Images and Notes » Automotive

1957 Buick Century ‘Caballero’ Wagon #2

James Howe — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:43:27 +0000

(Nikon D700 28-300mm at 28mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/2000 sec @ f/5.6)

Yesterday I posted a detail shot from this 1957 Buick Century Wagon which I saw at the 2011 Concours d’Elegance of America show at St. Johns. It seemed to be popular so I’m posting a couple more shots today. The shot above shows another detail element of the car and the picture below gives you a look at the entire car. Processing on the first image was similar to yesterday’s shot. I used Topaz Detail on ‘Abstraction’ to smooth out some of the details, mostly in the paint, and then masked out the key elements such as the chrome ‘Caballero’ badge. For the bottom image, I used Topaz Simplify to make the background more abstract and painterly, but I masked out the car itself.

Your comments are welcome and much appreciated!

Custom Royal

James Howe — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 12:20:24 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 28mm, ISO 200, 1/125 sec @ f/22)

I went to the Concours d’Elegance of America car show this past weekend. The event used to be known as the Meadowbrook Concours and was held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan, but for a variety of reasons the show had to move to a new location. This year the event was held at St. Johns near Plymouth, Michigan. I believe the show had over 300 cars of various vintages and styles. My favorites tend to be the cars of the 30′s but there are interesting aspects to most cars displayed at this event.

This particular shot is of a 1957 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer. This car had just completed a full restoration and was refinished in the original colors of ‘Tropical Coral and Glacier White’. No special processing was done on this image apart from some sharpening and the cloning out of two small pieces of grass on the tire.

Thoughts?

Little Red Corvette

James Howe — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:30:04 +0000

(Olympus E3, 14-54mm at 37mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/200 sec @ f/7.1)

I’ve been posting so many black and white images of late I decided I wanted something more colorful. I was perusing my Lightroom catalog today and ran across this shot I took a couple years ago at a show at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan. I called this post ‘Little Red Corvette’, but actually the car was white, with a red interior. The car was built in 1954, the first year the Corvette was manufactured.

I did some experimentation when I processed this shot. First, I cropped the image just a bit to remove some parts of the image which weren’t really needed. I then used the Photoshop Cutout filter to create the choppy color effect. I selectively applied the filter, masking the effect from the center of the steering wheel and a bit of the dashboard, place that I wanted the lettering and numbering to appear normal.

1930 Cadillac Hood Ornament

James Howe — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:14:49 +0000

(Nikon D700, 105mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)

Every time I visit a classic car show I try to get some shots of the ‘mascots’ which were used to adorn the radiator cap. Most of the time when I review the final image I’m not happy. What I want to get is a shot which is sharp for the ornament, but without a distracting background. In a controlled setting you could control the background, but at an outdoor show it’s hard. I have seen photographers set up their tripod, set up the shot and then get behind the ornament with a black cloth to create a better background, but I’ve never been quite that ambitious. What I try to do instead is find an angle which finds a neutral background. Sometimes the car next door works well, sometimes it’s the trees. The really tricky part is getting the sharpness right. For this shot I used the Nikon 105mm macro and I’m quite pleased with how it came out. At f8, I was able to keep most of the foreground sharp, but get a nice blurry background. For you car fans out there, this ornament was on a 1930 Cadillac V-16 Fleetwood Cabriolet. The car was one of many fine automobiles on display at the 2011 Eyes on Design car show held at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford mansion in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan.

This image was another one in which I liked the color version but also liked the black and white. The problem I had with the color is that I thought the blue car in the background somewhat distracted from the hood ornament. The problem with the black and white was that it somewhat diminished the beauty of the Cadillac medallion. So, I compromised. I converted the image to black and white but masked out the medallion. I also reduced the opacity of the black and white layer just a bit, so there is still a hint of color in the image. It may not show up in the photo, but the color in the background of the final image is a very dark blue. I did one other thing to the image as well. In the color version, I believe there is just a portion of a person’s arm in the upper left. For the finished version, I rescaled the image slightly to move it mostly out of the frame. That, combined with the conversion to black and white eliminated what I considered to be a distracting element in the color version.

I would be happy if you would let me know what you think, good or bad. Thanks for looking in!

Tail Fin

James Howe — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:04:09 +0000

(Nikon D700, 105mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/2000 sec @ f/3)

I’ve never been a big fan of 1950′s automobiles, but I am fascinated with their design elements, particularly the chrome and the obsession with tail fins. At the 2011 Eyes on Design car show, they had a whole row of ‘finned’ automobiles. The shot above shows the tail fin of a 1957 DeSoto Adventurer. The car was pretty stunning with its black paint job and polished chrome. On of the features that I found interesting about this car was that it had an under-dash ‘sound system’ (aka record player). I’m sure this wasn’t meant to be used while driving!

FYI, there is no ‘before’ shot for the top image because I did no processing on the image. I thought it looked good the way it was. A black and white conversion would have lost the terrific look of the red lights against the chrome, and would also have lost the nice turquoise color of the DeSoto automobile in the background.

1931 Studebaker Hood Ornament

James Howe — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:03:33 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 300mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)

When I think of a ‘Studebaker’, I think of the funky looking cars that were made in the 50′s and 60′s not a stately automobile on par with Duesenberg, Packard, etc., so I was somewhat surprised to find that the car belonging to this hood ornament was a Studebaker. I took this shot at the Classic Car Collectors of America show at the Gilmore Car Museum. When I go to these shows, I generally find some aspect of the car that looks interesting and I might not even know who made the car. As a way of keeping a record of what shots belong to what cars, I’ll take a picture of the identification sign that is usually posted in front of the car. So with this one, I saw the hood ornament and thought it look interesting, and after I took a few shots, I took a picture of the identification sign and at that point found out that it was a Studebaker. This years show had a special emphasis on cars manufactured in Indiana. Studebakers were manufactured in South Bend.

I initially wasn’t going to do any real processing on this image, perhaps just some sharpening, but in the end I decided to go with a very simple black and white conversion. I’m actually slightly surprised at the quality of this image as it was shot with my Nikon 28-300 lens. While I like the range of this lens for ‘walking around’, I haven’t been thrilled with the quality of some of my shots with it. This one, however, came out quite well I think.

Please leave comments or questions below and thanks for looking in!

Supercharged – 1935 Auburn Speedster

James Howe — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:51:03 +0000

(Nikon D700, 50mm f1.8, ISO 200, Exposure 1/250 sec @ f/16)

No moody black and white image today, just a simple color shot of a wonderful automobile. This shot shows the exhaust pipes of a 1935 Auburn Speedster. The Auburn was manufactured in Auburn, Indiana and was noted in its day for being a high performance automobile. Before a customer received their automobile, it was certified to have been tested to 100.8 Miles Per Hour by Ab Jenkins a professional race car driver known for setting speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. I’ve always liked the look of the Auburn Speedster. There is something about the chrome pipes coming out of the engine that just looks cool and exudes speed.

Here is a full body shot of the Auburn. I screwed up when I took this shot because I had my aperture set to f1.8 which meant that much of the car was out of focus.

There wasn’t much processing done to the finished image. I made some minor exposure tweaks in Lightroom and used Topaz Adjust to pull out a little bit more of the fine details in the image.

Hope you enjoy it!

Stick Shift – 1937 Cord Phaeton Interior

James Howe — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:50:33 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 50mm Macro Zuiko (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/800 sec @ f/2.8)

When I went to the Classic Car Club of American car show at the Gilmore Car Museum I took both of my camera bodies. I’ve been using primarily my Nikon D700, but I still use my Olympus E3 on occasion. I had equipped the E3 with my 50mm F2 Zuiko Macro lens, an old manual lens that I used to use with my Olympus OM4 back in my film days. It was a nice change to use a completely manual set up. Focusing was manual, as was setting the aperture. When I changed aperture, the lens closed down and made the viewfinder darker, which made focusing a little more challenging. I like this 50 macro on the E3 because at the 2x crop factor its like using a 100mm lens. This lens also takes really nice images.

The shot itself shows the interior of a 1937 Cord 812 Phaeton, the same car that was the subject ofyesterday’sposting. I had made the rounds of the show using the wider zoom on my Nikon and switched to the Oly to make another pass to get some closer shots at large aperture. The window of the car was open so I was able to carefully lean in to the car to get the shot, making sure not to actually touch the car. I really like the interiors of these cars as the had some great details. This one has a wonderful metal dashboard with great chrome details.

There isn’t too much difference between the as shot image and the final image. I wanted to go for a very contrasty shot, but something with a film noir feeling to it. I liked the way the shaft of light illuminated the dashboard and the chrome of the shifter. Conversion was done in Silver Efex Pro 2 and I applied a light selenium toning to the final image.

Hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave feedback below.

Smooth Lines – 1937 Cord Phaeton

James Howe — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:47:34 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 122mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/11)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Gilmore Car Museum for the annual Classic Car Club of America show. This year the show highlighted cars manufactured in Indiana. One of the key companies in Indiana was the Auburn Cord Duesenberg automobile company which manufactured cars in Auburn, Indiana. These cars are some of my favorite because they had such interesting designs. I particularly like Auburns and Cords. At the show, this car was referred to as a ’1937 Auburn Phaeton’, but the car is actually a Cord, probably a model 812 (although I suppose it is possible that it was marketed as an ‘Auburn’, some car buff will certainly correct me if I’m wrong) Late model Cords have a distinctive design created by legendary automobile designer Gordon Buehrig. The front end has a shape somewhat like that of a coffin so these cars are sometimes referred to as ‘coffin nosed Cords’. Anyway, I love the design and I love to take pictures of this line of cars.

Initially my thought was to simply do minimal processing on this image. I like the color version. I think the car has a nice color and I think the image highlights the elements that make the car so distinctive. However, I also wanted to see if I could produce an image which emphasized the lines in a stronger fashion. Naturally I thought of converting to black and white. I used Silver Efex Pro 2 and flipped through some of the presets until I found one that I thought came close to what I wanted. I was looking for something with high contrast but done in a clean manner. The conversion to black and white really highlighted some dust and other paint imperfections on the surface of the car, so I actually used Topaz Simplify along with the healing brush to smooth these out.

Which do you prefer? The black and white, or the color version? Let me know what you think.

Bugatti

James Howe — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 01:58:02 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300 at 210mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 sec @ f/5.3)

I recently received an e-mail from Gary Grobson, a photographer and retired architect who had some nice comments about my web site. Of course I had to check out his web site as well and I was quite impressed by his work. One of the areas I really found fascinating was his Circles gallery. I really liked the interesting shapes and forms found in these images. I asked him how these image were created and he sent me a Photoshop action which he uses to create these images. If you haven’t seen these before, the images are created by taking a square crop and using the Photoshop Polar Coordinates filter a couple of times to create the circular image. Naturally I had to play around with some of my images to see what I could come up with.

These images are fun to create. It’s interesting to play around with different sections of an image to see what can be created. After a while you start to get a feeling for what will work and what won’t. Things with lines tend to work well. Text can also add some interesting elements. I’m still learning what works and what doesn’t and I’ll be posting some additional attempts from time to time.

This image was created from one that I took at the 2010 Concours d’Elegance held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. The raw shot didn’t really do much for me, but I thought the ‘circle’ process came up with something interesting. I used the basic action to create the circular image and then did a couple flips and rotations to change the way the text was displayed. I added an additional border to create the framed image.

Love to hear your comments. Thanks!