Corvette Stingray ‘78
Canon EOS 80D
Aperture f/5.6 ISO 100 Shutter 1/250 Focal Length 29/1 
Melbourne, Victoria, AU
Feb, 2019Views
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Behind The Lens
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This is one of my favourite photos and I've also printed it to hang it on my wall. I've taken it soon after I purchased a Godox flash and I wanted to start experimenting with it. I had this 1:18 scale model of the '78 Stingray Corvette from Autoart for many years and it was my first purchase at the opening ceremony of an RC modelling store of a friend of mine. I've set it up on the coffee table along with the camera and the flash and I started taking shots from various angles and with various lightings. When I took this one I just stopped and I knew that I made look as I had it in my mind. I wanted it to look as a real car in a showroom and not as a toy car on a table. I was really happy with the result!Time
It was an Australian winter afternoon in June 2017 where it gets dark really soon, when I had just purchased a radio triggered flash and I wanted to start exporting the possibilities. I remember that I had just returned from work after deviating first in order to buy the flash with its radio trigger and I was eager to find out how it could change the way I was lighting my subjects by having an off camera flash. The time I took this photo was around 6:30pm.Lighting
I took a photo when I was experimenting with an off-camera flash and various techniques to light a subject in a way to make it look more realistic. I used a radio triggered flash with a tall white plastic cup in front of it. I placed the flash on top of the Corvette, in order to defuse the light enough. I've also placed it slightly behind the near side of the car to avoid illuminating the wheels which would give it away quickly as a model car. The lighting that I was going for was to create an illusion of a real car in a showroom instead of a toy car.Equipment
I used a Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 on a Canon 80D and the flash that I used was a Godox TT685C, remotely triggered from a Good X1T radio trigger. The camera was sitting on the coffee table where the model car was as well.Inspiration
I had a couple of model cars sitting on my library's shelves in front of the books and I wanted to experiment with light from an off-camera flash that I had just purchased. The model was already grey in colour so I was also going for a black & white look, even though I didn't remove any colour information from the original file. Playing with light was also my goal too, so I used a plastic cup in front of the flash, about half way as big as the car, in order to defuse the light as if I had a giant diffuser on top of a real car.Editing
Oddly enough this photo is one of the very few that I have straight out of the camera without any adjustments at all. I'd usually underexpose a bit if I have very bright highlights and bring the shadows up in post, but this one was taken after some experimentation and I liked the outcome as it came straight out.In my camera bag
Nowadays I'm using a Canon 5D Mark IV or a Canon 90D along with 2 or 3 lenses at most on my bag, out of a small variety of them, depending of what I have in mind to shoot. My main driver for my 90D is the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 and for my 5D Mark IV, either the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 G2 or the Tamron 15-35mm f/2.8 G2. For sports I'll use the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 and for landscapes I really like the look that I'm getting from a 28mm Voightlander Color Skopar f/2.8.Feedback
The first thing that you want to do when you're going for that dark look, is to increase the shutter speed to the flash's sync speed (or more if you have high speed sync) and close the aperture enough. Take a test shot without the flash first and make sure that it turns out completely black. That way, your only light source will be your flash. You can also cover the side of the flash facing the camera with something opaque as a book for example to eliminate any light spilling towards the camera or lighting the table. And always, keep experimenting!!
