mgmetalworks
Explorer
I am a project optimist. Haven't you guys figured that out by now?
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- Thread starter sakurama
- Start date
I am a project optimist. Haven't you guys figured that out by now?
VisionxOrb
Observer
This is a link to another site, but he mounted an intercooler on a 99 van, however did a 08+ clip conversion for it to fit.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1357508-1999-7-3-van-build-thread.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1357508-1999-7-3-van-build-thread.html
Arctic Travelller
Adventurer
Fantastic photos, love the night time one along side the highway. I had no idea you could stop for 12hrs at a pull out. Does that include ones with signs that say "no camping" Looking forward to seeing your new intercooler all mounted up.
Randall Dee
Huge Member
We're pretty spoiled and I can't bring myself to call it camping. Glamping is a stupid word (and idea) so I don't know what to call it.
I call it Vanping.
Super sweet photos. Really nice. I'd love to know what lens you used in the photo above?
sakurama
Adventurer
Thanks guys.
The night time shots have become easier with the newer, more sensitive chips in the professional (and also amateur) cameras. These photos are both done with "light painting". To capture the stars you need a tripod and a long exposure. The ideal times are 10-20 seconds. If you do an exposure longer than that the stars will start to become small dashes and lose the look of stars. So both of these shots are 20 seconds.
It's best to use a very fast aperture lens because that allows you to use a lower ISO but these shots were made with my Sony A9 and a Sony 16-35mm f4 zoom wide open at f4. Since f4 isn't particularly fast I boosted the ISO until I was seeing the stars well - in this case about 6400 ISO. That gives you a nice sky and if there's no other lights a very black foreground.
The next step is to take a flashlight or headlamp and "paint" your scene. It's trial and error but practice and looking at the screen after every shot helps figure it out. In order for the headlamp to not make streaks all over the scene I hold it close to my chest and walk with my back to the camera - this prevents the camera from "seeing" the headlamp. Here's an example of a shot that clearly shows my shadow and the streaks that the headlamp makes as I wave it around.
The goal is to use your body to block the light. This lets the headlamp light up the trees or the trailer or the motorcycle as if by some magical source. Ideally you consider what would be lighting these things and mimic that. This is the skill and practice part. For the forest I shined the headlamp on the trees from the point of the fire pit and the trailer. I placed a lantern behind the tree to help kick some more light on the trailer. This give the impression that the campsite light is illuminating the trees. Which it was but not like that.
Same shot but I did a better job of blocking the light. My skill is understanding light, where it comes from and how it acts and then using that to capture a photo that "feels" like what I saw. It's story telling with light. I wanted a photo that felt like what the camp felt like to me.
So for this shot it's one 20 second exposure, f4 and maybe 6400 ISO. I use a Surefire headlamp because it can dim from 200 lumens to 1 lumen. I dim it down and walk around the camper waving the headlamp up and down. When I get to the far side of the camper I point the headlamp at the ground and crank it to 200 to make it look like car headlights on the ground. Again, it's my understanding of light that lets me "trick" you into thinking it's headlights because you see that all the time. The trailer running lights were too bright so I shot them in a separate exposure and then used Photoshop to "paint" them. I match the level to what your eye would expect. The last exposure is the car tail lights on the left which are car tail lights. Just another exposure. I faded them because it looks better to have the light grow in intensity because your brain reads that as speed.
Finally the glow around the trailer is the town behind down the coast. I chose my angle so that the glow from the town would "halo" the trailer. I also made sure that the guard rail would wrap around the trailer to act as a leading line. The spilled light on the grass is just more of the backlighting form the headlamp/headlight trick. The hill on the left was also painted in wth the headlamp to help give the shot more depth. Color temps were changed in the raw files before they were exported into Photoshop.
And that is how it was done.
I wrote an article for BIKE EXIF about light painting and it has some good info: http://www.bikeexif.com/motorcycle-photography-tips
Don't be intimidated by all the detail. I've practiced a lot and I'm also a pretty high end retoucher. Put your camera on a tripod and set it to a 30 second exposure at night and then use any kind of flash light to paint in what you have. If it's too bright stop down the lens or reduce the ISO. Don't shorten the time - you need 30 seconds to walk around something and paint it. Experiment and have fun.
Okay, photo lesson over. A friend has been encouraging me to teach photography and write a book so I'm toying with the idea. I've been lucky to have good teachers and an insatiable curiousity so I like the idea of passing that along. You know, after I build that intercooler...
Gregor
The night time shots have become easier with the newer, more sensitive chips in the professional (and also amateur) cameras. These photos are both done with "light painting". To capture the stars you need a tripod and a long exposure. The ideal times are 10-20 seconds. If you do an exposure longer than that the stars will start to become small dashes and lose the look of stars. So both of these shots are 20 seconds.
It's best to use a very fast aperture lens because that allows you to use a lower ISO but these shots were made with my Sony A9 and a Sony 16-35mm f4 zoom wide open at f4. Since f4 isn't particularly fast I boosted the ISO until I was seeing the stars well - in this case about 6400 ISO. That gives you a nice sky and if there's no other lights a very black foreground.
The next step is to take a flashlight or headlamp and "paint" your scene. It's trial and error but practice and looking at the screen after every shot helps figure it out. In order for the headlamp to not make streaks all over the scene I hold it close to my chest and walk with my back to the camera - this prevents the camera from "seeing" the headlamp. Here's an example of a shot that clearly shows my shadow and the streaks that the headlamp makes as I wave it around.
The goal is to use your body to block the light. This lets the headlamp light up the trees or the trailer or the motorcycle as if by some magical source. Ideally you consider what would be lighting these things and mimic that. This is the skill and practice part. For the forest I shined the headlamp on the trees from the point of the fire pit and the trailer. I placed a lantern behind the tree to help kick some more light on the trailer. This give the impression that the campsite light is illuminating the trees. Which it was but not like that.
Same shot but I did a better job of blocking the light. My skill is understanding light, where it comes from and how it acts and then using that to capture a photo that "feels" like what I saw. It's story telling with light. I wanted a photo that felt like what the camp felt like to me.
So for this shot it's one 20 second exposure, f4 and maybe 6400 ISO. I use a Surefire headlamp because it can dim from 200 lumens to 1 lumen. I dim it down and walk around the camper waving the headlamp up and down. When I get to the far side of the camper I point the headlamp at the ground and crank it to 200 to make it look like car headlights on the ground. Again, it's my understanding of light that lets me "trick" you into thinking it's headlights because you see that all the time. The trailer running lights were too bright so I shot them in a separate exposure and then used Photoshop to "paint" them. I match the level to what your eye would expect. The last exposure is the car tail lights on the left which are car tail lights. Just another exposure. I faded them because it looks better to have the light grow in intensity because your brain reads that as speed.
Finally the glow around the trailer is the town behind down the coast. I chose my angle so that the glow from the town would "halo" the trailer. I also made sure that the guard rail would wrap around the trailer to act as a leading line. The spilled light on the grass is just more of the backlighting form the headlamp/headlight trick. The hill on the left was also painted in wth the headlamp to help give the shot more depth. Color temps were changed in the raw files before they were exported into Photoshop.
And that is how it was done.
I wrote an article for BIKE EXIF about light painting and it has some good info: http://www.bikeexif.com/motorcycle-photography-tips
Don't be intimidated by all the detail. I've practiced a lot and I'm also a pretty high end retoucher. Put your camera on a tripod and set it to a 30 second exposure at night and then use any kind of flash light to paint in what you have. If it's too bright stop down the lens or reduce the ISO. Don't shorten the time - you need 30 seconds to walk around something and paint it. Experiment and have fun.
Okay, photo lesson over. A friend has been encouraging me to teach photography and write a book so I'm toying with the idea. I've been lucky to have good teachers and an insatiable curiousity so I like the idea of passing that along. You know, after I build that intercooler...
Gregor
86scotty
Cynic
The best quote ever for successful fatherhood, "I am forgiven by my wife and hailed as a genius by my kids."
A friend taught me the endless fun of light painting with a tripod and long exposure a couple years ago. I'm no good due to limited vision (I have a hard time getting things in focus in the lens) but man is it fun to do anyway! I've lost a lot of sleep on trips playing around with it. Thanks for the tips!
Great pics. I know you've been up all night building an intercooler but if you have time to make part of your van journey into a trip report a lot more people will find and enjoy it. Lots of amazing TR's on the Sportsmobile Forum too, where you'd certainly be welcome. Only about half the people there even own an SMB.
A friend taught me the endless fun of light painting with a tripod and long exposure a couple years ago. I'm no good due to limited vision (I have a hard time getting things in focus in the lens) but man is it fun to do anyway! I've lost a lot of sleep on trips playing around with it. Thanks for the tips!
Great pics. I know you've been up all night building an intercooler but if you have time to make part of your van journey into a trip report a lot more people will find and enjoy it. Lots of amazing TR's on the Sportsmobile Forum too, where you'd certainly be welcome. Only about half the people there even own an SMB.
Arctic Travelller
Adventurer
Once again, spectacular photos, thanks for the lesson. One thing I don't understand is why, when your walking around the trailer light painting it, why don't you show up?
Roadbuster
New member
Gregor,
Thank you for sharing the build and the adventures! You really know how to create your vision!
I really liked that photo of the trailer and had to ask a photo expert friend: "How did he get that shot?!" Thanks for the explanation and tutorial on painting with light! I now have a new technique to try!
Jon
Thank you for sharing the build and the adventures! You really know how to create your vision!
I really liked that photo of the trailer and had to ask a photo expert friend: "How did he get that shot?!" Thanks for the explanation and tutorial on painting with light! I now have a new technique to try!
Jon
Gregor,
Thank you so much for taking the time to document this and all of your builds. I just found your house/garage build and have wasted much time looking through it and am only a few pages in. Your willingness to take the time to share and teach along your journeys is something that isn't found very often. I've documented a build on my 260Z and it is vague and minimalistic compared to yours and was a lot of work.
Thank you so much for taking the time to document this and all of your builds. I just found your house/garage build and have wasted much time looking through it and am only a few pages in. Your willingness to take the time to share and teach along your journeys is something that isn't found very often. I've documented a build on my 260Z and it is vague and minimalistic compared to yours and was a lot of work.