In terms of two year satisfaction with C-Quartz: I am happy, it makes it really easy to keep the car clean and makes a lot of things that would otherwise damage the clear coat just wipe off without caring. At the same time it does not protect against small rock chips at all. In the future (any new car and/or repaint of a car) I would do a full PPF wrap with a ceramic coating on top to get the best of both rock ship / minor scratch protection and easy to clean paint / film protection.
That all said, with the car looking rather clean and pretty and my building having a parking garage as part of its complex I decided to do a midnight parking garage photo shoot.
EF-S 10-22mm f/9.0 ISO 100 20"
Some information about the photography equipment used:
Camera body: Canon Rebel T2i (also known as the 550D)
Lens 1: Canon Ultra-Wide Zoom EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM always with B+W 77mm XS-Pro Kaesemann Circular Polarizer MRC-Nano Filter
Lens 2: Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM sometimes with Calumet 58mm Circular Polarizer Multi-coated Filter
And, since I do not have a tripod we also used a Werner 3-Step Foldable Step Stool.
I have linked to products on sites I trust / official sites as I can find them, apparently both of the filters I used are no longer available and I could not find a good product page.
For each photo I am listing lens used, f-stop used, ISO, and shutter speed. Additional photography related discussion below.
In the photo above and below I used the circular polarizer filter to reduce the reflection of the garage floor and the amount of glare on the driver side window from the first photo.
The two photos above are one and two steps of underexposure from the first photo.
The exterior lights turned off in the middle of the photo above being taken.
For the photo above and all the ones using the EF 50mm below I switched from using the top step of the step stool to using the second one in order to get a better angle on the car. The top step was giving too much of the garage above.
Also, the shot above and below were taken without the circular polarizer.
For the photo above and thereafter I used the circular polarizer filter while using the EF 50mm. The photo above is darker than two photos above because the circular polarizer filter reduces the total amount of light coming in. It is still darker despite 3 more seconds of exposure time.
Again, I used the cirular polarizer filter to reduce the amount of reflection of light and parking garage floor.
Using a much faster f-stop the photos above and below have detail in the immediate focus area while the further from it the more out of focus things get. Also, at the faster f-stop a lot more light is coming in so the shutter speeds are much quicker.
Again I was playing with reflections with the circular polarizer filter.
If you look underneath the front bumper by the wheel and the same just in front of the rear wheel you can see some of the factory rock guards in bad shape. We are not quite sure how we tore them up but we will be looking to get them fixed.
I returned back to the less open f-stop for the photo above and below. The shutter speed is much slower and we get a lot less light than in the f/1.4 photos.
This show is wide open at 10mm from the same position I was shooting with the 50mm. A tone more context. I zoomed with my feet / camera position a lot for this shoot.
We decided to take some photos of the area surrounding the parking garage. Immediately there is a train depot, train tracks, and then an electrical substation. Further off there is a bridge and a strip mall.
I was not sure how the orange lights would come out but I am really happy with it.
If you have made it this far and are still reading... A few more things photography related:
First, I did not do much in the way of post processing on this. Some of these I white balanced, many of them I did not. There is a lot more that could be done with these in terms of post processing.
Second, there are a few errant pixels. I am not sure if these are due to scratches in the filter coating or if the sensor for my old Rebel T2i (acquired circa November 2010) is starting to go. I think it might be the sensor though as it showed up some here and on other photos I have taken in low light.
Third, there is also a lot more that could be done here with lighting. If I had a set of flashes I could have done some interesting things. My wife and I could have done some light painting (we would only be using flashlights, what we have, but you can get lights that are more purpose built).
Also, if we had moved the car back or forward a bit it would have changed our proximity to the garage lights and therefore where our reflections and highlights were coming from. We might play more with that on another shoot.
Lastly, if you like any of what you see but would like a copy without the watermark, let me know. I am happy to provide copies of the RAW files or the converted JPEGs sans copyright (though if you are publicly posting I would appreciate attribution). Just leave a comment below.
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