Much has changed since the early times when I posted in here. Just thought I'd start a new thread to document some of the cars that I have tested/photographed over time. I'll update from time to time, if there is interest. Most of my early work was shot on a Canon 550D. Over time, I have also picked up a Lumix GX1 and have recently upgraded to a 5Dm2. I shoot primarily with prime lenses, and prefer a minimalist approach to editing/touching up pics.

All constructive comments and criticism welcome.

You can follow my work online via -
Instagram: @MTHRFKNWIN
Facebook: MTHRFKNWIN
Website: www.MTHRFKNWIN.com
















This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Aug 16 2016, 10:39 AM

Double posted.

This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Oct 2 2015, 04:27 PM

nice pic.. u can bring out the contrast and the powerful of the car

Only two pics I can share from my most recent test drive:

Trip down south, some months back:

Very nice shots!

Love the shots.

^Thanks a lot guys :-)

A few more:

nice

Awesome shots man!
Every man's dream job ^____^

Thanks a lot guys. Here's a little something from a mini, unplanned session from earlier today. So terribly unplanned, that I didn't even have my camera with me. Had to make do with the point&shoot I had by my side.

Just had to take some pictures, as this opportunity doesn't always come along. Hope you enjoy, and do excuse the quality.





This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Oct 26 2015, 11:20 AM

WoW!

just WoW!

Just a quick meet up for some quick pictures, yesterday morning:

And yet another Porsche. This one, the all-new 991 GT3RS:

Love your editing style, subtle yet retaining all the beautiful colors and contrast.

My favorites so far

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/625/225317937...813aa133a_b.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/296/202126660...a546f2a87_b.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5759/21835016...f1739feed_b.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/644/226356260...510b1f8e1_b.jpg

But some of the shots have slightly skewed horizon and also off centered, for example
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7678/16879868...44ba8f5df_b.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3765/13130177...84d700be8_b.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5747/22054108...5ff0e17e2_b.jpg

but i am nitpicking la

mingyuyu thank you for the kind words; means a lot coming from you. And you're right about the last 3 pics; I found that framing the subject is very important from the start. With the Golf, my position was off (only noticed during posr-processing) and with the Panamera, I was already in a ditch, with some objects in my way and car was already at an edge. The 964 however was intentional :-)

Anyway, it turns out that shooting with flashes is a lot harder than I imagined it to be. And with different colours, the results can be quite different as well. Here are some I tried last week (pretty impromptu shoot, so cars are a little bit dirty/dusty):

They can be fixed with a quick crop so very minor imperfections I would say, but a lot of times we just didn't notice until the shot was uploaded

I agree with you on the part about shooting with flashes, so far the easier way I tried is merging multiple exposures of different parts of the car lighted with flash separately. Quite a bit of work in Photoshop but compared to nailing it on the spot which might require a lot more tools (flashes/ modifiers/ cleaning up and etc) it still requires less effort.

mingyuyu I agree here; I have two flashes which may not be enough, especially if I want to light up the whole car. Probably need to get a stand for the flash(es) too instead of getting a human stand as I also struggle with remembering placement of flash to get similar or close enough results ;-) However, this does highlight the importance of lighting for me.

Another quick question -- do you prefer shots of a car completely lit up perfectly, or are shadows more interesting?

Here's another interior shot from the same set:

yeah it's a pain to light up anything with large surface area (for example car), with enough practice you might find it a lot easier . a lot of professional automotive photographers I've been following for a long time shoot alone most of the time so they will go for composites instead to save time and cost.

hmm that's quite hard to answer, it depends on what kind of car you are dealing with imo. for example with Myvi you might want to light up the car as plain as you can to suit the more "friendly" image but for Golf GTI you might prefer making the car looks as aggressive as you can to highlight the "sportiness".

Even with the same car different lighting can changes the presentation a lot (not so accurate for the examples since they are wearing different kits and paint job but you get what I mean)

*large images*
http://i.wheelsage.org/pictures/a/abarth/f...lue_wonder.jpeg

http://i.wheelsage.org/pictures/a/abarth/f...br-spec_23.jpeg

I really like your interior shots by the way, something I struggle a lot until now.

mingyuyu sorry for the delayed response; have been incredibly occupied with a side project and have not checked into this thread. Thanks for the examples; really like them both and each one has a different mood to it. Colour and gloss/matte surface can make so much difference! Especially with the way light bounces off the material. And you're right -- I'm sticking to just a single flash from now on.

Here's one quick pic from a mini shoot two weekends back:

Here's another shot from the shoot, and perhaps one of my favourite shots from the set. It was a depressing, rainy weekend, and we had to head indoors to get shelter from the rain, so we decided to set up some flashes and play. Perhaps the light is a bit harsh on the top right corner, but luckily not enough to take out the details from the badges on the back.

Ticking another one off my list.

April 2014:


Dec 2015:

Haven't done any car spotting in a long while now, but I ran across this car over the weekend and just had to stop by for a quick pic. Only had my trusty GX1 with me, so this will have to do.



In the meantime, I have purchased an EF to m43 adapter, and am hoping to try out some pics with the new set-up soon. Only qualm is that the lens size and weight is grossly different with the camera body. Oh, and losing AF which is very helpful to me, as I have some problem sighting focus. A Metabones equivalent adapter would have cost $400, so certainly beyond what I can afford!

Man, those trees have grown a lot since I was last at this spot some 3 years back!

Nov 2015:


Nov 2012:

So this year has been a relatively slow one. Still, I managed to drive and shoot some pretty interesting cars. 2016 will be exciting. Because I'm going to try and make it as awesome as possible ;-)

This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Dec 28 2015, 02:49 PM

Starting my year off with a trio of Merc V8s, including this one:

Joining us for the test was this 991 GT3...



In fact, we get other stonking V8s in the Merc line-up, including a C63 and S63 Coupe.

From earlier this week:

Big improvement there

Do you shoot for magazine/ reviews? I wonder how you gain access to all those exotics

mingyuyu thank you sir. Yes, I write the occasional review on cars, and also end up taking my own pictures. With regards to the cars... I can only say I've been incredibly blessed!

Wishing everyone a good Lunar Year of the Monkey! May everyone be blessed with health, wealth and prosperity :-) Here's the results from my CNY shoot yesterday:

Visiting an art installation up north:

My most recent test car:



This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Mar 31 2016, 12:15 PM

Yup, I have finally managed to pull this one off. For the longest time, I have wanted to get my hands on Porsche's GT4. Fortunately, this ended up as a double whammy, as I was able to assemble both the GT4 and GT3 side-by-side.



Perhaps next time, I will be able to get a GT3RS as well...

Edit: double posted.

This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Mar 31 2016, 12:18 PM

Early morning weekends...









More here.

Five years ago, this was the car that started it all for me. I'd been posting here on LYN for a short time, when someone dropped me a message, asking if I could take some photos of his car.

I didn't realize it would be a Lamborghini. After the shoot, the owner asked if I would like to drive, and as all great stories go, one thing led to another and I was truly hooked into cars.

The set was from May 2011 and in all honesty, was pretty bad. This was perhaps one of the best images from the night, and I decided to re-edit it once more.

Time for some lightsaber work:

More experiments with light. Black is a much harder colour to capture properly in these experiments.

Three sisters gather together to witness the creation of RWB #006:



Akira Nakai in his element. Always a quiet man, thinking and doing.



This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Jul 4 2016, 09:52 AM

And from today's Miyabi restoration:




This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Jul 4 2016, 09:53 AM

Some alone time with Miyabi-sama:

Some of these are really good *thumbs up*

Thanks for the kind words. Any comments are always welcome as pointers to improve.

Quite happy with this set:





Full story and set on my website here.

Another blistering weekend:

Our report on the 2016 Audi R8 LMS Cup Round 5 & 6, now live on our website here.

It's great to see how your photography has improved over time. I especially love it when you play with light...

Your light paintings are quite good, but to improve further I would suggest you to add another stroke around the shoulder of the car and also around the wheels to show more details

Remember the time we pitched one turbo car against an naturally aspirated monster? We repeat the feat this time around, but with a candidate that hails fro mthe land of the rising Sun...

mingyuyu kadajawi thank you for your comment and feedback. Noted with regard to more detail- sometimes, I think a bit of shadow can make it a little bit interesting? Too perfect can somehow feel a little bit.. weird. If that makes sense.

PB glitching big time, and their support pretty much sucks. Too lazy to resize and upload there, so this will have to do.

u using natural light? i saw a bit HDR effect.

kelwin2504 yeah, natural light no flash. I think post-edit gave it a bit of HDR effect (more common on my pics in the day, I think).

Time for a little 2016 re-cap. Some were test drives, some were shoots, and others were spots. Also includes teasers for 2017...

Finally published this video...

Disrupted by rain... ah well...

Finally ticking this one off the list. Tri-fecta complete, bucket list done.

This one is going for a makeover...

Yas, transformation complete.

You can enjoy the full transformation process here.

Lovely shots, your light painting is always awesome

Wow really awesome set of photos.

Last week at Ingolstadt, testing Audi's new R8 V10 Plus:

Last test car for 2017...

And some night shots...

Very nice...
May I know is it all these shots from 550D?
May I know what lens you use?

Thank you. Pics with 550D on first page only. I've moved on to 5D2 and 5D4 now. Mostly shot with 1740 or 85.

i see...
very nice work you did there...

may i know what kind of gear using to snapshot the pictures ?

Most photos shot on 5D4 and 5D2, 24-70 and 85 lens.

Our last shoot; a prelude to our next video. Another shoot this week to wrap up before CNY.

A little bit of this & that:

the interior shot looked amazing

-

This post has been edited by r3kahsttub: Jan 4 2019, 11:24 AM

Oops, previous link broken so I'll just put this here (again):



And a link to the larger sized pics, hosted on my site (click here).