Gadgetory

fast brutal supercars and sleek sexy super phones I had the chance to bring the two together in one epic road trip across Europe and God it was awesome the journey would take me 1,500 kilometres through Switzerland Germany and France before heading back to London the car a 20-17 mclaren 570s uber car with kittler good looks and a v8 engine that will propel it from naught to 60 miles an hour in a lightning fast 3.4 seconds my goal was to see how well the new Samsung Galaxy S 9 plus could capture the exhilaration and the exhaustion of a once-in-a-lifetime trip could the phone take the place of my trusty DSLR and shoot a magazine style sports car photo spread what follows is my attempt to do just that my trip started bright and early in Geneva I picked up the car from the heart of a city at 7:00 a.m. and after getting out of town I quickly found a lay-by to pull over and set up the phone to help me film the trip on the s9 I brought a compact Manfrotto tripod with a smartphone clip the challenge however was framing the shot properly while you get a live view at the scene when you're in photo mode as soon as you hit the video record button that view zooms in dramatically it makes it impossible to accurately frame your video before you start recording as a result all of my video clips needed trimming at the beginning to cut out the time I spent reframing the shot as you can see then I've got the camera sets up it's I basically need to set it recording at this lay by and then drive for a while to find somewhere to to press stop which means one probably very long video file but also means I get to video me videoing me which might be a bit better the next problem occurred when I put my foot to the floor to accelerate onto the motorway the sheer force of that massive v8 engine of the McLaren cause the little tripod to immediately topple over I had to keep driving for 20 minutes until I could safely pull over and reset the camera to avoid the same happening again I move the phone to my full-size Manfrotto tripod and by extending its legs to wedge in the passenger footwell in the passenger seat there was no room for it to wobble over while driving from there it was simply a case of settling down into the car and enjoying the journey taking the faster motorways meant I was able to relish the thrill of the car as I cut my way around multiple stunning snow-capped mountains eventually I pulled off the motorway and started to climb higher into the Alps it was here that the car really came into its own gripping tightly as I rounded an endless string of hairpin bends shooting forwards like a bullet when I stamped on the accelerator and the road straighten that with the windows opened the roar of that huge engine sounded amazing echoing off the sheer rock faces I kept a vague eye on the phone pulling over every so often to restart recordings are shooting at 1080p resolution rather than 4k and with a hundred and twenty eight gig of storage on the phone I wasn't at all nervous about running out of space I carried on following the mountain road winding higher and higher snowdrifts building up alarmingly on both sides although the 570 GT had all-weather tires and traction control it didn't stop the rear wheels sliding out on many of the corners of the snow-covered Road while power sliding around the snow-covered bends was immense firm it all came to an abrupt halt when I found myself in advertently queuing for a train so interestingly I have come up the top of this mountain and found I can go no further I have to get a train with the car but this is a train that I think goes through the mountain because the pass over the top is closed because of the snow problem I have is that I have no idea where this train goes I wasn't expecting to need to take it in the person at the ticket booth wasn't clear at all on where I actually end up certainly for now it looks like I am going on a train in the car and it will take me somewhere this train trip started poorly the rickety old train was only marginally wider than the car and as I was towards the front of the queue I was on earth first to drive on the cars parking sensors were bleeping in terror as I crawled down the carriages the rough metal of the Train Barry is threatening to gouge great lines in the expensive paintwork of the McLaren every inch of the way but that unpleasantness was far from over the other thing I didn't realize is that the tunnel had no lighting throughout the good news is is that it's at least completely pitch dark so as nice noha day where I'm going I can't see anything without - light up try to do some filming yes nine hand the night nothing at all that's as much light as there is as you can see us not very much I really think they could probably do with a few lie to me so they get less terrifying after what felt like two hours it was more realistically about 20 minutes I was back in daylight and once the GPS caught up I discovered I was at the Goff & Dean station I wasn't very fun if I'm honest speaking through the center of the mountain in all-consuming pitch darkness some makings of a panic attack because there's no way out I can't even open my doors because I'm completely wedged in it wasn't exactly on my roots but I wasn't far off they didn't take long before I was at my first overnight stop in the Swiss town of miring in it seemed a great place to do my first photo shoot of the car and with about an hour of useable daylight left I drove around to find the best location that's no easy task not only do I need to find a spot that includes the beautiful mountains in the background but that location must also have a great looking area in the foreground for the car to sit as I was alone on the trip there was no second driver who could quickly move the car out of the way in an emergency I eventually found a good spot and over the next 20 minutes I walked around the car looking for the best compositions that really showed it off in the dramatic beauty of its surroundings I got down low for many shots as this angle gives any car a powerful menacing look which works perfectly for a high-performance car like the McLaren I shot an auto mode on the s9 plus as it seems he believes the best-looking results I was really impressed of its ability to keep the bright blue sky under control but still give plenty of detail in the darker areas of the scene even looking at the images on the phone I was impressed back at my hotel I wanted to shoot my room this is great to give some behind the scenes color on a trip like this although the camera has a fairly wide angle view it wasn't wide enough to capture the whole room a neat trick however is to use the panorama mode and pan the phone around to capture the scene from one side to the other I put the phone back on my tripod in portrait orientation this time providing a perfectly level pivot point but let me simply push the phone gently in a semicircle to capture the shots day two would take me from the Swiss mountains through the German Black Forest and onwards towards my next overnight stop in France I had over 800 kilometres to cover or about ten hours according to Google Maps which didn't leave me much time to stop and take photos so I was on the lookout for any locations that didn't require significant details of my route I set the phone back up on the larger tripod trying various filming angles to capture the amazing scenery as I cruised through as well as a straight on view I tried sideways angles out of the passenger window and using the second zoom lens I filmed the wing mirror getting a great view of the mountains behind me as we steadily disappeared out of sight many miles later my eye was caught by a roadside logging station I Neil had to pull up for some shots here the huge piles of immense tree trunks laid flat provide a great opportunity for an interesting counterpoint the ultimate non off-road vehicle going offroad the muted colors and subtle sunlight look great even on the phone screen again I made sure to walk around moving the car into different angles and even opening the doors to try and find the best shop at one point I even climbed high onto one of the stacks of logs to try for an overhead view a few tweaks and snap to you later and I was really pleased at this series of images my next stop then was the Gerald Sauer waterfall I didn't intentionally seek it out but I happen to see a sign on a roadside and simply had to take a look around Gasthaus butt off I parked up and started walking down the trail and along the valley to my goal as I walked further and further the light started to noticeably drop and I became concerned that I wouldn't be able to get there and back in time I had no phone signal so I couldn't check how far the walk was or she was even worth trying to make it I started jogging on the path to try and get there faster and eventually came to the waterfall in all honesty it was disappointing not least because the main viewing spot had been roped off for safety reasons so I wasn't able to get the proper photo I wanted so back we go I suppose that was disappointing that's just one of the trials of trying to do landscape photography in an area that you're completely unfamiliar with I did at least find a smaller waterfall on my way back where I was able to snag a neat shot with the phone and crouched down low balancing on a couple of rocks to get the best angle for the phone shooting in manual mode this time I was able to use a slow shutter speed in order to slightly blur the water which really helps give a sense of motion fine it wasn't the Gerald Tsai waterfall but it was a cool alternative after my disappointing hike I decided it was time for some fun so I headed to the Autobahn with no speed limits on many of Germany's highways that's where a super car like the 570 GT can really come alive the understand is kind of as fast as I as I want to go in this the first leg of my last day took me through the Champagne region of France where I made straight for a boulangerie to buy some quiche and an apricot tart mmm well done random patisserie in France it's just site tested in a pastry case but it's good hmm yeah that'll keep me going bollocks to the music on my own soundtrack I visited this area before so I knew just how stunningly beautiful it can be however I haven't visited in March and the combination of dense black clouds and the driving rain meant that shooting conditions were terrible were still arriving out of the summer season when the lovely champagne houses I passed were all closed I did hope to find some sort of luxurious champagne mansion to use as a background for the car to provide a wonderful context for the area the nearest I could find in the pouring rain was just an outbuilding it was perhaps better than nothing but it wasn't the stunning Vista or grand mansion I hope to capture in what turned out to be my last photo location of the trip after cutting my losses in Champagne I cranked up the music and headed directly for the Eurotunnel stopping briefly at one of a larger wine warehouses in Calais for a box of Frances finest I boarded the Eurotunnel train thankfully a much wider carriage from the Swiss Mountain Train so no fears of ruining besides of my car propped on a podcaster keep me entertained while the Train took me under the English Channel and back to England there's no question of a trip had been a hell of a lot of fun driving an insanely fast McLaren supercar through the Swiss Alps and across the continent is the sort of dream trip I never imagined getting to do but the photography wasn't as easy as I'd hoped the galaxy s 9 plus played its part extremely well its photos look great with spot-on exposures and white balance manual controls to help me get more creative and the wide aperture mode helped capture as much light as possible when I was shooting in shady locations the sheer power of the processor meant that editing is Snapseed every night was an absolute breeze the video quality looked mostly excellent as well despite the frustrations in framing blind for the zoomed in view the bigger problem for me was simply being alone having to find a safe place to park the car each time I wanted to shoot meant I was extremely limited in the areas I could actually take the photos I could have got much more dynamic shots of someone else with me and it would certainly have given me a bit more flexibility to stretch the phone skills a bit it's definitely been a learning curve but despite that the phone has helped me take some badass shots of an incredible machine in a stunning location and really that's all I wanted the sheep friends still here hello sheep friends today