Who does HJ's photography of the cars he road tests ? I like the narrative of his tests, it's often a welcome departure from the stereotyped guff produced by the comics. Much more relevant to the real world. But the photography is often a bit of a disappointment to me. There are some basic errors being made and it wouldn't take much to transform the approach to do the cars more justice. In the XK8 test all of the shots are underexposed by at least one stop, the use of a wide angle lens emphasises the elements nearest the camera, the depth of field is too big, the interior is metered for the exterior. I know he has a big fan club, often keen to express its devotion. Somebody must have a short/medium tele-zoom throw out the background, highlight the subject and emphasise the potential of the car ? And a hand held light meter to measure the incident light. I suspect the manufacturers won't be over enamoured by how some of their cars end up being portrayed. The black XK8, for example, ends up looking very glum indeed.
This is criticism, offered constructively. I shouldn't get barred for it. I'd be happy to help (free) if he ever takes the cars to Scotland (where there are fantastic test routes, by the way.)
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Personally I would prefer some bigger photos. It would obviously increase the bandwidth etc., so I will understand if it's not possible.
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You had me fooled. It may not be a big budget, big money site but in almost every respect it looks it. The photography is occasionally the exception to this. As I said, I'll happily do them for you for nothing but I live in Scotland. It would be good to give something back to the site.
Alternatively, on the Ixus take a few examples of each shot you might want to run, metering off different parts of the shot. For example, if you meter off the sky the lower part of the shot will be under exposed. If you meter off the car you will get varying results, depending on the colour and the amount of light being reflected back from it. Certainly zoom in as much as possible, standing further back from the car so that it is still composed as you want it. This will flatten the perspective and make the car look much more purposeful. As a basic rule, fill the frame with the subject.
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