Dino Saga 070617 _ Whole week of mostly sun | FerrariChat

Dino Saga 070617 _ Whole week of mostly sun

Discussion in 'Corbani's Corner' started by John Corbani, Jun 17, 2007.

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  1. John Corbani

    John Corbani Formula 3
    Honorary Owner

    May 5, 2005
    1,153
    Santa Barbara, CA
    Full Name:
    John Corbani
    #1 John Corbani, Jun 17, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Dino Saga 070617 _ Whole week of mostly sun

    Funny living in Santa Barbara. Weather report is never right but the result is never really bad. It’s just not what they predicted the night before. You can get ticked off if you take things too seriously. We have sayings “May Grey“ and “June Gloom”. We had the May Grey but June is starting off just fine. Mostly sunny mornings, If not, clear by 9:00 AM. During May we had fog in the mornings, clear to sun at 2:00 to 5:00 PM. Evenings were great but the rest of the day sucked.

    Hardly any rain here. Rainy season is December to March. Average 17” during those four months. Rest of the year, maybe an inch total. This rainy season was about 4” so we are dry. Morning fog keeps flowers going but makes it hard to keep the Dino nice and shiny without putting on the Tyvek cover overnight. I will do the cover for a week after a wash but then it gets to be a problem. Car gets bird droppings, dust, dirt and hand prints during daily driving. Putting on the cover smears the mess and runs a risk of scratching. After a week, I leave the cover off and the car gets dirty faster. The car is in a car port so nothing drops directly on it but the fog sneaks in on the right side, the front and the rear. Just a little bit of moisture glues the daily mess down. Got to wash every two weeks. In July the sun should come out early, the air should dry out and a 3 week wash cycle should be possible. Then home free until November/December.

    Santa Barbara water is notoriously hard but Turtle Wax Car Wash softens it and does a great job of gently loosening pretty much everything. Quick rinse with a fine spray and a real Chamois to dry leaves things pretty good. McGuires Cleaner Wax every month keeps the water beading. Clear coats are wonderful. Car is hanging in there.

    Wrote the above on Friday and Saturday the fog didn’t lift till 3:00 PM. Like I said, you never know. But the evenings are great, you get a good night’s sleep and all is right with the world. Had a big birthday at the pool so was too busy to worry about the car. I am owner, manager, and sole employee so I wear many hats. Keeping 25 10 year olds happy without having them destroy the place was Saturday’s job. Did it and got a piece of chocolate cake for my efforts. Good cake, good party and mom’s check made it all worthwhile.

    Did a quickie washdown and took a few shots while the sun was going good. First a shot of the clock. New window matches the glass ones on the other instruments. Combined flash and bright sun. Not too bad. Just got a new camera, Fuji S6000fd. Wonderful to have manual control of both focus and zoom. Lens also has a shorter focal length than my old S5000. Same 10X+ zoom. Makes life easier with all interiors and close-ups. 28 to 300 mm equivalent to 35 mm camera lenses. Old one was 39 to 390. The lens is heavier than old one but not too bad. Camera is quite amazing so far. 6 megaapixels is twice the S5000 so there is more leeway in cropping. I can be a little sloppier in framing and leveling. Will talk about the camera a little more as I get more familiar with it.

    John
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  2. Crawler

    Crawler F1 Veteran

    Jul 2, 2006
    5,018
    The new paint job looks terrific, as do the photos! How did you do the starbursts, filter or Photoshop?

    Turtle wax car wash is really good stuff. Works great on the cars and also on my glossy-painted porch floor!
     
  3. John Corbani

    John Corbani Formula 3
    Honorary Owner

    May 5, 2005
    1,153
    Santa Barbara, CA
    Full Name:
    John Corbani
    Dan,
    The starbursts are for free with most cameras and a metalic paint job. The star fingers are reflections from the edges of the iris blades that set the aperture of the camera lens. The location of the starbursts depend on the sun hitting a point on the car's surface that reflects the full light of the sun into the camera's lens. The camera overloads above a certain point and sees the light as white points whose size is proportional to the amount of light. The center of the star is the reflected light directly. The rays are the light bouncing off of the edges of the iris blades. The blades are black but the surface is smooth. There is always some reflection. If the light is strong enough, you get white.

    The surface that reflects the sun is another matter. The chrome parts and the glass parts are natural culprits and there you see the brightest stars. The paint is another matter. Metalic paint is a mixture of glossy top coat and very reflective aluminum particles embedded in the color undercoat. Billions of particles scatter light in all directions. If one particle on one surface is oriented just right, the reflected light can overload the camera sensor. If the surface is curved, many particles along the curve will orient particles in a particular direction. That is where the starbursts along the headlight cutouts come from.

    There is no Photoshop at all involved although Photoshop has a function that provides a similar effect. It usually looks forced and unnatural when used.

    My painter used lots of aluminum particles, more than was used in the paint of 12-13 years ago. I like the effect of the modern paints. Thanks for the compliments.

    John
     
  4. Crawler

    Crawler F1 Veteran

    Jul 2, 2006
    5,018
    Interesting. I've taken lots of car photos, but I don't think I've ever gotten such prominent stars. That's quite a finish!
     
  5. synchro

    synchro F1 Veteran

    Feb 14, 2005
    9,294
    CHNDLR
    Full Name:
    Scott
    I'm also partial to the color of Blue that you chose, it is very attractive.

    The clock looks great.
     
  6. John Corbani

    John Corbani Formula 3
    Honorary Owner

    May 5, 2005
    1,153
    Santa Barbara, CA
    Full Name:
    John Corbani
    The base color has a lot to do with the stars. The very dark blue fools the camera metering into thinking it needs more light. I force the metering on the medium dark blue and let the highlights blow out in the rest of the frame. Most of the time the brightest part of the frame is the highlights on the car. It is the only specular item in the frame. Houses, flowers and blue sky are pretty mellow. Nothing comes close to curved chrome with a back light. The back light also adds to the effect. You can see almost nothing of the grill. I have had a lot of practice and also a lot of time with Brooks Institute profesors figuring out lighting. We have worked to get just the right lighting on technical subjects to win multimillion lawsuits in the semiconductor industry. So far we are batting 1000. And so it goes.

    John
     

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