So if you have the same desire to shoot as I do and find yourself a passenger in a car, bus, plane, train or any other moving vehicle, here are some tips for you to try.

1. Think ahead and be prepared. Dress in dark colors so you won’t be competing with your own reflection in the window glass.

© 2011 Noella Ballenger.  All Rights Reserved.

Preparing for landing in Phoenix, Arizona: It is fine to put in parts of
the engine or window frame because it adds orientation to the shot.  
Be careful of the curve in the lower part of the window. Try to shoot above it.

2. Where to sit: If you are traveling by plane, see if you can get a spot in front of the wing to avoid not only the wing blocking your view, but the exhaust trail from the engines. If you’re on a bus, I like to sit near the front so I can utilize both the side and front windows. While you’re riding in the car, anywhere but in the driver’s seat, but again, you’ll have more options if you’re in the front seat. I never travel by train, so try to choose the best you can, as long as it’s by a window.

3.  Regardless of what means of transportation, try to pick either the side away from the sun so you’re not shooting into the sun and/or on the most scenic side.  Hopefully those will be the same side.
 

4.  Try for a clean window if you can’t open the window.  Carry a tissue or small towel with your camera gear so you can clean the inside if you need to do that.
 

5.  Shoot at a slight angle so you won’t get a reflection or sun glare off the glass.
 

6.  Bump up your ISO.  You want to keep the aperture small enough to carry the scene, but still stop the motion.  My best exposures were F8 or F5.6, with a minimum of 1/250 sec. shutter speed (1/500-1/1000 sec. preferred).  Work your ISO so you can keep up speed and still maintain a good exposure.
 

7.  Don’t try to brace yourself against the vehicle because you will only pick up vibrations from the body of the vehicle.  Instead, lock your arms into your chest, while bracing your camera against your brow.  This will help steady you and the camera.
 

8.  Try to go for the more distant shot.  If you include too much foreground, it will show movement and the closer the subject is to the car, the more blur will become a problem.
 

9.  Aim either ahead of yourself or behind so that you don’t pick up the 90 degree (right-angle) close movement blur.
 

10.  Try some shots in black and white or infra-red, so the color distortion cast from the tinted glass won’t become an issue.
 

© 2011 Noella Ballenger.  All Rights Reserved.

I had just converted an old camera to infrared shooting and was playing with it to get a better feel for seeing in infrared.  Working with two cameras can get tricky, but I knew this shot of the bridge would look great in both color and infrared.  With no cars close behind us, we just slowed down so I had the time to quickly get the shot with both cameras. 

11.  If you can’t fight motion, use it as a tool.  Try deliberate blurring or panning.  Experiment with other techniques and just have fun them.
 

© 2011 Noella Ballenger.  All Rights Reserved.

Driving in Montana, you could see a lake behind some trees, so just for fun,
I slowed the shutter speed way down to see what would happen.  Sometimes
designs and patterns can be more interesting than the reality of a scene.

 

12.  Be prepared and watchful … you can never tell what will come up fast.

O.K.--now I have indulged myself and I have lots and lots of images on the memory chip.  Some will get deleted immediately, some will be definite keepers and some I’ll try to salvage.  Remember, it’s ok to toss images and when you’re capturing images from within moving transportation, you will toss lots and lots of them.  But let’s say I want to share something special or do something more with a casually taken image.  So what happens next?

I use Adobe Photoshop software, but there are other programs out there to edit your images.  Choose the one you like.

Here are some basic steps:

1.  Correct the exposure if you need to do it with levels and curves … and sometimes you need to correct for the tint on the windows.
 

2.  Crop off the parts that show movement or blur.
 

3.  Try to correct the effect of noise.  This is a common problem--remember I said to push that ISO up.  These storm images were shot at ISO 800 through a tinted window, so there was a lot of noise. 
 

There are some programs that act as a plug-in to Photoshop that have special functions like noise reduction.  I tried that but it wasn’t enough.
 

So, I added a Gaussian blur but that took away any sharpness that I might have had.
 

I did both with some sharpening in between.  When in doubt try it all, but be sure you are making any changes on duplicates of the image you like or you can lose your original image.
 

4.  Switch your mind to the artistic mode.  If you can’t get rid of the noise, learn to work with it to your advantage.

Dry brush is one of my favorite fix-it-artistically tools.  It didn’t want to be a photograph so I turned it into a painting.  Maybe it looks better as an oil painting, using the Palette Knife tool, or as a watercolor where noise adds to the effect.  Try a variety or combination of techniques—have fun creating a beautiful effect.

This one didn’t work well as a photograph because of the focus and some movement so Photoshop’s artistic filters worked wonders in turning this storm shot into a painting. 
Just have fun and see what you can create--the rains are coming down hard.