How about an Aston photo thread!
Discussion
Zuman said:
There have been more exclusive, more expensive, higher-performance cars, but I have never seen one more beautiful (mine's an '06 Volante)...
Thats a great photo and it is beautiful. I'm watching with interest how the next generation of cars develops, because there's no doubt they can design something faster, with bigger splitters, sills, spoilers and the rest of it, but for sheer understated elegance that boarders on near perfection, you have to ask, is it possible to improve on perfection?As is the case with pretty much every life-long car nut like myself I imagine, there are a succession of vehicles that you grow up dreaming of, new models that come along and replace your previous favorite, radical hypercars and beautiful classics that you admire but have no realistic chance of aspiring to, hours pondering the perfect 10 car garage, and so on over the years the desiring continues...
Since first seeing a new V8 Vantage rumbling down the road in 2006 I was smitten, and while many other cars have impressed me since then, the Vantage was the one car I couldn't get away from. A couple of years ago I realised ownership was fast becoming obtainable and two months ago I was able to scratch not just 10 years of Aston itch, but cure a lifetime of dream car influenza.
Shortly after purchase I drove through a small Swiss village to see a DB4 parked outside a garage and felt compelled to turn around and take a photo of these two terrific machines side by side. It really made me appreciate what great history and lineage I've bought into.
The Vantage, while not a classic, surely one day will be, such a pleasingly handsome yet aggressive design.
Since first seeing a new V8 Vantage rumbling down the road in 2006 I was smitten, and while many other cars have impressed me since then, the Vantage was the one car I couldn't get away from. A couple of years ago I realised ownership was fast becoming obtainable and two months ago I was able to scratch not just 10 years of Aston itch, but cure a lifetime of dream car influenza.
Shortly after purchase I drove through a small Swiss village to see a DB4 parked outside a garage and felt compelled to turn around and take a photo of these two terrific machines side by side. It really made me appreciate what great history and lineage I've bought into.
The Vantage, while not a classic, surely one day will be, such a pleasingly handsome yet aggressive design.
hashluck said:
Fantastic, great story
Thanks!I don't want to be a photo menace, seeing as I was the last one to post here and I've only been on this forum a few weeks, however... there was a persistent fog hanging around in central Switzerland yesterday, and I had the urge to grab a camera and go for a drive. By meandering down roads and lanes that I've never been on before I found some cool light and interesting spots, and of course when you stick a Vantage in the middle of the scene it improves greatly!
I'm happy that I'm prepared to take my car out in less than ideal conditions, it was great fun.
Edited by Mr.Tremlini on Thursday 25th February 12:33
RichB said:
Some very nice images there. Can you say more about how you shot them?
Thanks very much, and to Zuman & Quarterly too!How I shot them: Well, they are all taken with available light and in RAW format on a Fujifilm X-E2 with the Fuji 14mm, 35mm and 56mm lenses, and using fairly wide apertures. It was as much about driving around finding the right location with workable light and positioning the car accordingly. I was lucky when I was at the old barn as the fog broke up somewhat and the diffused sunlight filtered through for 3 or 4 minutes which gave things a unique quality.
I was exposing the photos in such a way as to know that I had a good representative exposure to be able to work with the highlights and shadows when editing to get the kind of natural look I like without them appearing overly "processed."
Also, the fog reduces clarity, plus the further you move from the car the less defined it is because of the increased fog density, so they need a bit of work clarity and contrast when editing, particularly the ones that are backlit, as well as some selective dodging/burning and saturation in a couple because as you can imagine the blacks and colours are fairly muted in these conditions.
Having said that they look pretty decent in B&W too.
Here you can see a more extreme example of the difference between the shot that came out of the camera and the final edited image.
RichB said:
Must confess I would love to be able to do that sort of thing but it all seems way beyond me when you talk about shooting in the raw and dodging, exposing and burning. I haven't a clue and I doubt I ever will. The results are stunning though. 
It's actually quite straightforward - the complicated terms come from film days when it was a lot more complicated than clicking in Lightroom Grumpydev said:
It's actually quite straightforward - the complicated terms come from film days when it was a lot more complicated than clicking in Lightroom
I learnt film photography from a chap at work when I was 18, you know; F-stops, exposures, depth of field all that stuff. Never managed to transfer it to digital though, I've got a nice digital camera (mainly because I like them as objects) just never delved into the lightbox-software-app side of it. Maybe I will take lessons or do evening classes when I retire, along with learning to play jazz piano and speak Italian! 
RichB said:
I learnt film photography from a chap at work when I was 18, you know; F-stops, exposures, depth of field all that stuff. Never managed to transfer it to digital though, I've got a nice digital camera (mainly because I like them as objects) just never delved into the lightbox-software-app side of it. Maybe I will take lessons or do evening classes when I retire, along with learning to play jazz piano and speak Italian!
Cool, the dodge/burn side of it is when you get into developing the film - my Dad used to do it when I was a kid, he had a darkroom in the attic. I'm far too lazy for that stuff, I just have (too many) digital cams :PRichB said:
Must confess I would love to be able to do that sort of thing but it all seems way beyond me when you talk about shooting in the raw and dodging, exposing and burning. I haven't a clue and I doubt I ever will. The results are stunning though.
Thanks, years of practice!RAW is merely a image format that enables a higher degree of tonal adjustment than when shooting in JPEG, which tends to be the default format.
Dodging and burning is a darkroom technique which carries over to digital processing as these tools exist in Photoshop. Basically burning allows you to darken selected areas and dodging lets you lighten them.
The beauty of being able to do these things yourself means you end up with an image you've created to look how you want, rather than clicking on some automatic function that does it all to some preset algorithm that may give you instant gratification but more often than not just makes everything a weird colour...
Like most things it's more a matter of giving it a go, if you have the patience to delve into digital image editing and Photoshop you'll be able to make the most of your photos! There's so many instructional videos and what not on the web, it shouldn't be hard to find some info.
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