Ari Takes Pictures » oldcars

Classic Cars From The Vault

kap0w — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:50:55 +0000

I used to work at a place that had something to do with cars. While I was there, my photography thing and my work thing seemed to overlap and I got to take some pictures of cars we were reviewing as well as a whole lot of car shows. The kind of pictures that worked well there weren’t usually the kind I liked taking but I always took a few for myself. Things like this and this. I just dug back into the vault from the same show that the other two came from and found another one I liked.

Only thing is, I can’t for the life of me remember what kind of car it was attached to. Anyone know at least the make if not the model? C’mon you car buffs out there – show me what you got!

Getting back to the photo nerd thing, the bokeh is nice. With so many symmetrical reflections I really like the pattern across the top of the hood. This image has been chopped up a bit and I don’t have the original so I don’t have the EXIF information, but I’m pretty sure I took this with my 50mm lens just because you can count the number of diaphragm blades that make up the aperture – 5, just like the 5 sided bursts of light you get in this picture.

Classic Cars From The Vault is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

Tilt-Shift Photography On The Cheap

kap0w — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:45:07 +0000

So there’s this thing called Tilt-Shift Photography, which I guess could also be called “using a tilt-shift lens on your camera. What is a tilt shift lens? It’s a horrendously expensive specialty lens often used by people taking architectural photography. Why are you reading this? Because tilt-shift is fun stuff:

Alright – I admit it. That’s not real tilt-shift. The good news is that you can fake it too – easy! Click the link and I’ll tell you all about it. It’s easy. Did I say easy? I meant easy. Click the jump. Do it.

Ok… back to the explanation, just so we can dispense with it. If you want the lines of something, like a building, to stay straight, your camera, lens, and the building all have to be square to each other. If you don’t, the walls of the building will appear to slope toward each other the higher they go. So these special lenses exist that allow you to tilt or shift the lens without moving the camera. I like it because you can use it to make people and other objects look like little toys. That’s fun, right?

So what if you don’t have any special gear but still want to play? Well luckily, Lifehacker pointed me toward a sweet little app – the TiltShiftGenerator - one guess what it does. You can run it right from the web or download (which requires Adobe Air, also a free download) and run it on your computer. Totally reminds me of the Poladroid app from a while back. There are only a few things to know:

1. Make sure your picture isn’t over 1600 pixels wide as this thing chokes on big images.

2. The best pictures have a subject that is pretty far away and not a ton of distracting stuff in the fore or mid-ground. If there is something close to the camera, hopefully it is on the edge of the frame.

3. If your subject is one point in the picture, choose “Radial”. If you have more than one subject or it is spread out over the picture, you probably want “Liner”.

4. Move the “Center Radius” slider down almost all the way to the left to bring the control lines in. Click in the middle of your subject to center the lines. Click and drag the circle control to rotate the lines and use the “Center Radius” slider to make them bigger or smaller until your main subject is in focus.

Toy with it until you like what you see and you’re all set. Instant fun!

Tilt-Shift Photography On The Cheap is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures

Guess The Make

kap0w — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:49:32 +0000

Here’s another hood ornament shot from a previous year’s car show. Remember when car company names used to mean something? Guess the make that goes with this one.

Guess The Make is a post from: Ari Takes Pictures