Every year in mid-September the city of San Bernardino, California hosts the annual Route 66 Rendevous. It is a gathering of classic cars and enthusiasts in the closed-off streets of downtown for 4 days and evenings. Within the barricades a “cruise” route is established and car owners are free to ride the loop and show-off their customized or restored street machines.
For the past 3 years I’ve taken my camera downtown during an evening cruise to capture some of these beauties. I fell in love with the look I got the first time I tried to capture the cars using the panning technique. Since then I’ve tried different lenses and cameras to attempt to improve the look. This year’s images turned out pretty well. I’ve been wanting to make a calendar with them but so far I have settled with this little video.
Many of the shots I attempt just don’t come out well at all (some would say that none came out well :-) ) because of such a slow shutter speed. In order to blur out the background I have to use at least 1/2 sec – 1 sec shutters. In spite of the appearance, the cars are barely moving. Most of the pedestrians are walking faster. I use an aperture between f4 and f8 and the lowest iso on the camera. To me, low noise is key to getting the most pleasant looking blurs. Camera is set on manual and lens on manual focus as well. With everything moving so slowly you really don’t need to make many adjustments. Just play around with the shutter and aperture settings a click up or down until you like the exposure. I shoot by setting the focus on a car directly in front of me, where I want the car when I make the exposure, then swing over to an approaching car and start to line up the shot. I get a firm grip with both hands on the camera and pull both my elbows tight against my chest to help steady the camera. Once I have matched the pace of the car with the camera I start shooting, and try to get at least one shot directly where I preset the focus.
