit the shutter together and the V-A-L moved the light around the car, approx 2 metres away starting at the rear and the walking down the left side at the same distance. The image has been lightly massaged in lightroom, however nothing drastic, it’s mostly this result in-camera. Oh, and first attempt as in first night doing it – there are a dozen or more fails before this while we worked it out, but of course no one sees those. No one gets it right first time and it’s not like we're concerned about film running out, so no worries!

Last week there was a call for interest in another meet-up. One of the guys now has some pretty lights which work a LOT better than a cellphone torch, so we thought we’d try them out.

I got there at sunset and so we got the obligatory sunset shots first.


I also now have a circular polariser for my XF50-140, which was fun to finally use.


And then the moon came up, so we moved the cars, and starting with Georgia’s R34 got some shots with the moon. Because why not.

I title this one “Skyline on a Skyline” as the reflection amuses me.

Aaaand the pretty lights came out, and Brody flailed them around like a lunatic. I guess he doesn’t need to go to the gym. Many many exposures were taken, the keeper rate was bad for me as it seems my IBIS was trying to move initially and was better once I turned it off. I’m wondering if the moving lights upset it. In the end we got a few good results.

Great night out doing personal shooting, “shooting for fun”, and the car owners are happy with the images as well which is always the point!

Looks like I may need to invest in some lights, however I think I’d make some shields so the car can be front lit with them as well, without light spill getting picked up by the camera. A handy tool to have in your arsenal anyway.

Info for nerds:
Camera :Fujifilm X-H1
Lenses: XF16-55mm f/2.8 & XF50-140mm f/2.8
Light painting is all at least 10 second exposures on a tripod, and adjusted around f/10-13 to suit at ISO200 which is native on the X-H1.

#automotivephotography #lightpainting #fujifilm #R34 #EvoX


Post images and content © Nigel Swan unless stated otherwise
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