ORIGINAL: pignprogress

Shot some new pics of my car last night. Mustangmugshots.com is just a lil idea I have to promote some of the pics of my car and pics of some other peoples cars onceI begin to shoot them.I have been printing out my favs and basically have a shrine of my car in my room now[8D].I just added the fog light tint basically to see what it looked like so its only a rough draft of the tint, I have to do a proper one with out all the bubbles. yes I know I need rims, and springs and the list goes on. Just wanted you guys to see the mustang through my eyes. Hope you enjoy. Some of the pics are the same but just in black and white. The Gt 500is NOT my car it is Justin's from vmptuning.com

All pics were taken at about 1 am, I like to shoot at night its more relaxing and the sky line turns out crazy as you can see. yes you get more noise(grainy look in the pics) but my aim in my pics isnt to just have them clear Its more to have them look almost not real more of a imagination or painting style if ya get my point.......

current mods= c&l racer, udp, cmcv, 93 vmp xcal2, o/r-h , mac axle backs, roush spoiler, avs headlight covers,5%conerners, 5% foglight 5%all around. 35% winshield tint.

Mods in my closet= mac longtubes, 4:10(ford), roush springs,bmr lca,bmr bracket, internal antena, hood pins.

Mods on the horizan=mgw,gt-s2 hood, 20's ,zex(untill I can afford a s/c)

HDR? High def res? If so yeah Ill take some pics sooner or later during da or proper lighting. MY cam isnt the greastest its 9. mega pixels so at the proper settings and lighting it puts out a pretty decent image.

ORIGINAL: marcuskeeler

Nice ideas.
Please accept the following as constructive assistance......

You mention grain as being unavoidable (even desired) but it can be reduced a lot. Graininess is not an affliction your imageswant. While it might be at a visuallyacceptable level at small sizes, like these,blowing them up? - not going to happen.
What camera and in what mode are you taking these pics? it seems that you're taking them in a semi auto mode and simply playing with broad levels to achieve effects in Post Processing. This is why the car itself is often darker than the 'mood' requires.
If you're shooting in an auto or semi auto mode, youneed to be wary of the selected metering points, if the camera even allows you to alter them.
For best results though, you NEED to be taking these types of shots in full manual and making the best efforts to grab the desired shots using the camera to minimize the the amount of requiredpost processing.

See, when you're trying to balance highly contrasting light levels, the tough part is always going to be to get the dark points looking good. usually, by the time you've manipulated the dark section to a point where you think it'slooking good, the brighter points are washed out and grainy, as in the shot above, which obviously is the same shot after two stabs at processing it. Therefore you tend to make a compromise which ends up as simply that.

There are a number of ways of getting these types of shots and I don't want to regurgitate something you can easily get using google, but if this were me, I'd try the following.
Use a tripod and a long exposure with a small aperture, perhaps up to f18 and a low ISO. To accent the car, use a flash. The flash will illuminate the car and the long exposure will draw the background out.

The other thing is that youdon't have to take pics like this at 1am to get the light moody. Instead of taking a dark under exposed image and lightening it, do it in the daytime and use processing to darken the images, it's easier.

HDR, as previously mentioned is another, and very often the easiest way of achieving this, especiallywith [but not exclusively with] a limited function digital camera.

I hope you take these comments as they are offered, in a helpful way. You have a good eye for a shot, just need a little more technique.

Cheers
Marcus

ORIGINAL: akumaky

i like the skyline in pic 1

ORIGINAL: Steve O Chap

I like the location and I think you have an eye...

Megapixels doesn't hold near as much importance as so many people think. It comes down to the quality of glass you're using and the settings (know your photographic triangle!) that truly makes a quality image. A 9 megapixel camera will take amazing photos in the right hands...

BTW, what setup are you using? I'm a Canon guy XTi and 5D...

EDIT: The higher the ISO you use, the more graininess you'll get in your pictures... like it was mentioned above, with stationary objects your best bet is to increase exposure time and keep your ISO lower.