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Rig shots
A
'rig
shot' is
an image where the camera has been attached somehow to the subject,
usually a
car, to enable a much longer exposure of the subject than would be
possible otherwise. This gives an image with much more background
movement/blur than would be possible using techniques such as 'panning'
(where you shoot a moving car from a fixed position) or
'tracking shots' (where you shoot the subject from another car moving at
the same speed).
You won't find the term
'rig shot'
in the The term
'bolt-on shot' is sometimes
used in the What is a 'rig' or 'car mount' ? Cinematographers have been attaching cameras to cars for quite some time now and they usually call the equipment used to do this a 'car mount'. Cinematographers often refer to vacuum cup based mounts or rigs as 'limpet mounts'.
Some will argue that a 'rig' or 'car mount' needs to be some kind of device which a/ attaches a camera to the subject (namely a car) and b/ that extends the camera a significant distance from the subject, regardless of how it does it. This argument therefore disqualifies a simple suction cup and a ball head from being called a rig, even though it can in some case deliver very dramatic and interesting images. Feel free to take whatever stand you like on this, it doesn't matter. There are many, many different ways to mount a camera to a car and there is no single perfect rig. For the sake of clarification anything which allows you to attach a photographic device to a car will be referred to as a 'rig' on this web site. John G. Zimmerman, an inventive and successful American sports photographer, was a pioneer in the use of motorised remote cameras since the early '50's. Possibly one of the earliest rig shots is an image he shot in the 1950-60's (not certain about the date) where he attached a motorised remote controlled camera to a biplane whilst performing various manoeuvres such as rolling. See http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/760 and "Photographing sports, John Zimmerman, Mark Kauffman and Neil Leifer (Masters of contemporary photography)" for more about John G. Zimmerman. Rig shots have been popularised in the motoring print media by the photographers and artists from British magazines such as CAR and EVO since the late '90's. The popularity of rig shots in editorial markets predates the use of digital cameras so initially rig shots were shot on film and were usually shot in such a way that the rig was not visible and therefore would not require removal using Photoshop. This usually meant that a bit of the car was not visible in the image because it had the rig attached to it. This is still a popular option because it significantly reduces the amount of time it takes to create the final image but often is not as dramatic as images which show the entire car in the image. Full car rig shots are very popular and make for dramatic images but they also require potentially significant post production to remove the rig from the image. Rig shots themselves are
not a recent phenomenon, only their wide spread use in motoring print media.
Elaborate and extremely expensive rigs, some times called advertising rigs, have been used to create still
advertising images for much longer than we have been seeing these images in
popular motoring magazines. Some rigs are made from exotic materials such as Carbon Fiber
and some even have a glass section which is designed to allow easier rig removal from
the final image. These rigs are usually attached to the chassis of the car from
below. You can hire them, and the people that operate them, for many thousands
of dollars per day. But these are a completely different story to the rigs most
of us will use and to anything here on RigShots.com.au ! Rig shots have also become quite popular in TV car advertising in recent years and these days rig shots are the norm rather than the exception. Although their use with video is a little different to still cameras the way the rigs are used to attach equipment to cars is often identical. All references on this web site are to still camera use but there is no reason a video camera can not be used as long as consideration is given to the weight of the camera gear relative to the particular rig being used and it's application. None of the rigs sold here are designed for use at speeds above walking pace. There are basically 2 kinds of rig shots, 'Partial' or 'Full Car' (my own terminology, call them whatever you like). Partial rig shots don't show the entire car, ie. a corner or more of the car is cropped in the frame because this is where the rig is attached and the rig needs to be hidden in the shot. These kinds of rig shots are well suited to editorial or video use because they don't require any Photoshop work to remove the rig as the rig is already hidden from view. Sometimes these rig shots are nothing more than a detail shot, such as a close up of a moving wheel, or possibly the view of the driver (from inside the car) whilst driving at night. I REALLY like these kinds of images because they can still be very strong images but without all the post processing required with Full Car rig shots. Partial rig shots can require a bit more care to get right at the photography stage otherwise you will still have to give up some 'quality time' for 'Photoshop time' to fix problems such as vignetting, dust, flare, reflections, shadows, etc etc.
Full Car rig shots show the entire car in the image and are certainly the most popular and commonly seen rig shot. In these types of images the car is shot with the rig clearly visible in the image however the rig is later removed using Photoshop or similar. Full Car rig shots usually require a significant amount of post processing time to remove the rig from the image. Sometimes the rig can be removed in as little as a few minutes, other times it may take several hours to finish a single image. The time required to remove the rig and to complete all post processing is determined by many factors such as those listed below.
Full Car rig shots can be quite simple to setup and to post process but they can also be quite complicated and time consuming. The quality of the final result you achieve is also largely dependant on your Photoshop skills. Alternatively you can have someone else do the post processing for you, as is often the case with advertising work. One of the disadvantages of any kind of rig shot is that they can take a significant amount of time to execute fully, including all post processing in the case of full car rig shots. Consider the time it will take to complete a rig shot, including post processing to remove the rig, and charge for your time and efforts appropriately. Some clients pay a set job rate so any extra time you spend post processing, removing rigs from images etc is potentially at your own cost. Time is money so it is important to consider the real cost of such endeavours and to charge appropriately. Rig shots are created by physically connecting a camera to a moving subject (a car) and making exposures long enough to achieve enough background blur or movement to make the subject appear to be moving much faster than it really is. This often requires an exposure several seconds long so you may need to shoot them in a relatively dark environment, hence the preponderance of rig shots shot at night or in under cover car parks. Rig shots can easily be shot in bright sunlight however the bright sunlight will need to be tempered with Neutral Density filters which are designed to reduce the amount of light passing through the lens without having any other effect on the image. Sunlight also causes shadows which will either have to be avoided, in the case of partial rig shots, or removed in post for full car rig shots. Rig shots should always be shot at the slowest practical and safe speed, usually no faster than walking pace. I always walk with the camera and rig and I operate the cameras shutter manually. I find that in most cases it can help to apply a little pressure on the camera, or kind of 'pre load' it, as this seems to help to reduce the vibration passing to the camera. I usually use the cameras histogram to set the exposure, trying not to burn out the sky but paying the most attention to not loosing shadow details. Always shoot RAW, always! It might sound easy but in reality it can be quite hard to connect a camera to a car with enough rigidity so that you get a very sharp image during an exposure of several seconds. A very short and simple rig, such as a tripod with suction cups, can be very rigid and can pretty much be relied upon for very sharp images. Once you extend the camera many meters from the car, using some kind of boom, you are much more likely to have flex in the boom which will render images soft. There are many factors that come into play and that will have an effect on how sharp your image will be. This is by no means an exhaustive list but these are just some of the factors or issues which effect sharpness.
In some cases it is simply not possible to achieve a sharp image so it may be necessary to composite 2 or more images to achieve the final image. You might even find this to be the only practical and reliable way to work. In any case, it's always a good idea to shoot a few images of the car whilst it is stationary, preferably in the same light as the rig shots themselves, so that you have at least one image where the car is razor sharp in case you need to composite images later. Rig shots are not for the squeamish, clumsy or foolhardy. You are risking damaging a car every single time you attach any kind of rig to it so you need to decide if this is a risk you wish to take. You may have, and should have, third party liability insurance but this doesn't make it OK to damage a car. In some cases Insurance cover distinguishes between moving and stationary vehicles so you may not be covered in the event of a mishap with a rig! Vacuum cups can also damage paint surfaces, although it's not common, so are you really going to attach them to a prize winning paint surface with the owner sweating bullets behind you? On the other hand a 'journo' or 'press' car supplied by a manufacturer for a road test can have all manner of indignities thrown at it. After all, that's what they're there for. If you are not confident in your ability or you simply do not have any understanding, knowledge or experience using this kind of gear then you should not buy or use it. If you attach a rig or boom to an under body then you may risk damaging any suspension components if any of them move or rub on the rig. If you are using vacuum cups on paint/panels then you risk scuffing, scratching, or even denting the paint surface or panel. You may even be risking breaking a windscreen or window if attaching vacuum cups to glass. You may even accidentally hit a stationary object with the boom or rig, or another car or vehicle might even hit your rig if they don't see it. Have you taken every precaution that you can? The points below are just a few of the considerations you have to make every time you plan a rig shot.
If the answer to any of the above questions is a cause for concern then DO NOT PROCEED. The above is by no means a comprehensive list, it's just food for thought. Do Vacuum Cups damage paint or panels ? The simple answer is yes, they can! Damage from vacuum cups can be as extreme as a shattered window, windscreen or dented panel. Often this kind of damage is the result of poor judgment when fitting the cups or rig in the first place as no car panel, window or windscreen is designed to hold a large heavy rig. Other times the rig may move or fall on the car because one or more suction cups have lost grip. You need to exercise as much care and judgment as you can whenever you fit a rig. Never fit a rig onto a flimsy or weak panel. Look for the stiffest parts of a panel, usually near a crease or fold, and try to use larger vacuum cups if possible as this will spread the load better than small vacuum cups. Some panels are so weak that they can actually be deformed by the vacuum of the cup itself, but this is not common. Modern windscreens are made from laminated glass and are generally quite strong whilst old windscreens are made from tempered glass which can shatter under extreme loads. Full car rigs should never be fitted to tempered glass however light weight tripod based rigs, where possibly only one leg is attached to the windscreen, exert relatively little force so are relatively safe.
Some vacuum cups have a tendency to mark or scuff (lightly scratch) paint surfaces whilst others can leave a short term imprint of themselves in the paint surface. Always make sure vacuum cups and the surfaces they are attached to are as clean as possible. Protect the vacuum cups with their protective pads, if supplied, and store and transport them carefully to ensure they are not deformed or damaged. It's not a good idea to apply a vacuum cup to the interior of windows which are tinted with a film as the film will be deformed, probably permanently, by the vacuum cup. Adhesive films or stickers on the exterior of the car should not have vacuum cups applied because they may be damaged or deformed and they are often a cause of air leaks causing the vacuum in the cup to weaken or let go altogether. Vacuum cups behave differently depending on their design and the material they are made from. Some of the effects you might expect from a few commonly used vacuum cups are described below.
Vacuum cups simply can not be trusted to keep their vacuum and therefore keep a rig mounted to a car indefinitely. All vacuum cup manufactures warn users to regularly check vacuum indicators, where fitted, and to re pump regularly. It's safest to always assume that a rig will fall off and act accordingly, ie keep it supported whenever possible, before, during and after the shoot. The simple fact is that if you are confronted with a car where you can not afford to take any risks then do not apply any vacuum cups to any of the paint surfaces at all. The above is by no means a comprehensive list, it's just food for thought. There's no such thing an 'optimum' shutter speed for a rig shot, just an optimum amount of background blur. The optimum amount of background blur varies with the composition and the effect you are wanting to achieve. Background blur across approximately 1/8 to 1/3 of the image is commonly quite effective. Extending the background blur well beyond those amounts can hide the background and context of the image resulting in a car kind of floating in a meaningless blur. Sometimes a 1/2 a second exposure will do the trick, other times 20 or 30 seconds is needed to get the right amount of background movement. Background blur is also determined by the way the car moves during the exposure, not just the shutter speed. If the car moves in a straight line then the background may not move very much within the frame, especially where the camera may be positioned to shoot a dead front/rear or a front/rear 3/4 image. If the steering wheel is turned so that the car moves in a gentle turn where the camera is on the inside of the circle then the background blur is greatly accentuated so a/ the car doesn't have to move very much and b/ a shorter shutter speed can be used to achieve significant background movement. If you turn the steering wheel so that the camera is on the outside of the turn then you may find that the background actually moves very little if the background is close to the centre of the radius of the turn. Some parts of the background may even appear stationary if they are in the centre of the turns radius. As long as the background is some distance from the centre of the turning circle it will move at an accelerated rate compared to when the car simply moving in a straight line.
Achieving the optimum amount of background blur is the key to making a rig shot really effective. If you can get just the right amount of background blur then you let the viewer see the context or story of the image (assuming the composition allows for this in the first place, another major failing in most rig shots) whilst still having enough movement to make the image dramatic. If you go too far, then the entire background is nothing but blur with very little recognizable detail, no context, no story. A poor rig shot is often no more interesting than a good pan or tracking shot. Sometimes all they do is show the car in action but without the limitations of pan or tracking shots, ie with much longer exposures. A sharp car with lots of background blur isn't really enough to make an image stand out. A strong rig shot should have all the qualities of any strong image. It should be telling a story. The background should be recognizable and meaningful and the car needs to 'pop' from the background. The car should be in context and it should be doing something, not just going around in circles in a car park! Use your imagination. Use common sense when selecting a location for rig shots. Only shoot in locations where it will be safe and legal to do so. The location you choose should also be determined by the look or image you want to achieve. Maybe you want the car to be seen going through a leafy bend on a country road, a corner on a race track (with ripple strip in foreground), down an alley, the list is endless. The direction of the sun or light will also need to be considered. Often the ideal location is only ideal at a certain time of day so make sure you are ready when you need to be. Once the broad style or look is chosen you need to consider the little things that make all the difference to the final image. I try to choose locations which are on enough of an incline that the car can roll on it's own at a gentle speed. This prevents you having to push it! Locations which are a bend on a slight incline are often ideal, preferably with tall backgrounds, trees or buildings, so that there is something in the background which can actually blur. A background with nothing in it can not blur and is useless for a rig shot! Look for road surfaces which are very smooth and preferably without joins or cracks which can cause vibration. Even small pebbles can cause vibration so if possible try to clear these away. I sometimes scatter leaf litter on the road surface because it will blur during the rig shot and add interest to the road surface, avoiding a dark featureless blur as can often occur with the road surface. There are only 3 filters which I would recommend to anyone contemplating rig shots. They are a circular polariser (usually the slim version), 3 stop and 6 stop Neutral Density (ND) filters. Stacking a polarizing filter with a 6 stop ND allows for exposures of several seconds in full sun or you could use a 10 stop Neutral Density filter on it's own if you don't like the effects of Polarising filters. Polarising filters are also very useful for rig shots, and for general car photography. Polarising filters are normally used to control reflections in panels or on glass, or to darken the sky or reflections on other surfaces in the background. Polarising filters usually reduce light by about 1.5-1.75 stops so they can be used in conjunction with ND's to reduce light intensity and allow a longer exposure. There are 2 kinds of polarising filters, 'circular' and 'linear', but most modern cameras require a circular polarising filter because of the way their metering systems work. If you are not relying on the cameras metering then you can use either one. Neutral Density (ND) filters reduce the amount of light which passes through them so they are often used for rig shots because of the long exposures often required. Neutral Density filters are meant to pass all visible wavelengths of light equally so that they don't create a colour cast but in practice most ND filters don't quite do what they are supposed to. This isn't an issue with digital where it's easy to correct for a colour cast but it is important to test ND filters when using them with film so that you know what you are in for and so that you can correct any colour cast with gels or similar. The best brands of ND filters that I have used have been the B+W and Heliopan filters. B+W has a very large range of ND's whilst the Heliopan ND's I've ever used have had virtually no colour cast at all. Both are made from high quality optical glass and are worth the extra dollars. When selecting filters it's usually best to buy the thinnest filters you can, usually called 'slim' filters, so that you can minimise the chance of vignetting with wide angle lenses. Always check if the filter you are buying has a front thread as filters which don't have a front thread will prevent you stacking another filter on top. I have ND's with front threads which allow me to continue to use my B+W slim circ-pol (which doesn't have a front thread) so the ND gets fitted first and then the B+W cir-pol sits on top. Heliopan ND's are a relatively thin filter but they still have a front thread whilst B+W Slim filters do not. The B+W Standard filters have a front thread. If you never intend to stack filters than an ND without a front thread might be a better choice. It's also a good idea to buy the largest filter that you might need, usually 77mm for Canon and Nikon users, and then use step down rings if the filters need to be used on lenses which require a smaller filter. Filters are expensive, step down rings are very cheap. The table below is an example of the kind of choice you might find in ND filters. This table shows the filters available in a 77mm thread from B+W, Heliopan and Hoya in 2009 and is not meant to accurately represent B+W, Heliopan or Hoya's products. See each manufacturers web sites for accurate and up to date product information. Other filters may be available in other thread sizes.
It can also be a good idea to use a mild ND, of maybe 3 stops, so that you can use a 'sharper' aperture on your lens instead of using f22 or f32 which are often a bit on the soft side compared to f5.6 to f11 on most lenses. The image quality of most lenses is often noticeably better at f8 compared to f22-f32. Common problems, dust, flare, vignetting Dust, flare and vignetting are common and simple problems which can often be avoided. Spending a few extra minutes before taking any photo's can save you a heap of time in post. Sure you can fix it later in Photoshop but why fix it several times in post when you can fix it once when shooting. Sensor dust is a major problem with rig shots because the blurred background acts to highlight any sensor dust, like a clear blue sky would. I've noticed that my 20D rarely has noticeable sensor dust, less than my 40D, whilst my 1DsMk2 is a dust magnet. Since starting to use the 20D, instead of the 1DsMk2, I've had virtually no dust problems at all, and therefore virtually no post either! Make sure your lenses and filters are clean and dust free so as to minimise flare when shooting towards bright light sources such as the sun or street lights at night. Dust on filters or lens surfaces can leave bright spots on the image similar to sensor dust spots but where dust on the sensor leaves dark spots, dust on filters or lens surfaces leaves bright spots.
Stacking Polarising and ND on wide angle lenses is bound to cause vignetting at certain focal lengths. I often use a 10-22 EFS with B+W slim circ-pol filter stacked with an ND. This results in vignetting if I shoot any wider than about 12mm. Other lenses exhibit vignetting at different focal lengths and with different filters so it pays to know the limitations of your lens/filters and to check for vignetting before getting stuck into shooting.
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