The Face that Launched a Single Car & a Flash

Well, since i didn’t shoot this in Troy; and the person driving the car was definitely not Helen of Troy; I’m gonna go with the title above.

I have been getting questions in emails asking me how this shot was done in detail, so i figured i should do a full post on it.

I guess the easiest way i could explain the process is to provide you with a brief equipment list so the post is easy to explain and understand.

The Camera Mounting Rig (Will be posting a photo of the rig soon)

2 x Manfrotto 241-S Suction Mounts
3 x Manfrotto Super Clamps
1 x 2.5 Ft Aluminum Cross Bar
3 x Custom made 6 ” Steel Spigots
1 x Benro Tripod Head

Imaging Equipment

Nikon D700
Nikkor 14-24mm F/2.8

Flash & Modifiers
1 x SB 800
1 x Westcott Apollo Mini Softbox

Wireless Flash Triggers
Alien Bees Cyber Sync Transmitter & Receiver

Camera Triggers
RFN3 Wireless/Wired Remote Trigger

Human Enhancement Supplements
1 x Gatorade

Ok.. Now that thats out of the way, lets get to the details.

First things first. I wanted to make sure that my baby (Nikon D700) would be secure while the car was moving. It took me two months to acquire the necessary components to design and test out the rig. I was originally gonna use just a super clamp with a magic arm to do this shoot, but the higher the camera was, the more jitter i was experiencing plus i wanted a more secure solution. With the old setup, the movement seemed to be a little jaggy. I was a little paranoid about trusting my equipment with a single super clamp. I didnt care how “super” the clamp was, i just wanted a better solution. So i had to think of a way to increase the height of the camera while maintaining the stability, sturdiness and well a very low rate of jitter. The only way i could do it was with 3 customized 6 inch steel spigots. Individually attached to 3 x super clamps. I had already put a dent on my hood with a single super clamp so i wanted something else that could house the super clamps while protecting my cars paint job. Here is where the Manfrotto 241-S suction mounts come in. I got 2 of those to mount my super clamps on. To add a little height to the rig, 2 custom made steel spigots were mounted to both the Manfrotto suction units. I mounted the two super clamps on the spigots which gave me a tiny height boost. The clamps on the super clamps were then adjusted to hold a 2.5 Ft Alumnium bar, forming something like a bridge. I checked the bar by trying to pull it off the car. I couldnt. It was stable and secure. The third super clamp was positioned in the middle of the aluminum bar, along with the third spigot, giving me another 6 inches of height. I was getting there, but i needed to add few inches more to the gear. Thats where the tripod head came in. Mounted on the spigot was the Benro tripod ball head. A very Large ball head.
I mounted the camera and the lens on the ball head and took it for a spin in my car. Nothing too crazy. Just around the block. Seemed ok. At this point i was more concerned about someone stealing my camera while i was inside the car! Everything else seemed ok.

I was going to shoot tethered with the Nikon Camera Control pro software on my Mac, but the Nikon supplied cable was too short so i had to go with wireless shutter release and stay out of the car.

Now, the fun part. How do i expose and freeze my friend Shandana who was driving the car?? With a Flash, of course. So i mounted a Mini Westcott Apollo softbox on a single SB 800 and asked my friend to hold it while she was driving. I set the Flash mode on the camera to rear curtain. Flash was set to 1/4. I set the exposure to about 5 Seconds, F/16.

I asked my friend to start driving and we ended up close to a busy traffic area. I got out of the car and asked her to drive the car around 5-10 Km/Hr. Since i had the wireless trigger attached to the camera, i started triggering the shutter.. and yes i was actually running next to the car. Through the whole shoot, my friend was on the phone with me, and i kept directing her where to go.

In post-processing, contrast and vibrance was increased, curves were adjusted.

Slow Shutter Photography / Long Exposure

Today, I’m going to be blogging about shooting with slow shutter speeds and the tremendous potential that it holds.

Slow shutter can give you immediate dramatic results depending on what you’re shooting and the speeds you use. Of course some knowledge of light and camera operation is required, it’s not something that is very hard to understand. If you have any questions, please leave me a comment and ill respond to your questions.

Some of the images seen here have been shot using slow shutter speeds. I will be taking each photograph and explain how the shots were done, so you can try to replicate these results. These images have not been photoshopped in any way, but they have been processed through Adobe Lightroom for any Exposure/Color/Contrast changes, but that’s it. No Filters or any other special effects were used.

Equipment you’ll need…

A DSLR camera with a Manual mode or Shutter priority

A Tripod

Some Concepts to Understand

Flash Freezes

The first thing that I would like to shed some light on (lame pun intended) is the ability of the flash to freeze the subject. Most people just use the flash to light the subject, which is the most basic feature of the flash, but when used with a slow shutter speed and movement it is used to freeze the subject in the photograph. When you use a slow shutter speed without the flash, you’ll end up getting a blurred photograph, but if you want to freeze some elements in the photograph, you will have to use a flash to light the subject. When the flash fires, the area where the light hits gets frozen and the rest gets blurred. This lets you decide which areas in the photograph gets blurred and which one stays sharp and in focus. Pretty neat trick! There are different types of flash modes available in the camera, and they give you different kinds of effects, but I’ll just discuss two of them. Front curtain, and Rear Curtain. I’ll discuss them briefly in the next section.

Front Curtain Sync & Rear Curtain Sync

Front curtain is probably the most widely used flash mode in cameras. All point and shoot cameras use this mode. Some understanding of the shutter is required, so I’m going to try to explain how a photograph gets taken. There are two curtains in the camera. Front Curtain, and Rear Curtain. When you press the shutter release, the front curtain opens and lets the camera see whatever is in front of the camera. Immediately after the first curtain has completely opened, the flash is fired, which freezes the subject. Then the second (rear) curtain closes, and so does the shutter. This process is usually pretty fast and although you don’t get to hear both curtains opening and closing, its what makes the camera take a photograph.

One drawback of this type of sync is that if the shutter speed is relatively low to record any type of motion blur; the blur shows up against the movement of the motion. For instance, if you photograph a moving ball at a relatively slow shutter speed, the trail of the ball will show up ahead of the ball, and not behind it.

To overcome this issue, we use the Rear Curtain Sync.

Rear Curtain Sync

In Rear Curtain mode, the flash is fired right before the rear curtain starts to close. For instance, if you set your shutter speed to 1 second, the front curtain would immediately open, and stay open for 1 second before the rear curtain closes. In this scenario, the flash is fired just before the rear curtain starts to close, thus recording the blur first, and then the subject; giving you accurate and realistic motion blur.

Here are some shots taken with slow shutter speeds.

Circular Motion

This is my good friend/fellow photographer Adam Swords (www.adamswords.com), It took this shot with his Canon 40D, with a Sigma 10-20mm Wide Angle Lens. All I did was use a slow shutter speed of 1/30 on shutter priority mode, and used the onboard flash to freeze him, while I rotated the camera a little while the shutter went off. Pretty cool isn’t it? Of course you dont have to stick to circular motion, you could do whatever you like.

Daytime Slow Shutter

Have you ever tried taking a photograph with a long exposure during the day? Ever noticed how everything gets blown out? And everything is just white. That is what you call an extremely over exposed photograph. In this scenario, the camera sensor gets so much light that the final photograph is nothing but an over exposed photograph.

If you want to use a longer exposure during the day, you’ll have to use something called a Neutral Density Filter. Don’t let the big words scare you. It’s just like putting sunglasses on your camera. That’s it. All it does is reduce the amount of light entering into the camera. With the ND filter, you’re able to use longer shutter speeds without over exposing the photograph. The photograph below was taken with a Neutral Density filter. If you notice, i have blurred some elements so much in the photograph that they are almost invisible.

Slow Shutter at Night

These shots were taken on 30 second exposures. I used manual mode to program the shutter. Used the aperture to control the starburts effect from the lights. The wider the aperture is, the less the starburst effect will be, and of course the more closed down the aperture is, the more starburst effect will be visible in the photographs. No Flash was used to freeze any elements.

3 Sec @ F/16

30 Sec @ F/22

30 Sec @ F/22