Automobiles Grabbed my camera and went to a car show

[Jeff A]

I had a chance to go to a local car show this weekend. I thought I would share my photos if you are interested.
Flickr Album, Sacramento Autorama

Jeff

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Superb. I am a massive fan of things like Bitchin' Rides and Iron Resurrection, and the amount of work and craftsmanship in these cars is unbelievable. If I had the money...

Great shots.

 

[Tim Mayo]

Lovely shots Jeff. A lot of elbow grease and money has gone into those machines! Makes me feel guilty about my car which currently has a ton of bird poop all over it, the birds just won't leave it alone right now!

 

[Jeff A]

Superb. I am a massive fan of things like Bitchin' Rides and Iron Resurrection, and the amount of work and craftsmanship in these cars is unbelievable. If I had the money...

Great shots.

Thanks Kev. I have a couple of take-a ways from this experience. First of all, I have not been going to a lot of car shows but those I have attended have been at outdoor venues. First of all, the level of competition and Professionalism is very evident. These guys have lots of props to stage their car. Fancy carpet, closed circuit TV presentations, all kinds of special lighting (More on that in a moment) and other devices to better highlight their work. The next thing that hit me was there are so many new choices for what kind of vehicle could be used as a Custom car or truck. Case in point, the 1941 COE Ford truck, very interesting. The days of a majority of cars being '57 Chevys is pretty much gone.

About the venue. For all of the lights that were on there, the lighting was poor for photography. High powered beams of light shining on a superb custom paint job is nearly impossible to shoot good pictures of. There was a lot of correction time for me in Lightroom, complicated by the fact that I'm pretty much a novice. All in all, very impressive. I only shot a small percentage of the machines that were there. I did however, spent more time on multiple shots of things that stood out in my mind.

 

[Brownie]

Nice shots! Love seeing the fantastic vehicles.

The one point I would is exposure settings.

You were shooting with a 20mm lens. Given that, the 'standard' shutter speed you'd need for a sharp image is 1/20. Your camera is capable of at least 4 stops of IS, I've tested mine to 5-1/2 if I'm careful, but let's say 3 stops easily without having to worry about it. 1/20 > 1/10 > 1/5. You could shoot that @ 1/5th of a second no problem.

Then consider aperture. There's no need to close down so tight. 2.8-4 would've given you another few stops to work with and still have plenty DOF considering the focal length.

Both of these together would let you use a more normal ISO. 400 on the A7 IV is pretty much set it and forget it for that kind of shooting. And all of that together would let you compensate your exposure to get a brighter image.

Lastly, you weren't at a 'car show', you were at AUTORAMA Baby! That's one of the few places you'll see this kind of quality. It's a national show that hits several cities each year, although many of the displays change from town to town. In my Detroit Autorama thread posted a few below this one, there are several shots of a deep candy red 5-window coupe with mirrors under it. The paint job alone on that car was $500,000.00!