Shooting cars at night in a city like Hong Kong is a different challenge than a controlled studio setup or a daytime location shoot. You're working with mixed artificial light, heavy traffic, unpredictable locations, and gear decisions that have real consequences when you only get one chance at a shot.
Coming to you from Mike with North Borders, this fast-moving video follows a night shoot in Hong Kong around a heavily modified Nissan Silvia with two lenses doing most of the heavy lifting: the Sony FE 28-70mm f/2 G Master and the Sony FE 50-150mm f/2 G Master, both mounted on a Sony a1 II. Mike leans on the 50-150mm to get a compressed look against Hong Kong's skyline, but the 28-70mm ends up earning its place during panning shots where a wider field of view makes more sense. One concrete issue he runs into early: the car isn't registered and had to be towed to the location, which kills any chance of moving it between spots. That constraint shapes the entire shoot.
One practical technique Mike walks through is exposure stacking for headlights. The basic idea is shooting two frames from the same position — one long exposure with the headlights off to capture ambient light, and one at a faster shutter speed (around 1/100th of a second) with the headlights on. You bring both raw files into Lightroom, open them as layers in Photoshop, set the headlight frame to blend mode "Lighten," and it composites cleanly without blowing out the surrounding scene. He shoots this handheld and uses auto-align layers in Photoshop to compensate for any movement between frames, though he recommends a tripod if you want cleaner results. The technique works well for any car shoot where the headlights and the background are competing for exposure.
Mike's panning technique is also worth paying attention to. Rather than bracing against his body, he gets the flip screen out, bends his knees slightly, and rotates from the hips. He's shooting at 1/120th of a second at f/2, ISO 800. It looks unconventional, but his reasoning is that moving from the hips gives you a smoother arc than trying to pivot from the shoulders or just moving the camera with your arms. The rooftop car park locations end up being genuinely impressive backdrops, and there's a last-minute sequence involving a spiral parking garage driveway where the crew gets exactly one attempt to nail the shot before getting kicked out. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Mike, including how that final spiral shot actually turns out.
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