In the automotive world it’s long been a somewhat incorrect, I think, axiom that “you are what you drive.” All this was was running though my mind while reading e-mail from a reader about one of my Shutterbug reviews of a DSLR. If you are what you drive, are you also what you shoot?

I think you should use all of the information that I offer on this and my other website as a guide and should choose and use whatever kind of camera you like and, most importantly, can afford. I strongly believe that the kind of attitude that you bring to a shoot is more important than the equipment you bring with you.

If you really want to know what kind of gear I use to photograph cars (and other stuff)I use check out the My Gear page. And you should also know that all of it was purchased with my own money, except for a couple of cameras that were bought by my wife as gifts for me. There are no freebies from manufacturers, at least not for me.

How I Made this Shot: For example, the image of my former CLA 250 (above) was shot while I was on my ways to Cars & Coffee at the Vehicle Vault. It was made with an Olympus E-M10 Mark I and 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R kit lens with an exposure of 1/250 sec at f/9 and ISO 320. That’s also why, unlike some blogs, I also try to include exposure data whenever I can. And, this camera was one of the cars that Marty bought me for my birthday several years ago.

Please know that whenever I  mention any specific equipment or software it does not constitute a product endorsement. That’s because I am not employed by, under contract or personally sponsored by any company to create content that is designed to promote their products. Nobody pays me to write about their products.

When I review new cameras and lenses for this, my main site or for Shutterbug, I try to put myself in the position of a reader who wants to know how well the gear works when used under real world conditions. In all of my reviews, I’ve freely criticized cameras from all manufacturers because I’m not a fanboy of any particular brand. If I am biased toward anything it’s toward the truth, as I see it anyway. And this has not always endeared me to some camera companies or magazine editors. All I want to tell you about is: Does the equipment work as advertised and is it a good value? That’s my only bias.

PS: And if you read my long-term test of my CLA 250 you know that I’m not a paid Mercedes- Benz blogger either. If you missed my vlog on my search for a new car, check it out here. I’m going to have to do another vlog on Mary’s—not my—purchase of a 2018 Subaru Crosstrek. )This is being held up by my misplacing an in-car camera mount that for some reason seems to have disappeared despite its being big and red.)

If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here. And if you do, thank so very much.

Along with photographer Barry Staver, I’m co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s available from Amazon for $21.88 prices with used copies selling at giveaway prices—less than two bucks, as I write this, which is cheaper than your morning Starbucks coffee.

“The best way to learn how to photograph cars is “Practice, practice, practice.”—Joe Farace

Since there isn’t always a car show scheduled so why not shoot your own car?

On any given weekend pre-pandemic there was a car show or Concours d’Elegance happening somewhere. And that seems to be changing for the better, You can also find information about local shows in newspapers, enthusiast publications, and the Internet.

Lately, Mary has been finding local shoes on the Colorado Cars & Coffee group on Facebook. We found out about the group when we happened upon a small show at a local McDonald’s—nope, didn’t have a camera with me. But we met some nice people including the owner of a flawless 1957 white Susan Sommers Thunderbird and saw some great cars including a beautiful Bayside Blue Nissan Skyline and a charming 1930’s Ford pickup truck.

These kinds of impromptu shows are a growing phenomenon within America’s car culture and are not associated with a special event or organization but occur on a regular basis at a local donut shop or burger joint. These kinds of gatherings can be harder to find but make the effort because they are smaller in size and attract a different kind of enthusiast and cars. In addition to social media, visit shops that cater to cool cars, such as tire and wheel stores, upholstery, or paint shops, in short anyplace where you see interesting cars parked outside. Ask about upcoming shows, including those informal gatherings.

How I made these shots: The photograph of my now-departed Jaguar XJ-S at top was shot near Denver’s Mamie D. Eisenhower Park. It was made with a Pentax K-100 and smc Pentax-DA 50-200mm f/4-5.6 ED lens at 200m with an exposure of 1/350 sec at f/8 and ISO 200. One of the oldest tricks in the car photography book is to wet down the street to create reflections. I didn’t have permission or a hose to do that here so the water you see was added in post production using the wonderful plug-in called Flood from Flaming Pear Software. Download the trial version and give it a try,

The photo of my wife’s (former) low mileage 2006 Mercedes 350 SLK was made at a nearby lake using an Olympus E-M5 Mark I with Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R lens at 29mm. Exposure was 1/125 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 400.

You can see more of our old cars by using the blog’s Search feature and searching for “our cars.” 

The title of today’s post originally appeared in the text that for a wallpaper image that was available for download from the first generation of this website and blog. And while I am not alone in my disdain for these vehicles, it wasn’t always that way.

Back in 1984, Chrysler (or whateverthehell they called themselves at the time) my wife and I saw a pre-production Dodge Caravan doing high altitude testing while driving on I-70 near Vail, Colorado and we liked what we saw. At the time, we were driving a Subaru 4×4 station wagon and the thought of having all that space for hauling our studio’s photo gear was appealing, much more so than a standard full-size van. But all that changed after the Caravan was launched and subsequent generations of minivans quickly became the default mommy-mobile.

It seemed like as soon a baby arrived in a family, the couple raced down to a car dealership and bought a minivan because that’s what they thought they were supposed to do having been indoctrinated by the happy, smiling families and their dogs in TV commercials for minivans. Flashback to the 1960’s when my daughter was born and I owned a first-generation 1964 Plymouth Barracuda. With its fold down seat and folding trunk partition the available storage space was copious and the car had a sense of style (at least to me) and I never, ever thought, “Oh I need a truck to drive our young daughter around.”

The obvious alternative to a minivan is a station wagon. Nowadays station wagons, along with hatchbacks, seem to be anathema to most Americans, yet Europeans buy them in equal numbers to sedans. Other than Subaru, no Japanese maker, that I know of, still offers wagons, while most European car companies still do. Instead of my (now sold) Mercedes CLA sedan, I really wanted to buy the company’s CLS wagon. But I couldn’t because Mercedes did not sell the wagon version (pictured aove) in the USA. Instead Americans were only offered the smaller—yes, there’s less room—GLA crossover that is, nevertheless immensely popular. Hey it’s a nice little truck but if you need more room, why do I need to buy a bigger SUV?

For all the minivan haters out there. there is good news on the horizon: According to The Truth About Cars, the American minivan category accounted for 408,982 sales in calendar year 2019 but Americans won’t acquire 300,000 minivans this year. With the effect of the pandemic influencing some car sales, “the minivan segment saw its share of the U.S. market crater”—to 1.5 percent. I expect this trend to continue into 2021 as more and more Americana get into crossovers, like the 2018 Subaru Crosstrek that Mary just bought*, which while it’s not a station wagon is, in a way, a much better option for many families than a minivan.

*Please note that this is Mary’s, so now she has three cars: a 2016 Beetle convertible, the 2018 Subie and, yes, her company car, a 2016 Ford Escape. Me? As of this writing, I still do not own a car but Mary lets me drive the Beetle and Subie from time to time. Look for a video with my driving impressions of the Crosstrek real soon now.

Featured today is another one of the photographs that were entered in our National Photo Month competition. In case you missed the original contest announcement, here’s a link.

Today’s photograph is another entry from Jamie Zartman who is located in Grand Junction, Colorado and is mostly a landscape photographer. But Jamie also has a passion for cars as well and here’s what he had to say about the image shown today:

“On one of my spring visits to Naples, Florida and the annual Ferrari’s On 5th event, I spotted a beautiful black Mercedes SLR on a side street and took this photo of one of the rear wheels with my little Panasonic LX7. The design wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sports had a beauty all its own.”

At the end of the month, Mary will pick a winner(s) and I’ll showcase them in a special post. The prize is a Lenspen DSLR Pro Kit that contains everything needed to keep your camera lenses, viewfinders and filters clean. It includes an original LensPen for your lenses, FilterKlear for filters and the smaller MicroPro, specifically designed for cleaning viewfinders and tight corners that are harder to reach and clear of dust.

If the photograph of the car happens to be your own car, there will be a special extra bonus in the prize package.

“So long, Frank Lloyd Wright, I can’t believe your song is gone so soon”— Simon & Garfunkel

I wrapped up 2018 by selling my Mercedes-Benz CLA 250 that I’ve had a love-hate relationship almost from the beginning. So why did I buy it? It’s a long story…

The sale happened very quickly just before New Year’s Day and the car is going to a new home. I still have four low-mileage (22,000 miles) 225/40R18 Potenza tires from it for sale on Craig’s List if you are interested. The cool BBS knockoffs that I installed on the car with its summer Michelin Pilot Sport tires were sold and again went to a good home. The stock wheels with Bridgestone Blizzak’s helped sell the car in December.

While my wife, for some reason, misses the car, I do not. I think she liked the comfort of riding in its passenger seat, which is probably a little more comfortable than her 2016 Beetle convertible. Her other car is provided by the company she works for and is a 2018 AWD Ford Escape that she likes and while I’m not allowed to drive it (by company policy) I have caught ride in it from time to time. As with most anonymous crossovers, it’s pleasant — I guess.

So what’s in store for the next Joe Car? I have a friend who has an old Mercedes Benz AMG that I hope to talk him into selling me. If he doesn’t or I wait too long to make a deal, I still haven’t gotten over my fixation for Saab wagons. I know, I know, I’m demented. So who knows what the future hold for me car-wise. In the meantime, I’ll be driving Mary’s Beetle and while it’s the base model, it’s still lots of fun to drive. Its 1.8 Turbo engine is peppy even with the non-Tiptronic automatic transmission and it handles surprisingly well. In fact the overall driving experience is better than my CLA 250 but then again, I like driving smaller cars.

Stay tuned for what 2019 holds in store for my garage.

It was 35 degrees F with a strong wind producing a wind chill of 27 degrees, when I arrived at the now-named Exhaust & Espresso car show at the Vehicle Vault in Parker, Colorado. The highlight of the day for me was meeting fellow photographer Ken Nelson aka @phreddawg (on Instagram) at the show.

I normally don’t have any photographic goals when attending any car show but at the April event, I had three items I wanted to test and here’s how it went.

Test shooting my Olympus Pen F. As I mentioned in a post on my New Blog, I’ve always wanted a Pen F and for it’s first real test, I took it to Exhaust & Espresso. The weather may have been inhospitable but I must confess that unlike Ken, I was not properly dressed—not enough layers—so I didn’t shoot as many images as I may have liked. The photographs I did make did not dissuade me from my initial impression. I love this camera and look forward to shooting the First Saturday’s cars and coffee events in Colorado Springs, which kick off on May 5, 2018. The image of the Mercedes Benz is SOOC and shot with the Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R lens at 17mm with an exposure of 1/1600 at f/8 and ISO 250.

Test shooting my color IR-converted (by LifePixel) If you saw my post on converting a newly acquired Panasonic Lumix GX1 to infrared capture using LifePixel’s Hyper Color filter, I’m still experimenting with it, although the weather in Colorado this spring has been challenging. I’m looking forward to shooting it this summer but in the meantime I wanted to see what the camera/filter can do with non-traditional subjects like cars. The image here was from a RAW file tweaked in Color Efex Pro. Lens was an Olympus 17mm f/2.8 with an exposure of 1/1600 at f/4 and ISO 160 using one of the cameras custom settings that I want/need to tweak further.

Shooting Two Cameras. In the past whenever I shot using two cameras at the same event it always ended up in a disaster with the cameras banging against each other and in one case I ended up destroying a lens. (Yeah, I know I’m an idiot.) My plan was that using the GX1 with the sling-style BlackRapid Street Breathe strap and the Pen F with the better-than-nothing Olympus neck strap would make working with two cameras easier. Did it? Yes, up to a point. Did the cameras bang together? Yes, one time but I’m blaming the wind and will try again with next month’s show. There didn’t seem to be any real damage but there were some new, tiny scratches on the Lumix DMW-LVF2 viewfinder. And yes, that bothered me.

The next Exhaust & Espresso at the Vehicle Vault is on May 12, 2018. Hope to see you there.

•    Starts: 9:00 am
•    Ends: – 12:00 pm
•    Location: Vehicle Vault 18301 Lincoln Meadows Parkway Parker, Colorado 8013

Regular readers know that Mary’s personal car (her company car is a 2018 Ford Escape) is a Mercedes-Benz 350 SLK. No more. Recently she’s been experiencing engine problems and the cost of repairs was estimated at $3400. (See “Problems” below.) An experienced Mercedes mechanic told her that lurking in the future were other problems that could cost $8000-9000 to repair. This led her estimated repair cost for the not-so-distant future to exceed the car’s value. The mechanic’s advice to her was to trade it, so we did.

Mary’s new ride is a one-owner, low mileage (12,000 miles) VW Beetle Convertible with 20 months left on the original bumper-to-bumper guarantee and a big chuck of the 5 year/60,000 mile power train warranty intact. Gas mileage is expected to be 23-31 MPG from the 170 hp turbocharged four cylinder engine. It’s a bottom-of-the-line S-model with automatic compared to the manual transmission in my original 2001 New Beetle and 2003 GTI. Other than a few scratches on an interior door handle, the car presents as new.

The funny thing is that the fit and finish and basic amenities of the 2016 Beetle was many times nicer and had more standard equipment that her (originally $55,000) 2006 SLK. Go figure. The radio is not very good but that seems to be VW’s thing. Even my past VW’s with “premium” audio systems never sounded all that good, so this one is no surprise.

The car’s original owner was from California and he (and it is a he, named Kevin) purchased a full set of OEM, and I’m sure expensive, all-weather mats that were never removed from their sealed bag. My guess is that he did a little driving in the Colorado snow and opted out of the VW into a Subaru, I was told. Since the VW convertible is front drive, I think it was the car as much as the lightly worn and very noisy OEM 205/55R16 Hankook Optimo H725A tires. I plan on replacing them with either Continental’s ContiProContact or AVID TOURING-S. But Mary says that she isn’t in much of a hurry but my guess is that her first drive in snow will change her mind much as it did Kevin’s. Any tire suggestions? Click the Contact tab and let me know.

In the meantime, the sunny day we bought the car and she drive it with the convertible top down was followed by an intense snowstorm and then she was off to Texas on a business trip. But she loves the car.

PS. After driving the car, I couldn’t agree more, Even with the crappy Hankook tires, the car provides an overall better driving experience than my 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLA250.

Problems: For the V6 engine in her SLK, Mercedes-Benz produced certain models (lucky us) with defective gears in their balance shafts or with defective idle gears. These gears wear out prematurely, excessively, and without warning, causing the vehicle to malfunction, and the vehicle to misfire or stop running. If the timing chain fails, the pistons can hit the valves and cause severe damage to the engine. There was a lawsuit (Majeed Seifi, et al. v. Mercedes-Benz USA LLC) against Mercedes-Benz USA LLC where the plaintiffs allege Mercedes produced certain vehicles with defective gears in their balance shaft and defective idle gears. And Mercedes lost.

If there is a lesson here it is to do more than just check the CarFax (which we did) when considering purchasing a used car but also poke around on the Internet to find if certain models in certain years also have certain problems.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of any Cars & Coffee events is the unpredictability of what kinds of cars show up. Take f’rinstance the venerable Nissan GTR. There were a dozen of these Godzilla cars at December’s event at the vehicle vault in Park, CO. Then there was the gaggle of Ducati motorcycles that showed up to widen this event’s perspective.

And while the young people hovered excitedly around exotics, like the Gold AMG GT or the many Lamborghini’s in attendance, I enjoyed looking at some of the other cars like the Porsche 968 cabriolet, a car my wife Mary has always wanted, and the two Toyota MR2’s that were there—one from the first generation and the other form the second— both in mint or near mint conditions. I really wanted to talk to the owners but they were not hovering around their cars the way most people do; my guess is they were out gawking at the many high end exotics, including a McLaren that was in attendance.

This time of year, shooting the cars can be a challenge and I’m not talking about the challenge of people walking in around the cars you’re trying to photograph. Tip: Be patient and keep shooting. Nope. It’s the light. This time of the year, during the hours of the show, the sun is lower in the horizon and as you can see in these images produces contrasty photographs. Tip: Shoot low angles. If your camera has a flip out screen, use it and keep going lower shooting as you go and then come up unto you get the angle you think looks best. Remember: You are the one that gets to decide what look best.

One thing that I did notice is that many of the most interesting cars arrive early, well before the official 9:00AM start time (so they get a good spot, I guess) but also leave early opening spots for the latecomers. So tip to the wise: Arrive early and hang around while the “shift changes.”

In 2018 be sure to join us at the Second Tuesday Cars and Coffee that are sponsored by the Vehicle Vault and held in Parker, CO. The next one is this Saturday January 13, 2018 and we hope to see you there. Be sure to say Hi.

• Starts: 9:00 am
• Ends: – 12:00 pm
• Location: Vehicle Vault 18301 Lincoln Meadows Parkway Parker, Colorado 8013

In January 2016, I purchased a used 2014 CLA 250. It had 22,000 miles on the odometer and was clean as new and well equipped, although it lacked the 4Matic AWD option and wasn’t an AMG model. Not that made any difference to the haters out there who didn’t even think the AMG model, which includes 4Matic, was a real Mercedes either; clearly mine was a pretender too. Now I have 33,000 miles on it and I want to share some of my experiences and impressions:

I really like the exterior styling of the CLA 250; it’s better looking, I think, than the C-Class. The interior, not so much, but that’s the case with the C-Class too. Neither hold up to Mercedes cars of the past. Heck, even my wife’s 2006 350SLK, which originally cost $55,000 when new (we bought it used) has an interior that’s not as nice as my friend’s Honda Ridgeline.

The car rides OK and handles relatively well. One thing that helped was ditching the crappy Continental run flat tires it wore substituting with Michelin Pilots on aftermarket wheels that, I think, make the car look better too. Because we live in Colorado, we took the stock (ugly, I think) wheels and put on a set of Bridgestone’s awesomely awesome Blizzak snow tire for winter driving and my tire choices and changes have worked out well.

In the recent past, Mercedes re-invented to column shifter and even puts it on the S-Class. The problem with this is that it’s an electronic implementation and the shifter is mostly a cosmetic appendage; shifting into D when starting never works the first time and sometimes requires doing it a second of third time. As does reverse. It’s as stupid as the rising wheel shifter that Land Rover used on my Evoque. The trend of ungainly, ugly, awkward shifters across the European—and some American—car world has to end sometime. And can’t some too soon for me.

The non-touch ICE screen looks like MB doesn’t know how to integrate the screen into the dash, maybe Mercedes engineers should be made to drive any Japanese or Korean car to see how its done properly.

But the biggest flaw of all is the location of the B Pillar. I am a US medium-sized individual and I have to climb around the B pillar to get into the driver seat. Even my wife, who’s smaller than me and has the seat much closer to the steering wheel, has to climb around it. My theory is that Mercedes, in their quest to get an entry level car that actually looks like a Mercedes, built this car around the smaller A-Class hatchback platform and now we’re stuck—actually I’m stuck—with it. This one feature is so maddening that it will be the reason that come January 2019, the CLA 250 will be gone.

If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat Joe to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here. And if you do, thank you.

In the last 12 months,16.5 million U.S. drivers having used premium fuel despite the vehicle manufacturer’s recommendation. AAA conducted a comprehensive fuel evaluation to determine what, if any, benefit the practice offers to consumers and found no benefit to using premium gasoline in a vehicle that requires regular-grade fuel

In partnership with the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Automotive Research Center, AAA tested 87-octane (regular) and 93-octane (premium) gasoline in vehicles equipped with a V-8, V-6 or I4 engine designed to operate on regular-grade fuel. The laboratory testing found no significant increases in any tested category, indicating the practice of using premium gasoline when it’s not required for the vehicle offers no advantage.

To understand the magnitude of the issue, AAA surveyed U.S. drivers to understand what type of fuel their vehicles require and the frequency at which they upgrade to premium fuel. Results reveal:

• Seventy percent of U.S. drivers currently own a vehicle that requires regular gasoline, while 16 percent drive vehicles that require premium fuel. The remaining 14 percent own a vehicle that requires mid-grade gasoline (10 percent) or uses an alternative energy source (4 percent).
• In the last 12 months, 16.5 million U.S. drivers unnecessarily used premium-grade gasoline in their vehicle at least once. On average, those that upgraded to premium gasoline did so at least once per month.
• In the last 12 months, U.S. drivers unnecessarily used premium gasoline in their vehicle more than 270 million times.

And here I always though that people with cars, like mine, that require premium gas using mid-grade were the problem…

gas pump photo: By Anthony Inswasty – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35373146