Tampa Bay Auto Museum- A Great Rainy Day or Sunny Day Place

I  recently joined some fellow photographers at the Tampa Bay Auto Museum  and I was not disappointed.  This is a privately owned museum full of old cars and a few other mobile vehicles.

These are unique in that they are not your normal classic cars.

These are all something different, such as a different way of combustion, early front wheel drive, etc., here at Tampa Bay Auto Museum.  The docents are knowledgeable and friendlyand they really like cars!   Also, they are OK with photographers as long as you are very careful around the cars.

The secret to getting great auto images is get down low!  It’s not too great for the knees so I often wear knee pads.  Using the tripod helps with getting up & down!  But the images you get from that angle are so worth it!

There are lots of details to photograph which is one of my favorite things about old cars…they have so many interesting parts!

I would recommend a tripod or flash as it is pretty dark for normal photography.   With the tripod you can use longer exposures and there will be no camera shake.   To make sure there was no tripod shake I also used a wireless trigger to trip the shutter.   I shot multiple brackets (same  f-stop but different shutter speeds) so I could either process via HDR (which is great for cars) or I had various exposures to pick from depending on the look I wanted.

When shooting in this type environment, you need to be mindful of the background.  This is a bit less of a problem in this building compared to shooting cars outside at a car show, for example.  But if you don’t want to have distractions in your image you may need to move around and go up or down in your position to get the least cluttered view.    There is always Photoshop but its best to get as much done in the original shot as you can.

So if you are looking for something to do in the Tampa Bay area on a rainy day or a hot sunny day, I recommend this very interesting auto museum, Tampa Bay Auto Museum.

To see the  original images and more please visit my gallery and for more classic cars my cars gallery.