A magical shoot happened the day before the event, but MPACT 2019 held plenty of magic itself.
Take a walk with me through the pits, down the track, and in the garages for a tour of some truly unique rides.
How I shot it – the BMW M3.
MPACT 2019 offered lots of shot opportunities. A question I often get asked is “How do I get the entire car sharp while blurring everything else?” The short answer is, you don’t, but you can fake it! The long(ish) answer follows.
Getting a nice bokeh, or soft background, requires you to lower your aperture, usually to the lowest setting your lens has. Shooting a portrait at f/1.8 will give you that contrast of sharp face and blurred background (or foreground). But a car isn’t a face; it’s much bigger. If you try to shoot a car at 1.8, and you tell the camera to focus on the front, you’ll usually get the back half soft and falling out of focus.
But the background looks so good!
Being soft
There are 2 ways to combat this. First, if you’re shooting free-hand, raise your aperture to around 4 or 5.6. If your lens is sharp enough, and you’re shooting raw, you’ll get a sharp enough car. Zooming in will reveal it getting softer towards the back, but only the trained eye would see this, and only if you’re looking for it. All of Sue’s shots were taken at f/4.
Did you bring your tripod? Then take it a step further with multiple exposures. First, pick your spot, set up the car, and set the aperture to its lowest setting. Fire a shot for the background out of focus. Next, move your aperture up to f/9 or f/10, refocus the image on the car itself, and fire a second shot. Check your lighting here, as a higher aperture requires a longer exposure. The entire image will be in focus. With these 2 shots, you can combine them in post for a sharp car, and blurred background.
Feel free to email me at mike@machineswithsouls.com with any questions.
Follow along on Instagram @machineswithsouls
