Help - Central London car image location help

[CVP]

Quick shout for help fellow snappers. A long time friend of mine (+20 years now) has just bought himself something very tasty and I am meeting him tomorrow morning to take some more images for him.

We'll be crack of dawn central London, any great location tips? I know it's getting more and more difficult with certain buildings and locations but am hoping to be in a position to get some good images for him. He's worked long and hard to afford this and I'd like to get some great images for him to remember this vehicle by.

I'm already thinking of the road just behind the Eye but am after other locations you may have used both static and panning shots. I don't have any rig kit so can't do that type of shot. I was thinking over towards the City as this vehicle will fit in well there.

All help appreciated and I shall reveal all Monday am for your amusement.

Cheers

Chris

[Reidy10_0]

I have seen some good pistonhead shots taken around Barbican

[190Evoluzione]

Crack of dawn?
I'd head over to the City too.
Soho never sleeps, it won't be fun in the West End.

[CVP]

Crack of dawn, well...maybe not but am aiming to meet 7am in town.

Thanks for Barbican suggestion, going to go for that and then head deeper into the City, that should be a bit of a ghost town at that time on a Saturday.

Fortunately for matey my rates are very reasonable, he'll just owe me a full brekky and a few pints on top if I do a good job :thumpup:

Chris

[trackdemon]

All the stuff I do for Ecurie25 is shot in London - predominantly city, but also some east end. Questions:

What car is it?
What colour?
How long have you got!!

PS. I'm not going to give away all my location secrets but happy to suggest....

[Vesuvius 996]

The Gherkin.

[Hut49]

Early morning shot in a slightly misty (forecasted, anyway) London will provide a huge range of possibilities. In view of the spectacular autumn colours developing this year I would try to get a few shots in the Hyde Park/Pall Mall area as well as some financial centre / architectural interest shots. Happy snapping!

[CVP]

OK, as promised here's my efforts.

Yep, it's a new V8 Vantage convertible with Sportshift. Just a gorgeous grogeous car. It's not really run in yet so didn't get to sample the full vocal range of the beast, but if the little bit I heard is anything to go by it is quite simply the kind of noise that makes you grin like an eight year old. In the end we did not head over to the city this time but went to other locations, also not too much shooting time to do all the shots.

Right now this is where you are going to see this car


Obligatory Eye pic


Two more for a laugh


and


Problems
1) Reflections in the paintwork, very difficult to avoid
2) Street furniture, a bit of PS time and more skill than I have required sometimes
3) Working area, sometimes just not enough meaning a very wide angle which looks Ok until you open in PS and realise a lot of the image is distorted
4) Time - just not enough. Fortunately solved by being able to get access to this reasonably regularly
5) Don't forget to turn the lights off next time !

I'm pretty happy with the Ivy shot but am a bit disappointed that some others I thought would be good are mediocre at best. I have to conclude car photography is really pretty darned tricky and will require a lot of work by me if I'm going to get better, although I am happy with this one I got of our everyday motor recently



Still on a brighter note the owner is a good friend and I will be able to shoot this car on a regular basis so lots of opportunities to get better, and it's the start of the autumn rut as well so obligatory wildlife shot from me. This stag is the man and currently has 13 does in his hareem, lucky blighter

Edited by CVP on Monday 15th October 15:14

footnote]Edited to update for first image correction of angle and double yellows [/footnote]

Edited by CVP on Tuesday 16th October 11:28

[cw42]

The ivy shot isn't straight!

[pbsaxman]

cw42 said:

The ivy shot isn't straight!

and it's parked on double yellows

[CVP]

pbsaxman said:

cw42 said:

The ivy shot isn't straight!

and it's parked on double yellows

Fair play 07:30 ish on a Saturday morning, who's going to care about the double yellows but I see the point about not being straight. Wierd when I edited it late last night I thought it was OK, my eyes must be out of level

Chris

[S500]

A few reccomendations from a London chauffeur, firstly I think the road by the London Eye will be quite a challenge lots of stuff cluttering up the place apart from maybe a skyward shot with just the wheel lurking in the backround, as stated the City will be very quiet on an early Saturday and the wardens aren't nearly as ticket happy as they are in the Westminster area. If you fancy a bridge location Southwark is the quietist of all the bridges, Smithfields meat market provides some colourful backdrops with a lot of character, Lloyds building on the junction of Lime Street and Leadenhall St. is another popular sight for photographers and round the corner is Leadenhall market which you may be able to get into. Canary wharf is full of potential but well policed by security, blag your way in saying you have a meeting at HSBC or similar and grab some quick shots before being told politely to leave.

[Reidy10_0]

I like the pics, but i like the car better.

[ajg31]

the second pic, the eye, how was this shot and at what time of day/night. I really want this obligatory shot before i sell my car. Need to get a tripod first!

[CVP]

ajg31 said:

the second pic, the eye, how was this shot and at what time of day/night. I really want this obligatory shot before i sell my car. Need to get a tripod first!

It's about 07:15 in the morning, camera on tripod and locked down into position. Then I took two shots so one exposed more for the car and one more for the sky. In the PC i put the car exposed image on a lower layer, the sky image on the top layer and then used the eraser tool to erase the underexposed portion of the top image. Finally a quick convert from colour to B&W using a free tool from Optik Verve labs. SOunds more complex than it is, the editing process only takes a few minutes.

The security guys down there were very reasonable at that time we just asked nicely and they were fine.

HTH

Chris

[trackdemon]

CVP said:

ajg31 said:

the second pic, the eye, how was this shot and at what time of day/night. I really want this obligatory shot before i sell my car. Need to get a tripod first!

It's about 07:15 in the morning, camera on tripod and locked down into position. Then I took two shots so one exposed more for the car and one more for the sky. In the PC i put the car exposed image on a lower layer, the sky image on the top layer and then used the eraser tool to erase the underexposed portion of the top image. Finally a quick convert from colour to B&W using a free tool from Optik Verve labs. SOunds more complex than it is, the editing process only takes a few minutes.

The security guys down there were very reasonable at that time we just asked nicely and they were fine.

HTH

Chris

CVP, suggestion should you try the technique again:

Get your two layers into PS (and obviously aligned perfectly, easily done on 50% opacity using nudge tool), add layer mask>reveal all then use the gradient tool to blend. Gives same effect as an ND grad filter.

[CVP]

Thanks, will try again using your method

Chris