I think Diego was referring to the credibility of the magazine itself, not the Waligora's. HMM has always had a rep for getting it right, Diego is just a little more critical than the average bear. "He knows too much"...:laugh: :laugh: People tend to believe anything they read in the old magazines, (today it's the internet and the mainstream media), so automatically everything in them is gospel truth, right? I don't have as much of a problem changing the background of a neat photo like that as I do publishing the B.S. on individual cars, their history, and the process in which they were built. Can you spell Fakes? Clones? etc. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :bglasses: Sometimes stories are too good to be true.....and they usually are too good to be true...selling magazines is the business.
I believe the cover is legit, because, as you pointed out, the reflections of the guardrails, stands, and trees in the sides of the cars is real. I'm convinced all the other photos are legit, too, with the exception of..... The stinker is the spread on pages 18 and 19. It immediately struck me as odd, as if the cars are floating above the track. I think the photo of the cars and the photo of the background were taken from a different height and probably with a different focal length lens. Here's the tell-tale signs: 1/ The perspective of the Chevelle against the background photo makes it appear to be parked broadside across the track, with the nose actually angled a bit toward the starting line. If this were so, then its left front tire should be closer to the double yellow stripe than the right front. Instead, the left is much further from the double yellow. 2/ The cars were shot with the camera probably less than a foot above the ground. Look at how much of the oil pan (and more) you can see under the Chevelle. Also look at how you can draw an almost straight line through the contact patch of all four tires on both cars. That only happens when the camera is very close to the ground (look at other pictures of cars to see how the contact patches diverge when shot from a higher angle). Meanwhile, the perspective of the background photo appears to be from at least waist high, if not head high. 3/ The photo appears to be shot near the starting line. But where is the christmas tree, center guardrail/concrete barrier, and starter's canopy? There's other little signs, too, but those are the biggies.
diego, Undoubtedly you're right about the photo, but I fail to see why that matters so much. I think they, at least, got most of the facts correct in the article, and it's a good ad for the PSMCDR event.
Pegleg, I was only giving support to Brian. I didn't notice the pics in question when I initially read the issue. My comments were in general and had nothing to do with the article in question. Whatever the case may be, I don't think any of the regulars on this forum should take any comments about the race and its participants personally from other regulars. I know Brian is coming from a passionate POV of the hobby and I probably can assume that he - like me - is overjoyed when our clique gets coverage in the automotive media.
Diego, With your background you probably see errors in the photos that 99% of us would NEVER find. We don't get irritated with photoshop tricks, because we don't even realize they happened. I was just happy to see the article In Hemmings. I, of course, would have been happier had they chosen a Ford, but that's another subject!:laugh: Hemmings does tend toward sloppy editing in this Magazine, but a lot of people read it, so any ink helps the cause. We may be too critical, because we spot the errors that most people miss. Such is life. probably Bush's fault anyhow!
I just now looked at it and I gotta say, while I wouldn't bet my Biscayne on it, I think that shot's legit. I think it's simply shot with a lens that compresses the background and makes it the whole depth of field look way shorter than it really is. I think the cars are actually a good 60-90' down-track from the starting line. I know trees are usually removable, maybe that starter canopy is too? I wouldn't be surprised if Litwin had the track crew remove all that stuff for the sake of a cleaner shot. But also note the angle, the camera's really at a pretty strong angle going across the track, not down it. So there's a slim chance the canopy could be just out of the crop to the left. Although, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the canopy was in fact photoshopped out of this shot. I'm 50/50 on this. I am slightly puzzled by the apparently missing guardrail. But again, maybe it's removable (though I doubt it) or the Camaro was perfectly placed so as to hide it? As for your oil pan argument, I don't think that holds water, err... oil. Look at the shot on page 25, you can't see the Camaro's oil pan there either. And that's clearly a shot taken from a foot or less above ground level. Whereas, the 18-19 spread looks to be more of a 2-3' high tripod shot. I go back to the reflections and areas through the windshields and side windows b/c I know those are always the hardest areas to address when digitally moving cars to non-native backgrounds. The sun looks to have sunk lower by this point so body reflections are almost non-existent. But the distortion through the greenhouses looks pretty legit to me. I see what you mean about the floating effect. But look at those shadows, they're fairly intricate and omni-directional, again, very hard to fake with that kind of subtle effect. And in the end, why would they need to fake this shot? Litwin nailed all the other ones. In my book, it doesn't stand to reason that he didn't make this one happen too.
Actually, I think you've got it backwards. On pages 18-19, the cars were shot with a long lens (which is what compresses things); that's why their bodies are not distorted at all, like you see on some of the later pages (which were shot with a wide-angle lens). Meahwhile, the background could not have been shot with a long lens (which is the only way to compres things), because you can see both straight across the track and down the track, clear under the VIP seats. I don't know about today's digital cameras, but with a 35 mm film camera, I'd guess the cars were shot with a 50 - 70 mm lens, and the background shot with about 35 mm focal length. You'll note I didn't say anything about the reflections (or lack thereof) on pages 18-19, because it does appear to have been shot later. Even so, it is pretty simple to remove reflections; it's adding them that's tricky. I don't care how far away you get, you can't see that much of the Chevelle's oil pan if you're 2 - 3 feet above the ground. You may very well be right about removable christmas tree and starter's canopy. Honestly, I don't go around looking for photoshopped pictures in magazines. This one just really jumped out at me. I guess my problem with the issue is that I consider HMM to be the best musclecar magazine out there. They have good writers, good editors, good photographers, and high standards. So what's with going all National Enquirer on us? Anyway, I'm not going to discuss any further, because it's all conjecture on my part. And I wouldn't want to bet your Biscayne on it either. :TU:
That's why I dove into this discussion; I'm not sure they did. And neither are you (hence your conjecture statement). I emailed them yesterday just to see if I could get a comment, but nothing so far. (Not that I expected one.) I'm with you, I think HMM is great. Every month I'm amazed at the unique and crazy-cool content (sand dragging Charger in Iceland? Wow!) they publish - and it's usually matched it with some great photos. All in all, a great magazine. I can live with juicing the colors on cover photos (and interior photos to a degree). But yes, cutting and pasting cars onto other backgrounds is not something a high-quality rag should ever do. Not to mention putting forth erroneous information when the right info is but a phone call or mouse click away. 'nuff said.
Congrats! That really is a great article and an inspiration to all of us to give the kids a chance to get involved with these old car that we love so much! KID
