This week gone, I got the pleasure of tackling Dean ‘Karnages’ Kearney Maxxis endorsed Nissan Onevia. The shoot turned into an eventful one, first it rained and then rained some more. It was also the first time I got to grips with my new rig, albeit in its shortest configuration as the rest hadn’t been completed in time by my fabricator. The best of the shoot after the jump …

Canon EOS 1D MKII N, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/15, ISO200

We rocked up to a private estate that we had pretty much free reign of. Thankfully we were able to get out of the rain and indoors to an abandoned warehouse. I dread shooting black cars as obtaining a good exposure can be very challenging. This was the first shoot in a long time where I returned to using three strobes having shot with two for the last few months.

Canon EOS 1D MKII N, 28mm, f/4, 1/50, ISO400

For the rear shots we just turned the ’studio’ around and shot at the other end of the warehouse. With two strobes camera left & right being shot into two bounce brollies, I taped a 430EX to a cage in the background to create the flair above the car.

Canon EOS 1D MKII N, 47mm, f/4, 20s, ISO400

Whilst we had the car backed into the corner, I tried some light painting with the flash on my phone. Achieving a proper white balance was a major issue here !

Canon EOS 1D MKII N, 50mm, f/1.4, 1/80, ISO800

I’m making an effort to shoot as many ’strobist’ shots as natural light ones. I’m really falling in love with how noise forms at high ISOs on the 1D, it appears as more of a film grain than the traditional digital noise.

Canon EOS 1D MKII N, 50mm, f/1.4, 1/125, ISO800

Prodrift ran with this image as the lead flash tile on their site. It’s my own B&W conversion method with some minor dodging to the arms and face.

Canon EOS 1D MKII N, 47mm, f/11, 1/60, ISO250

I usually treat the interior shots as standard ‘page filler’ images, especially with drift cars as they are so minimal inside. This was shot with a SB800 fired bare in through the opened passenger door.

Canon EOS 40D, 10mm, f/8, 1s, ISO100

Rig shots seem to be classed as the ‘money’ shots today so it was important to test out the new rig. It’s nearly an inch larger in outer diameter compared to my old one. My old rig was 2 x 1 meter lengths, the new one is based on 1 x 2 meter length that attached to the car and up to 5 x 1 meter lengths that can be attached to the 2 meter ‘base’ length as required. For this shoot I only had the base and one extension tube so it was approximately three meters in length. The tubing was attached to the roof above the driver side A pillar, running diagonally to the passenger side C pillar and then another meter off the car.

Canon EOS 40D, 11mm, f/4.5, 1s, ISO100

This shot was a little trickier as the base tube was mounted under the spoiler, from the back windo to the boot lid and then straight off the back of the car. Same length of tubing as the other shot but allowed a more interesting composition as the it was mounted further back. Hopefully I’ll be able to test the full length during the week.

As usual, Full gallery can be found on My Flickr