Magical motors

Jason Parnell-Brookes joins Nikon School UK on the starting grid for a classic car shoot

This issue we’ve joined Nikon School UK at Bicester Heritage to learn how to shoot classic cars on the track, in the workshop and on location. Using a combination of natural light, flash light and the weather, we’ll be shooting three varied set-ups. In each set-up cars of varying degrees of readiness were being worked on and test driven, which gave us ample opportunity to get a multitude of photos.

We’ll walk you through the settings you’ll need to make the most of shooting in similar situations, indoors and outdoors; advise you on good compositional techniques for shooting both static cars and the engineers working on them; and also show you how to pan for dramatic shots of speeding cars out on the race track.

We’ve also explored the use of black-and-white photography and under what circumstances it might be advantageous to remove the colour. Plus we look into some of the more advanced shooting set-ups, such as using wireless triggering and Nikon’s Creative Lighting System to control your Speedlight. We even get the chance to use a Colour Temperature Orange (CTO) gel to make the flash light orange, simulating a sunset during the middle of the day.

There’s lots to get stuck into, so let’s get cracking…