Duster Beauty Shots

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rmchrgr

rmchrgr

Skate And Destroy
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
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Location
Stamford, CT
Took the Duster out for a ride today while trying to figure out some tuning. It was a really nice morning so I took the opportunity to take some glamour shots of my ride.

I've been taking pictures for a long time but I'm not a real photographer - no fancy Hasselblad, no light meter or anything. I used the Canon digital SLR my wife and I bought for ourselves when we got married (about 8 years ago) which (still) takes great shots. You can use it like a real camera and manually set all your parameters but I'm lazy and used the 'Full Auto" setting.

I was trying to replicate magazine feature style shots with the angles they use and such. They also usually find a neutral background, like a tree line that's way off the end of a field or something. I live on Long Island, not much of that around here unless you live way out east so this parking lot was the best spot I could find that was close to my house. I did have to move the car around a little to avoid trees and wires growing out of the roof.

And just when I thought I'd have the end of this huge lot to myself to do my thing, two morons pull up right next to me in a beat up old Jeep blasting Biggie Smalls and start smoking weed. It was 9:15 on a Monday morning. Kids.

So the result of having no light meter was that the light was much brighter than I realized so I had to 'fix' the originals in the basic photo program on my laptop. After all the adjustments they sort of ended up looking like photos from the '80s. The car has that '80s look to it with the Centerlines so I guess that's a happy accident.

Took a bunch of pictures but only a few made the cut. These have all been 'corrected' in some way. Hope you dig 'em.

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj214/rmchrgr/IMG_0204_zpsdfdc686e.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj214/rmchrgr/IMG_0208_zps420ddc04.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj214/rmchrgr/IMG_0215_zps6ba71ad5.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj214/rmchrgr/IMG_0218_zps15889722.jpg

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj214/rmchrgr/IMG_0224_zpsf73272d2.jpg

- Greg
 

Man that looks real sharp. Simple and no bling. I like it.
 
Nice pics, rmchrgr, I like 'em! Good choice of background to keep the shots simple and uncluttered. So many shooters don't pay attention to the details like you did to make sure you didn't have a tree or cell tower growing out of your car. You did a great job on not taking any pics 'straight on' like I've seen so many times where you catch a reflection of the pic shooter in the paint.

I'm not a real photog either - just use my Olympus E300 digital SLR mostly on the 'Program' setting so the camera decides on the settings. Here's a couple of things that have worked pretty well for me when taking pics at local car shows:
* Does your camera have a built-in flash? Try shooting some pics with it even on a bright sunny day. The built-in flash will 'fill' some of the darker areas like a front grill, rear valance or under the car (on those low-angle shots) that may be in shadow. But the built-in flash isn't powerful enough to eliminate all sunlight shadows in the shot. It can also give a nice reflective highlight from the chrome bumpers; also can light up underhood shots that are usually in dark shadow.
* One of the things that a lot of the car mags suggest is closing all of the windows so you have a consistent reflection the full length of the windows. Personally, I prefer having all of the windows down on a hardtop as I believe the car looks better without the break caused by the trim on the front of the rear quarter window - and you can see the interior better.

Again, I like your pics! Thanks for posting. Let's see more...

And I really like your avatar! Where did you find it?
 
ocdart said:
* Does your camera have a built-in flash? Try shooting some pics with it even on a bright sunny day. The built-in flash will 'fill' some of the darker areas like a front grill, rear valance or under the car (on those low-angle shots) that may be in shadow. But the built-in flash isn't powerful enough to eliminate all sunlight shadows in the shot. It can also give a nice reflective highlight from the chrome bumpers; also can light up underhood shots that are usually in dark shadow.
Click to expand...

Yes, it does have a built in flash. It's a Rebel XTi. We do have a separate flash which, as you pointed out is much more powerful than the one that comes with it. The flash was used in some of these pics, it pops up automatically when you're in auto mode. It did help to fill in the grill a little and highlight the trim around it, especially in the first two pics. You can also see how it lights up the license plate in the shot of the rear.

I actually really love the old kind of 'posed' Hot Rod magazine feature photos from the late 50s and early 60s that were taken out in Los Angeles. The ambient light was always very bright but they used flashes extensively, usually pointed directly on the subject.

ocdart said:
* One of the things that a lot of the car mags suggest is closing all of the windows so you have a consistent reflection the full length of the windows. Personally, I prefer having all of the windows down on a hardtop as I believe the car looks better without the break caused by the trim on the front of the rear quarter window - and you can see the interior better.
Click to expand...

I didn't even consider that but if you think about it, older cars with slab bodies tend to be one giant, long reflection. Closing the windows would have probably reflected the playground and the two stoned idiots that are just out of the shots.

ocdart said:
Again, I like your pics! Thanks for posting. Let's see more...
Click to expand...

Thanks! I'll post a few more after I mess with them. It took a while to adjust the exposure and temperature to what you see. The originals had a blue/purple cast and were kind of blown out from being overexposed.

ocdart said:
And I really like your avatar! Where did you find it?
Click to expand...

You know, I don't remember exactly, probably just stumbled on it while surfing the intrawebs one day and grabbed it. It is cool though. 1967 was kind of a transitional time between the AWB cars and the more recognizable flopper funny cars and they did, in fact run a '66 AWB stretch nose the year prior. The '67 was a plastic flip body on a Logghe chassis. The first real flopper-style flip top cars came a year before with the Comets. After the Dart, I don't believe they fielded another funny car until 1970 because they had the fueler.

Short but interesting read about the '67 car here.
 
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