BMW E46 M3 CSL

BMW E46 M3 CSL

Sorry about the delay in getting this post together, has been busy here the last while at PMCG Studios. Earlier this month, Junior from Irish motoring site Driver.ie approached me about shooting a rare E46 CSL that was located down the country. With an upcoming BMW theme on Speedhunters, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

More after the jump …





BMW E46 M3 CSL

The car had been fitted with aftermarket angel eyes (I always thought they were standard but how and ever) which gives the front a very distinct but menacing look. Shot in a warehouse, which was quite bright at the time, I exposed for the LED’s which caused the rest of the image to dramatically under expose. The image was chosen by Speedhunters to lead the launch for the BMW theme for September which was quite an honour !



BMW E46 M3 CSL

The warehouse had these perspex ceiling panels, which created these horrible refections along the bonnet and roof of the car. No amount of circular polarizing would remove them !



BMW E46 M3 CSL

Moving the car to the other end of the warehouse proved a little bit more successful, although the concrete walls were a little dull. After these we decided to move outside and I chose to leave the strobing behind and shoot au-naturale …



BMW E46 M3 CSL

This was my first shoot in a long, long time that I didn’t shoot with the lights (with the exception of the 7 minute shoot on Alan Sinnott’s SR86) It was slightly daunting at first, the lights provide a certain kind of comfort when shooting but once we were into it, I knew it was the right choice. This shot was shot from afar with the simply sublime Canon 70-200 f2.8 L IS,. Shot wide open at 2.8, it gives this gorgeous soft bokeh.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

This similar shot was shot with the Siggy 50mm f1.4. Again, the depth of field really makes the image that bit more three dimensional.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

Getting a nice profile shot was challenging due to the uprights on the building dissecting the car. The only solution I could come up with (asides from moving elsewhere) was to deliberately leave one of the white rails pass through the b-pillar of the car, in an attempt to create a visual line to lead into the car.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

Just a tighter shot of the above …



BMW E46 M3 CSL

We were lucky that we got a sky that wasn’t just a grey-out like we usually get here. The reason the door was left open was a cue for the interior shots when displaying them in a linear fashion.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

Kept the interior shots to the usual simple standard. Just enough depth of field to throw out the exterior and keep the attention on the wheel.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

It was a similar affair under the bonnet, keep everything simple and use depth of field to add interest.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

Tried some new rig work for this one. The mount was attached to the rear window and using just a magic arm to get the camera into position.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

Same as the above for this one but with the mount attached to the door. I wanted to incorporate the big AP calipers and the CSL badging on the vent. There’s a lot of spotting on the wheel, which I’m sure is from the stacked circular polarizers, must invest in an ND filter.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

The full car shots were a little bit tricker. The mounts and boom worked perfectly on the car but the post work was a major PITA.



BMW E46 M3 CSL

Same goes for this one. The rig was actually taking up the entire top left of the image so had to try and use backgrounds from different images to create a new one to replace the boom arm.

I was really impressed with the stability of the rig, even at 5 metres it showed little movement. Picking up the few pieces I need this week to extend it to 7 metres along with an added tensioning device to prevent any sway.

Hope you enjoyed the post, you can check out the articles on driver.ie and Speedhunters at the links below.

– Paddy

driver.ie

Speedhunters

BMW E46 M3 CSLPaddy
0