4g61t.org

When you're in a brightly-lit area, autofocus should work just fine. When it's really dark you have to get creative with it. The method you used is pretty common. Another thing you can try is activate the pop-up flash on your camera make sure it's programmed to fire an AF assist beam. It's flash at the subject and focus on it. Then you can leave it the way it is, switch it to manual focus, and take the shot without using the flash.

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91 GSX - 511fwhp and 352 lb/ft 25psi 110 octane, 7.68 @ 95.9mph 1/8th 21psi 91 octane, 11.93 @ 112.9mph, 117.7mph best trap speed, 20psi 91 octane
98 Volvo S70 T5 - DD

http://www.facebook.com/captaintonus

Attempt 2:

We were cruising round in my mates Evo and I happened to have my camera on me so I decided to have another go. Being silver, it was alot easier shooting his car than mine. I used the 50mm because it was the only lense I had on me, and to be honest I didn't really have much time to muck around with settings because there were a bunch of shady people around haha, so I whacked in the same aperture and ISO I used to shoot my engine bay pics last night (f/2.8, ISO 100) and just did a few shots with varying shutter speeds (10sec/13sec/15sec/20sec). The 15 and 20 sec shots were way overexposed, but here are the 10 and 13 sec shots after a bit of playing around in Lightroom. I think I would've actually liked the background to be a bit more in focus in these shots so i'll play around with the aperture next time. I'm quite happy with how they turned out though.



In this shot I used my lil flashlight to light up the car a bit

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1990 C83A 4WD 4G63T powered hatch - [PSIBRG]
1992 JZX91 2JZ powered Toyota Mark II

Looks decent! I dig the location, and the lighting wasn't too bad. It would've come out a bit sharper if you had stopped down the aperture though.

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91 GSX - 511fwhp and 352 lb/ft 25psi 110 octane, 7.68 @ 95.9mph 1/8th 21psi 91 octane, 11.93 @ 112.9mph, 117.7mph best trap speed, 20psi 91 octane
98 Volvo S70 T5 - DD

http://www.facebook.com/captaintonus

Thanks man. Yeah if I had time to properly look over the photos while we were there I probably would've stopped down the aperture a bit. But there was a van load of crazy looking fella's (this place is usually deserted apart from the odd weirdo here and there), and after I took 4 shots they started yelling shit at us, so we left

It is a nice location though. I was planning to shoot my car there but i'm not sure if the lighting is good enough. Looks like it would be a pretty cool place to shoot during the day too, it's under our Auckland Harbour Bridge so you get a good backdrop of the massive pillars holding it up, plus the water, and the city in the background.

Definitely need a wide angle lens too (might have to use the 18-55mm next time ) The whole backdrop is pretty amazing, but there wasn't enough room behind me for me to get a wider shot.

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1990 C83A 4WD 4G63T powered hatch - [PSIBRG]
1992 JZX91 2JZ powered Toyota Mark II

The 18-55 will work fine for now, so give that a shot next time. I used that lens for a long, long time because I was too poor to buy something nicer.

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91 GSX - 511fwhp and 352 lb/ft 25psi 110 octane, 7.68 @ 95.9mph 1/8th 21psi 91 octane, 11.93 @ 112.9mph, 117.7mph best trap speed, 20psi 91 octane
98 Volvo S70 T5 - DD

http://www.facebook.com/captaintonus

It was a nice day so I decided to head back to my previous spot, with my car this time and armed with my trusty old 18-55mm:




Should've moved the car a bit further to the right...







I like this one (apart from that damn oil stain on the intercooler ), might change the hue a bit to tone down the blue:






This next one was kinda frustrating. Since it was under a bridge, the car was in the shade, but the background was kinda bright. I took over 20 shots here and none of them turned out any good. In this one the car was basically a giant black blob. I played around with it in Adobe Lightroom and got it looking semi respectable. If I add too much exposure the background gets washed out, if I add too much fill light it goes grainy. Argh. Really need some decent lighting gear for this kinda photo I think?:








A couple of shots of the location...

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1990 C83A 4WD 4G63T powered hatch - [PSIBRG]
1992 JZX91 2JZ powered Toyota Mark II

This photo looks awesome! You're really improving a lot man. Try taking the vibrance down a little bit (if you're shooting in RAW), should help take some of the blue reflecting in the paint from the sky. Black cars are a pain in the ass to shoot.
This is a SWEET location. This would be one of the few shots that would lend itself well to HDR. Take one shot to expose for the background, and take another shot to expose for the front of the car, then merge them together. There are a few ways you can do this. The best way is by doing layers in photoshop and sort of paint the two photos together. Having a flash would help too and get some fill light on the front of the car, but it would be hard to get it right.

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91 GSX - 511fwhp and 352 lb/ft 25psi 110 octane, 7.68 @ 95.9mph 1/8th 21psi 91 octane, 11.93 @ 112.9mph, 117.7mph best trap speed, 20psi 91 octane
98 Volvo S70 T5 - DD

http://www.facebook.com/captaintonus

Ahh I see, I wish I thought of that at the time! I tried shooting with the flash but it ended up reflecting off the number plate and the grille. I might actually go back and try exposing the car and background separately, because that photo annoys me every time I look through this set

And I adjusted the color temp a bit warmer on the other one. I've made a habit of always shooting in RAW too, so much better for post processing.

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1990 C83A 4WD 4G63T powered hatch - [PSIBRG]
1992 JZX91 2JZ powered Toyota Mark II

photography aside, i love this car.

I went for a little cruise today and took some snapshots. Here's an example of some of my editing. You can pick up a lot from playing with the shadows and highlights.

Here is the un-edited jpeg straight out of the camera, just re-sized. As you can see, slightly over-exposed. I always think it's better to over-expose than under-expose, because you get more information in the photo. You just have to be careful not to blow out the highlights...


Edited version:


And yes, that is painter's tape on my corner light.

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91 GSX - 511fwhp and 352 lb/ft 25psi 110 octane, 7.68 @ 95.9mph 1/8th 21psi 91 octane, 11.93 @ 112.9mph, 117.7mph best trap speed, 20psi 91 octane
98 Volvo S70 T5 - DD

http://www.facebook.com/captaintonus

This was taken last year of one of our lancer meet


Some random shots i made using a cute sony digicam


Infront of my Sedan last summer's Mitsu Carshow that our carclub organized
and yes the hot one is on my left


One of my friend colored her nails the same color of my car

Again with the car show

Pulled over just to get a smoke

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Volks Rays TE37 Takata Green and Ponkan Orange...Its so JDM i could die

Lovin' the Takata Green TE37's

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1990 C83A 4WD 4G63T powered hatch - [PSIBRG]
1992 JZX91 2JZ powered Toyota Mark II

thanks snowdevl

The time I first bought em. Just got lucky with color patterns. Who would knew that green looks good on brown.

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Volks Rays TE37 Takata Green and Ponkan Orange...Its so JDM i could die

Your car look good, but your friend is hot!!!!

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Colt 200E 1990
Hyundai Scoupe 1992

Still giving photography a good go! Slowly improving I think. Trying to get the hang of panning too, harder than I originally thought! I kind of feel like i'm at the stage where i'd get better quality shots with some better equipment (still using my old 400D, and most of these shots were taken with my 55-250.. which I actually really like btw). I dunno, i'll stick with it for now I guess..

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1990 C83A 4WD 4G63T powered hatch - [PSIBRG]
1992 JZX91 2JZ powered Toyota Mark II