In your car

Silver Simon

Silver Simon

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I've been taking my camera to work lately to try and get some shots of otters before I start work.

I carry the camera on the passenger seat.

As, somebody fairly new to photography without the ability to look at a potential 'shot' and evaluate the settings within seconds, I have the camera on P or the 'box'.

Logic behind this is I'm waiting for that once in lifetime shot, when I'm at lights, in a traffic queue etc. The bloke running from police, something funny, witness to a car accident etc.

So, what setting do you have your camera set on, or doesn't it bother you?

Also, have you ever got one of those 'shots in a lifetime' while in your car? Would be nice to see!

My day will (may) come! :D
 
Not quite the same thing, but I grabbed my camera and bunged the flash on it tonight to get a couple of shots of the cat who was being a bit more compliant than normal, got a shot of him in full yawn - which usually evades me - then realised I was still on last night's 'play-about' settings of aperture priority with an ISO of 3200 :bang:
 
weybourne said:
Not quite the same thing, but I grabbed my camera and bunged the flash on it tonight to get a couple of shots of the cat who was being a bit more compliant than normal, got a shot of him in full yawn - which usually evades me - then realised I was still on last night's 'play-about' settings of aperture priority with an ISO of 3200 :bang:
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One for the duffers thread Adrian? :)
 
Silver Simon said:
I carry the camera on the passenger seat.
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Slight derail: Put the camera on the floor, not the seat. You may need to brake suddenly to shoot that once-in-a-lifetime shot, and how would you feel if you missed the opportunity because Newton's First Law meant your camera had gone through the windscreen? ;)
 
jon ryan said:
Slight derail: Put the camera on the floor, not the seat. You may need to brake suddenly to shoot that once-in-a-lifetime shot, and how would you feel if you missed the opportunity because Newton's First Law meant your camera had gone through the windscreen? ;)
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Yep no way would I leave an expensive camera on a car seat while driving - as well as the risk of it becoming airbourne if you need to stop suddenly there is always the opportunist thief who will see it on the seat while you are stopped at the lights, open the door or reach through an open window and leg it with your pride & joy.
 
weybourne said:
It's a bit awful - but I do like it (Dick Emery?). Very messy background. Could have been better :'(


cat yawn by felix rufus, on Flickr
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Lol that's brilliant. The setting I leave my camera at is "L" - for lock. Its on the same dial as the normal setting I use, aperture priority, but turning it off is essential to save wasting film. The OM-10 is even better, it works regardless of being "off" or "on" because that's only the power button for the lightmeter :P
 
Not that I'm religious about it, but Aperture priority at f/5.6 is a fairly safe bet for many situations.
 
jon ryan said:
how would you feel if you missed the opportunity because Newton's First Law meant your camera had gone through the windscreen? ;)
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In order to do that it would need to disobey gravity first, given that the seat is considerably lower than the windscreen.

FWIW I hang my cameras from the headrest on the passenger seat, except the Panny which lives in the glovebox.

Panny lives at ISO100 and Aperture priority permanently wide open. No other sensible setting to use.
 
I always leave my d700 on the seat. I just put the the seat belt on it! The belt fits nicely under the lip of the flash and stops it going anywhere.
I've done some pretty hardcore offroading like this and the camera never moved an inch.
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
In order to do that it would need to disobey gravity first, given that the seat is considerably lower than the windscreen.
.
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No it wouldn't - the front of the car compresses and the rear extends so the braking motion is not parallel to the road. The camera would, given enough energy change move up as well as forward. Obviously it would require a lot of energy to get it from the seat to the windscreen but it's not impossible.
 
POAH said:
No it wouldn't - the front of the car compresses and the rear extends so the braking motion is not parallel to the road. The camera would, given enough energy change move up as well as forward. Obviously it would require a lot of energy to get it from the seat to the windscreen but it's not impossible.
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In those circumstances, I'd be more worried about the rear wheels going over my head than the camera going through the windscreen ;)
 
Full-auto compact when travelling nowadays rather than the DSLR - that way I can have it with me pretty much all the time, whether I'm in a suit with a client or jeans about town. And I don't have to worry about having the right lens for the scene.

Fortunately the only two occasions I've had one of those grab-the-moment scenes I was just around the corner from home on both occasions and able to nip in the door, grab the camera and get back to the scene at just the right moment.
 
Never really thought about it, but I would guess it would depend on the lens I had on.

Preference would probably be aperture priority, auto iso, and continuous shoot.
 
I always set mine back to Av, f/4 to 5.6 AI-servo, continuos, ISO 400. That has a very fair chance to take pretty good shots of most things, and is easy to adjust either way.

P can have a mind of it's own and this may be very different from what is required.
 
Silver Simon said:
So, what setting do you have your camera set on, or doesn't it bother you?

Also, have you ever got one of those 'shots in a lifetime' while in your car? Would be nice to see!
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You will get something fab if you keep trying :thumbs:

Mine mostly sits with a 70-200mm @ F2.8 on aperture priority with a seat belt around it. With my iso being pre-set depending on the daylight.

This is a fave.
BoysToys.jpg
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
You will get something fab if you keep trying :thumbs:

Mine mostly sits with a 70-200mm @ F2.8 on aperture priority with a seat belt around it. With my iso being pre-set depending on the daylight.

This is a fave.
BoysToys.jpg
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That's cool ......... Apart from the shirt the poor lad has obviously been forced to wear! :)

Great tips one and all, just what I was looking for.

Maybe an 'in the car, unexpected photo' thread is calling.
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
....I think you might have just started one Simon. :D

Car, bus, cycle, truck, even train right?!

One from an open topped tour bus....

hmmlolly.jpg
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You could be right there! :lol:

Now do I go for the coloured swirly one or just a lollipop? Decisions, decisions!
 
One of the rare keepers shot from a car window...

i-XVmKS5M-XL.jpg
 
great pics, got me thinking about doing that myself. I take the camera to work everyday, but its in a bag and takes me a minute or two to faff about getting out ready. Guess I should practice, get ISO ready and leave it on autofocus perhaps so I can grab quick shots.

Great thread :)
 
I use the "C" mode on my 5D to make sure it is always easy to get to 1/125 @ f5.6 ISO 100. However, my camera gear is always in a camera bag in the car. When I'm driving, I'm concentrating on driving.
 
Craikeybaby said:
I use the "C" mode on my 5D to make sure it is always easy to get to 1/125 @ f5.6 ISO 100. However, my camera gear is always in a camera bag in the car. When I'm driving, I'm concentrating on driving.
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Thanks for that Lewis, I'll set my camera to that as I've nothing in the 'C' modes yet.
 
Just dont forget to leave the lens cap off Ive missed some crackers for the sake of the few seconds its took to whip that bit of plastic off.
 
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