Cars

Naples Motorfest 2016 Florida Exotic Car Event

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Naples Motorfest 2016 Florida Exotic Car Event

Since coming to SW Florida, I have not had a chance to attend a supercar event in over a year.  There are not as many here as there were in Tampa Bay.  Fortunately, Naples Motorfest 2016 was on a Saturday morning I had free and Dona of Luxe Fashion Group once again allowed me to attend and photograph the exotic cars on display.  This allowed me to see for the first time the Lamborghini Aventador SV (above) in a standout blue color with SV graphics on the rear quarterpanel.  This car had tremendous presence and was drawing the most attention of any supercar there by far.  

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SW Florida Car Photography Ft Myers Naples Cape Coral Sanibel

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JASON COLLIN PHOTOGRAPHY RELOCATED TO NEW MEXICO in 2017

JASON COLLIN PHOTOGRAPHY RELOCATED TO NEW MEXICO in 2017

CUSTOM CREATIVE DYNAMIC PROFESSIONAL CAR PHOTOGRAPHY

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  • The car you love, lovingly photographed by a car enthusiast

  • Get in the photo yourself or have a model pose with your car

  • 12 photos of your car in the style of your choice

  • Digital background options to reflect the season available

  • Let me design and print the calendar or make it yourself!

JASON COLLIN PHOTOGRAPHY RELOCATED TO NEW MEXICO in 2017

Yellow McLaren 650S Spider Clearwater St Petersburg Car Photography

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Yellow McLaren 650S Spider at Dimmit Automotive Florida Car Photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseFeatured prominently in the front window of the Dimmitt Automotive showroom in Pinellas Park Florida, this yellow McLaren 650S Spider certainly is an eye catcher.  The contrast of the bright yellow paint and black trim on the newly stylized supercar from McLaren looks striking.  I was barely able to squeeze in between the car and the window with my Nikon and tripod to be able to make the above shot.

Carbon fiber trim on a yellow McLaren 650S Spider Florida Car Photographer - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/15th tripod mounted with cable releaseThere was plenty of carbon fiber trim on the body of the McLaren 650S Spider, including all along the rocker panel as seen in the above image.  

Yellow McLaren 650S Spider for sale at Dimmitt Automotive Florida Car Photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseFollow that green exit sign in the window to swing into Dimmitt and part ways with a not unsubstantial amount of cash and you can leave in this yellow McLaren 650S Spider.  I think the color and spider body style work well with the Florida gulf coast lifestyle, well, at least once the sun goes down a little bit.  

The stylish new front headlights on the McLaren 650S Spider St. Petersburg Car Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/30th tripod mounted with cable release

The 650S follows the McLaren 12C which some said was a little boring for an exotic car (I didn't think so).  The 650S borrows design elements, like the above McLaren logo shaped headlights, from the P1 hypercar giving it more than enough flash for a midengined supercar to look the part.

Rear quarter panel view of yellow McLaren 650S Spider Florida Car Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm @ f/2 ISO 200 1/40th tripod mounted with cable release

It is always nice to spend time photographing a supercar.  I imagine it as far, far nicer to actually drive one!

McLaren 650S in black multiple strobist blend layer mask photography tip Clearwater Florida Car Photography

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What if you want to photograph a large object, especially in a low light situation, but you only have two speedlights, or even only one?  No problem!  Here is how you can do it and what you will need.

Photo gear used to photograph the McLaren 650S indoors:

  • Nikon D300
  • Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8
  • SB-800 & SB-600 Speedlights
  • 2 shoot through umbrellas
  • Yongnuo radio triggers
  • tripod
  • cable release
  • assistant (to help move and hold the lights)
  • Photoshop CS5

A tripod is a must because you will need to take multiple shots from different angles to properly light the subject, in this case the McLaren 650S supercar.  In all I ended up using five photographs to make the one fully lit photograph (below).  I lit the front of the car first, then moved the lights around the car (counterclockwise in this case) taking another photograph each time.  I even had my assistant hold a speedlight over the top of the car (see top most image).  The assistant being in the shot or a lightstand partially being in the shot is no problem at all as the final step takes place at home in Photoshop using layer masks.

In the above photo all 5 shots have been blended together one at a time using layer masks in Photoshop.  I started with the shot of the McLaren 650S lit from the front.  I then dragged it onto the next photo in the series with the driver's side wheels lit up.  I created a layer mask and then revealed the lit wheels photograph underneath, keeping the front lit part from the other photo.  I then flattened all layers and repeated this process using the other three photographs.  You can see shadows from coming from more than two angles in the above shot because effectively ten speedlights were used to light up the car, not just the two in reality I had for the shoot.  

I could have stopped with the 5 shot composite, but I got carried away with removing objects from the background until I finally decided just to remove them all!  I started this edit on Saturday night, and finished it on Monday afternoon it took that long and I kept wanting to do more and more to it.  I did nothing special to remove the background objects, just simply used the Clone Stamp tool on only carefully selected portions of the photo.  Then I removed a lot of the reflections on the car body and cleaned up the floor.  The final result was my most advanced photopraph edit in Photoshop to date!

Give this multiple exposure strobist blend layer mask type image a try and let me know the results in the comments below.

Cars & Couture 2014 Car Owners Gathering Event at Dimmitt Automotive Group Pinellas Park Florida

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McLaren 650S in black at Dimmitt Automotive Florida during Cars & Couture Car Owners Gathering event - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseI was invited to an event at Dimmitt Automotive in Pinellas Park, Florida for a special Car Owners Gathering thanks to Dona who organizes many great car events under her Cars & Couture brand.  I brought along eldest friend Terry to help out with some of the photography.  As you can see from the above photograph, Dimmitt is a MacLaren dealership.  There were several Mclaren 650S supercars in the showroom.  It was my first time to see this update to the McLaren MP4-12C in person.  The 650S is a much more striking looking sports car in person than the 12C, mostly thanks to a new front fascia inspired by the McLaren P1 hypercar.

Guests at Cars & Couture Dimmitt Automotive stand next to a MacLaren 650S in black Clearwater Car Photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 in shoot-through-umbrella to frame rightOften there is not much space to photograph cars at such events, but there was a black McLaren 650S kind of off by itself in a separate area of the showroom.  This allowed me to setup two speedlights and shoot through umbrellas and not only photograph the car itself in great detail (subject of an upcoming blog post), but also to invite guests over to be properly photographed next to the supercar.

The new MacLaren 650S supercar in yellow at Dimmitt Automotive during Cars & Couture event - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDRIf you happen to prefer yellow, there was also a McLaren 650S in that color looking right out the front windows inviting you to come in and put a deposit down on her!  We got there early to be able to photograph the cars before there were too many people mingling about..

Yours truly with my friend Terry who assisted with the shots at Cars & Couture Car Owners Gathering 2014 Dimmitt Automotive - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 400 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 in shoot through umbrellasFor the last shot of the evening, Terry and I stepped out from behind the camera and the lights for a self-portrait with the black McLaren 650S.  It took a little configuring using the self-timer to position myself symmetrically after pressing the shutter, but I am glad we made the effort to get ourselves both in the shot and add another photo to our scrapbook that now spans almost three decades.

Guests wanted to pose with the MacLaren 650S at Cars & Couture Dimmitt Automotive Clearwater Event Photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 in shoot through umbrella to frame rightOne last shot to show how well the McLaren 650S photographs, especially when bookended by willing volunteer models!  Thank you Dona for another great car event and to Terry for assisting in the making of these photographs.

The Shops at Wiregrass Wesley Chapel Car Show Event Photography July 2014

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SLS AMG Mercedes at a car show at the Shops at Wiregrass in Wesley Chapel - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseI was surprised that such a suburban, strip mall kind of place like Wesley Chapel would be the site of something like an outdoor car show.  It seems the Shops at Wiregrass are more than just a place to buy things, but a sort of community event center home to car shows, firework displays and all other manor of outdoor events.  

A good crowd came out to the Shops at Wiregrass to see a car show on a typically hot and humid July in Florida afternoon - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseIt was unusual though to have a car show only start at 12pm and go to 4pm, the hottest time of the day.  Usually they start at least by 9am, which is important as Florida is not exactly an balmy place in July!  Despite the weather, I made a walk up and down the long rows of cars and stopped to take a few photos.  There were no cars I had not seen before, and the only supercar was the SLS AMG Mercedes in the top photo.  Still, it is always nice to have a local event to attend and be around other car fans.

Ferrari F430 Spider Tampa Florida Car Photography black white or yellow??

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Ferrari F430 Spider with black & white filter from Silver Efex Pro 2 entirely changing the look of the car - Tampa Car PhotographyConverting a color photograph into a black & white photograph is not a one result affair.  There are many, many possible results of black & white conversion.  A program like Silver Efex Pro makes this conversion process easy in addition to producing the best results.  Starting with a yellow Ferrari F430 Spider, applying a pinhole black & white filter makes the Ferrari appear white while darkening the entire background and foreground.  The supercar appears to now glow in its setting.

Using a different filter in Silver Efex Pro 2 makes the Ferrari F430 Spider look black - Tampa Car PhotographyStarting with the same yellow Ferrari image, choosing the full spectrum inverse filter in Silver Efex Pro flips everything, so that darks appear light and vice versa resulting in the yellow Ferrari looking like a sleek black exotic car.  The neutral colored existing background is little changed with this filter, especially since no vignetting is applied either.

The actual yellow color of this Ferrari F430 Spider - Tampa Car PhotographySo starting with the yellow HDR image of a Ferrari F430 Spider seen above, it is possible to make radically different looking black & white versions of the car photograph.  Which is your favorite look--white, black or yellow?