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driving through light

A slow shutter photo of a car driving at night

A slow shutter photo of a car driving at night
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NIKON D300S

settings

Aperture 45/10 ISO 100 Shutter 25/1 Focal Length 160/10

upload_date

Jul, 2016

Views

197

Likes

+23

Awards

Winner in The driver Photo Challenge

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Behind The Lens

Location

It is a bit hard to pin point as I was moving at the time, but I took this photo on one of the local roads around my fantastic home City of Canterbury in the UK, whilst driving at about 20 miles per hour to achieve the lighting effect you can see in this picture.

Time

I took the picture a little after one in the morning, I had tried a little earlier, but the rain wouldn't ease up enough to avoid using the windscreen wipers, it took several runs and experimenting to get image just as I wanted, and this was if I remember correctly, about my 5th attempt.

Lighting

The image I was trying to capture was one of travelling at speed, and I was after getting long light trails, because of the set up I had in my car, and the road I was using I couldn't really drive fast, so had to aim for a longer exposure to get the effect, the final image took 25 seconds to capture and I was using the self timer at 10 seconds, so from being parked I started the timer, then pulled away to reach the 20 MPH by the time the camera started to record the image,

Equipment

There was a few things I needed to create this picture, first of all, my VW Golf estate (tourer) which was set up with the rear seats folded down, then I needed a tripod wedged into place to hold my camera steady while the car was moving, I have a sturdy Manfrotto which I managed to secure so the camera was in the centre of the car just behind the front seats. Sitting on the tripod was my all time favourite camera, my D300s with a Tokina 11-16 lens mounted, an awesome combination, apart from that, the only other bit of equipment was my wireless trigger, Because of the long exposure I didn't need any extra lighting.

Inspiration

I have to admit to a bit of plagiarism here, I have always liked traffic light trails, but where I live there just isn't the volume of traffic at night to get good results, so I thought it might be a good idea to turn things around a bit, I remembered seeing an image similar to this one in the past, a few differences, but basically the same concept. I didn't know how the original images were captured, but sort of put 2 and 2 together and came up with a plan, the result being here, I tried a few different ideas, like going around a roundabout, a curve in the road and even changing speeds, but in the end this was the image I liked best, As an afterthought I just wish my windscreen was a bit cleaner.

Editing

Unusually for me, there as actually no post processing at all, although shot in RAW and imported into lightroom, I just converted the image to jpeg and exported into a new folder, on reflection, I should have cropped it a little to balance the image a bit more, but the exposure, white balance and depth of field were as I was expecting when I took the shot.

In my camera bag

Since I took this photo, I have migrated to a full frame camera so my bag is a little different, I nearly always have my own holy trinity of lenses along with my D800, I have both the Tamron 15-30 and 24-70 along with the Nikkor 80-200 As well as those I have a SB600 just in case, and a Sony A6000 with the 16-50 kit lens. I also have a metabones adaptor in case I want to put one of my Nikon fit lenses on that body. When I took this photo, my bag would have had my trusty D300s, the 18-105 kit lens (a great walk around lens) the 11-16 Tokina, and my 70-200 Sigma, I have since sold or swapped all of this for my current kit.

Feedback

I found this a lot easier to achieve than I was expecting, and it was only because I was trying different ways to make the shot that it took so many attempts, the most important thing is to make sure your camera is fully immobilised inside the vehicle so there is sharp focus on the inside of the car, also, there really is no need for much speed, I'm sure I could have got similar results at 10 mph. I first tried this without a remote trigger, but it was difficult to press the shutter, which was behind me, then get my seat belt on and get up to a steady speed before the camera started recording, so I would say a means of triggering the camera remotely is a must. Another thing to bear in mind is you don't want to be doing this around other traffic, you don't need distractions from your driving, so a quiet road with good street lighting was best. As always, remember safety is far far more important than getting the shot, it might even be worth doubling up so one drives while the other takes the picture. A good excuse to get your friends involved in your photography as well :-)

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jimages

driving through light

A slow shutter photo of a car driving at night

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow jimages

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