This is an article by our guest author Javier Rosano who today brings you a detailed tutorial to achieve a curious night photography of an abandoned vehicle. And if you want to delve deeper into night photography, don’t miss the mega guide that we have prepared for you with tips, tricks and loads of inspiration. Now yes, I’ll leave you with Javier.
Night photography of abandoned vehicles is one of the most difficult disciplines. Lighting schemes are complex, various tools are used to provide light, and a lot of practice is required. In this article I tell you how I lit this SIMCA 1200:
- the daytime visit
- the lighting scheme
- the necessary material
- field work
- post processing
daytime visit
It is always recommended to go to visit locations during the day. In this way you can check the possible dangers (holes in the ground, broken glass, potential landslides, etc.) or which are the best settings.
In the case of abandoned vehicles, this visit is, if possible, even more important. The vehicle that you have seen on Google Maps or in another night photograph may no longer be in the state you expect (being outdoors, and with many people visiting it, it is very normal for it to deteriorate quickly) or even that it has disappeared .
During the daytime visit of this car I was analyzing the environment and the possible difficulties when composing or framing. Looking at it from the front, there was a hillside to the left of the car, so had the car been framed from the right, most of the sky would have been obscured. Therefore, the options classic they were reduced to a frontal or lateral framing from the left.
I also checked other not as common as the previous views (from inside the vehicle and from the rear), but none convinced me. Finally, and after analyzing all the frames mentioned, the one I liked the most was the side from the left.
In any case, and if you have time, you should not stop trying all the possible settings. It may be that when lighting, or for some reason that you have not previously considered, another frame is better than the one chosen initially. In my case, I tried all the mentioned ones, confirming that the best option was the one previously chosen.
chosen frame
lighting scheme
Once you have chosen the frame, I recommend you make a lighting scheme on the photograph of the daytime visit. This scheme is nothing more than putting on paper the lighting you have in mind, representing the different lighting sources you are going to use, light temperatures, directions and even intensities. If you are going to take a single photograph, it may not be so necessary (although you will have done a job that will allow you to save time at night), but when there are several frames and with different lighting, you will save yourself having to remember each one of the schemes or having to think about how to do each of the illuminations.
To make this scheme you can work directly with the photo printed on paper, although I recommend using a mobile application, such as Evernote or Google Keep.
In the following image you can see the lighting scheme I used for this location.
- A low-wattage warm flashlight to illuminate the headlights (headlights reflect light, so a more powerful flashlight could burn out the lights)
- some boxes of colored LEDs to give the orange tone to the interior
- overhead lighting using a cold flashlight
lighting scheme
Necessary material
To take this photograph the only special equipment you need are the lanterns. In my case, and as I mentioned before:
- a mechanic’s flashlight
- a low power warm
- some colored LED boxes
The rest of the equipment is the normal one required for night photography:
- camera with manual mode
- wide angle lens
- tripod
Also for this photo it was not necessary for the target to be luminous, since I used a medium aperture (f/7.1), nor did the camera respond well to high ISOs, because I used a relatively low one (400).
In this way, you will only need a camera with manual mode, a wide angle lens, a tripod and flashlights. The equipment I used was a full frame camera and a wide angle lens, with a focal range of 16-35mm.
Capture of the photographs
For this type of photography I usually look for nights with some moon. As you have seen before, the aperture and ISO used make the sky quite dark. The light of the moon increases the luminosity of the sky, so that the light of the sky is more balanced with that of the lower part. In this case, the moon was to the right of the vehicle, out of frame.
I had already planned the framing and the lighting scheme, so when night came (for this photograph it was not necessary to wait for astronomical dusk, since I did not want to capture a large number of stars or the milky way), only I had to practice lighting.
Interior lighting
My recommendation is to start working with the simplest lighting in this case the interior. I placed a box of colored LEDs in each of the seats so that the lighting was as homogeneous as possible and I adjusted intensity and tone until I got what I was looking for. For this I considered an exposure time of 30 seconds.
general lighting
Once the interior lighting was achieved (the LED boxes stayed on constantly, thus making sure that the lighting was not going to change from one photo to another and that I was not going to waste time turning them off and on), it was the turn of the overhead lighting. Starting just over the front of the car, I worked my way to the rear, taking care not to let the camera see the light source.
headlight illumination
Finally, the lighting of the headlights, the most complicated. The idea was that the beam of light just covered the surface of the headlight, without illuminating the rest of the car. In addition, I had to prevent reflected light from illuminating me and capturing me on camera. To do this, it was necessary to adjust the distance at which it illuminated and, therefore, the opening of the beam to continue covering the entire lighthouse: larger the closer it was and more closed the further away.
With all the lighting mastered, I could start with the final photograph. In my case, the order of lighting was to start with the lighting of the headlights to end up lighting the vehicle from the front (since I had lit the headlights, I wasted no time moving around) towards the rear. The time required for this illumination was 30 seconds, so there was no need to adjust the intensity of the LED boxes (which I had calculated for 30 seconds of exposure).
Also, to save some time, I set the camera so that there was a two-second delay between when I pressed the shutter button and when the shutter was released. That way I could position myself in front of the headlights, ready to illuminate without losing exposure time. This delay can also be achieved with an interval timer or remote trigger.
Parameters
The camera settings for this shot were
- 16mm
- f/7.1
- 30 seconds
- ISO400
- white balance (WB) 4600K
- and of course in RAW
In the following image you can see the image before starting the processing phase.
Image before processing
Indicted
Once home, the processing work began. With Lightroom I developed the RAW file, applying sharpening, noise reduction, lens profile corrections, slight adjustments in white balance and recovering information in shadows and highlights to work better later in Photoshop. In the following image you can see the result once it has passed by Lightroom.
Image edited in Lightroom
Processed in Photoshop
It was time to process it in Photoshop. This is the most subjective part of everything described, so it will depend both on how far you want to go (greater or lesser degree of processing), and on your personal tastes (night aspect, white balance, contrast, saturation, etc). I applied the same workflow that I use regularly for night photography. Mainly, working on the atmosphere of the photo, adjusting the tone of lights and shadows, applying levels to give it a more nocturnal aspect to recover the contrast that I have lost in Lightroom, and get some detail out of the shadows.
However, as you can see, the photo did not need much processing, perhaps the recovery of detail in the shadows being the part that changes the most from the RAW to the final image.
Final photograph after going through Photoshop
This is an article by Javier Rosano, a photography enthusiast for twenty years. Although he started with the landscape (a field that he has not abandoned and with which he continues to enjoy), what really hooked him was night photography. After several courses and some rather frustrating first outings, he managed to capture his ideas in photographs. He is now dedicated to helping people get control of night photography, giving courses, private workshops and taking supervised outings. You can follow him on his website and Facebook.
If you also want to participate as a guest author, click here.
Did you like the article? Thank Javier for his advice by sharing the article on your favorite social network so that others can also enjoy his recommendations. Thank you and see you soon.