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Automotive Photography Tips

409K views 350 replies 163 participants last post by  annataylor 
#1 ·
Originally posted by Shinobi and I added several more tips:

1. Light Management Part I: First thing you should know is that there are optimal light conditions you should strive for when taking a photo (outside of a studio that is). The best light is early in the morning or late in the evening. Its generally referred to as "magic light". Colors are better, contrast is not as intense and shadows are softer as opposed to the light at high noon. Here is an excellent example of this:

Good Light: Warm colors, with smooth soft shadows


Bad Light: Light way too intense and colors are washed out



2. Light Management Part II: Another ideal condition to take photos is an overcast day, where the light is naturally soft, is not coming from any one direction and there is little to no shadow.

Good Light: This is my car BTW. Very little editing required, because the light was very good to begin with.



3. Light Management Part III: As much as possible...have the light BEHIND you. You want the colors of your car to come out so you need the light on the car, not against it. If you take a photo with the light in front of you, you'll have to use a flash. Otherwise, you'll get shadows instead.

Good Angle: Here the blue color seems normal


Bad Angle 1: At a different angle, the same color is now lighter and washed out


Bad Angle 2: The blue is muted because you're taking a picture of the car's shadow instead


Do not just park the car and walk around it to take photos. At some point, you will be facing the light and taking a picture of the car's shadow.
WORK WITH THE LIGHT, NOT AGAINST IT.

Another example, a picture of my old E39 M5:




4. Depth of Field. There are two main factors that enable you to control the depth of field in a photograph - the focal length of a lens and the aperture (measured in f-stops/f-numbers). The longer the focal length and the wider the aperture (lower f-numbers), the less depth of field (shallow DOF) you'll end up with. Wide aperture makes the background to blur and drawing the attention to the subject.
Here's an example:




5. Shutter Speed. Use slower shutter speed if you want to capture movement or if you're shooting in a low light environment.
I use a 1/5 second shutter speed for this picture:




6. Composition. A photo with the perfect lighting can look like crap with bad composition. Photography is art, so alot of it is imaginative and subjective, but some key things to remember are:

- Balance. If you have an element on one side, try to duplicate that or complement it on the other side. Here is a good example of that. The car is a little off centered, but you get the idea. The lighting here is excellent:




- Background. Make the effort to find a nice background for your photo.
Its very difficult to manage a background after the fact (unless you're a PS wizard), so its better to find a good location.
Avoid taking photos in common areas like your garage or driveway. Go out and look.
Keep it tidy. Do your best to avoid distracting elements in a shot. If you can't help it, they can be photoshopped out later.
For example, I photoshopped the light pole above the car and the one on the left and ended up with a cleaner picture:

Before:


After:


Also, an ideal background should have some colors that contrast the color of the car.
The green grass in this pic is a perfect contrast to a black car.



Here's another example of my M3:




- Rule of Thirds. By far the most widely used approach to composition is where the frame is divided into nine equally sized boxes using two vertical and two horizontal lines. The strongest four points in the frame are where the intersections of the lines occur, and any subject placed at these points will always have a strong visual appeal.
Here are some examples:






- Angles. As far as what angles of the car are good to take, you should browse through various car pics you can find. If you find an angle that appeals to you, then try to copy it. You can also use various lens types to achieve different effects.


7. Post-Processing. It's easy to take a photo and then manipulate it with Photoshop. Image editing with Photoshop is a whole other thing. Here are just couple basic tips:

- Use Photoshop to edit out distracting elements. That would include things in the background like trash cans, light poles, etc. Also, if you are taking pics on a parking lot, you can remove the parking lines. Edit out things on your car too, like paint chips and scuffs.

- Crop for perfect composition (reframe). To crop more subtly (when shooting), use your zoom lens to move in a little closer to the subject, removing distracting matter from peripheral areas of the photo.

- Use a noise-reduction program (third-party filter) like NoiseNinja to get much smoother surfaces or after shooting with high ISO (ISO 800 or more).

- Use Smart Sharpen filter for better result sharpening the subject. This should be the last step on image post-processing.

- Adjust Contrast or Levels for deeper dark colors and Saturation to bring out bright ones.

- And the most important: DO NOT put too much contrast on a picture.
Remember to AVOID blown-out highlights (whites) and loss of details (blacks).

For example, there's too much contrast in this picture, you can not see the details on the tires at all and also blown highlights - only whites appear on the sky:



Loss of details in blacks:



Whereas, you can clearly see the details of the tires in this pic without losing contrast:



Please feel free to add more tips & techniques with examples.
I will probably add couple more later that I didn't cover like moving shot and low light photography.

Mods, maybe this thread can be put as a "sticky" on the top?

:)
 
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19
#39 ·
About the histogram: You can correct this with the "levels" function in ps.

From the menu: Layer > New adjustment layer > levels...

Then adust the markers on the left and right side to where the "histogram-mountain" begins and ends.
Do this individually on all three channels/colors (R, G and B), and leave the combined RGB channel as is.

This is like magic on poor pictures!
 
#44 ·
Something I haven't managed to do yet, is to edit marked areas.
Well not the area itself, but the "dotted" lines surrounding the marked area...

Like, if I use the magnetic lasso tool around an object, but the line sticks to some other objects in the background. How can I then edit the marked area so it fits around my main object? For instance my car.
 
#45 · (Edited)
Tips from Pros

Tips from professional photographers.

Top 8 DON'T - As Advised By 'Speed' Magazine
-Don't shoot your car on grass or sand (You wouldn't believe how many times this came up over the article) leave it for the cows.
- Don't allow telegraph poles or trees to be in the background as it will look like they are sticking out of your cars roof.
- Don't leave windows half open.
- Don't shoot dark cars in the middle of the day.
- Don't have shadows cast under or over the car.
- Don't forget to wash your car, dirt really shows up in pictures.
- Don't just take one shot.

I know most of them a gimmies but you'd be surprised how many cars I see on here not following the most obvious ones.

Top 8 DOS - As Advised By 'Speed' Magazine
- Do shoot your car on concrete or asphalt; it looks natural
- Do shoot dark cars in soft ambient late-afternoon light. (Sunset always looks awesome)
- Do examine the paint all the paintwork for clean, simple reflections
- Do point the wheels AWAY from the camera (so everyone can see your wicked expensive rims)
- Do keep the background clean and simple (remember it***8217;s about your ride not the scenery)
- Do try to find a low angle that will make your car look phat.
- Do detail everything, such as windows, tires and inner guards.
- Do experiment and practice.

Other photo tips from professional photographers such as Mark Bean, Guy Bowden, Cristian Brunnelli or Tony Rabbitte.

- Shoot dark cars at sunset or sunrise, shoot bright cars in sunshine. Pearl, candy and metallic need sun and lots of it.
- Again NO grass, sand or trees growing out of the roof.
- Gaffer tape is a useful waxing tool on carpet if a vacuum cleaner is not at the ready.
- Black the tires, black the tires, black the tires.
- Check the off-camera objects and make sure your mates yellow R32 isn't reflecting in your beautiful paintwork. Ensure your shots are clean. Top photographers use the reflection of the landscape horizon to emphasize body lines.
- Hit the deck cars look great from a low angle, giving that mean outta-my-way stance. Beware of ants.
- Do try taking shots of your car on the move action shots always look great.
- Again make sure your car is immaculately clean with all those little extras not forgotten.
- When taking interior shots park the whole car in a shaded area.
- Study your subject first. Walk around the car and view it at different view points, to see which angle looks best.
- Don't be afraid to move your car around, this will make your collection more diverse.


more advance: flash photography on cars.

like studio work but doing it outside.
 
#46 ·
- Check the off-camera objects and make sure your mates yellow R32 isn't reflecting in your beautiful paintwork.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: if it's a Lambo Murcie LP640 reflecting, then it's ok for me :D
 
#50 ·
-Don't shoot your car on grass

I can't belive how many photos I've seen on "cars on grass" :str8pimpi :eeps:

Just looks out of place...

I guess that "flash shot" was taken with studio flashes, and reflectors.

Good flashes are expensive!

Two good advices I got from a photographer:
1. Never use the flash indoors, ONLY outdoors.
2. ALWAYS use a tripod, NEVER freehand.
 
#70 ·
JDMoto...question for you, I have a rig setup and I have tried between 1 and 10 sec. exposes during the day on a rolling shot with a rig and every single picture comes out overexposed, enough so that I can't even compensate with photoshop...at night whole diff. story, during the day I'm haing a prob....any thoughts as to how to control the amount of light taking in, I've tried using f4 to f22 (f22 needing the most light because of the small apert. size, hence allowing for a longer exposure) but still, everything comes out just white...what if anything, am I doing wrong...

thanks for any help you can provide.
 
#72 ·
well I gave the car rig a try. The pics came out crappy because I forgot to set the ISO and placed the camera on the wrong size of the car. I also use different shutter speed to see the dufference. But I got the idea on how to do it. How did I made my rid? Well it consisted of a brome stick, rope and a sh1t load of zip ties.





 
#76 ·
Rig shots are fun :)
but static is also fun :)


exif file still intact.

Strobes a lot of them.

5 total strobes. for this one. i need a bigger trunk. lol

tip #1:

adjust the camera to shoot for ambient light (shutter speed), then adjust flash if you want to be a fill or main. use your aperture setting to control the lights. balance is the key.

Remember you need more powerful lights to over come the sun. Also shooting off camera flash (canon will sync upto 1/250) Nikon (1/500). Canon people will have to use more flash power to over come this overexposure problem. Nikon people you are lucky. (only reason why i would swap for a nikon, lol)

During sunny days you can use a ND filter to help drop your shutter speed. Also adding CP filter will drop your shutter speed by 1 full stop. (adjust the right way)
 
#91 ·
In rig shots the car isn't even on it is pushed into motion and then someone sits behind the steering wheel just for looks. Car is sharp because the camera and car follow eachother while the background doesn't, duh. ;)

Car is off to limit vibrations.
 
#93 ·
ok i took this tutorial from accesphoto.com the guy named Vendetta0814 wrote this, very helpful tutorial when shooting at night

[quote name='TommyTuong' date='Jun 15 2005, 11:17 AM' post='4606']
OK its 2:11 Am September 29 2005 and i am Re-Writing this because alot of people have asked me to fix photos so i figured i'd spend the time to explain more.Well as you know many times you guys take photos at night or under a lamp and your photos come out with a yellowish tint, like 35mm film the camera can not see White.On a film body you would use a grey card cus the camera does not know the grey settings, ( but i'll leave that for another time)ok well i know alot of times you shoot at night especialy with this forum and all the car photography that goes on you guys HATE The yellow tint that parking structors and streetlamps give off. for example i took this photo under the lamp in my room and even tho in my eyes it looks white when i take the photo with my camera it comes out with a yellow tint like so.
Step 1, Take a Photo:

Notice the yellow, its ok but i am anal and it really bugs me.ok now find a pure white piece of paper.. i was too lazy so i picked up a napkin i had laying around from eating with a friend earlier in my room.
Step 2, Take a photo of the white card:

( Forgive me guys but i took this photo last so the white balance was already set!! )Ok i usally do it on manual and dont care if its in focus cus that **** is hard to focus up close, try to get nothing but the whitecard in your photo like such
Step 3, Setting the white balance:Every camera does it different mine i set it to Custom White Balance and then click "Choose Photo" then i chose my White Card :

( once agian notice the yellow tint)this now tricks my camera and tells it that the yellowish tint is WHITEso when i snap my photo after changing the white balance i get this.

Notice the difference in white?i use this with alot of my night shots HOWEVER it is not ALWAYS perfect, sometimes my white light turns blue (some may or may not like the effect)
Here is a side-by-side

[/quote]

this photo was taken by me, the tutorial helped me ALOT



and PLEASE can someone tell me how to make this kind of shot?



where to put the "car rig" ?

P.S. I know that my english is terrible, sorry ;)
 
#94 ·
ok i took this tutorial from accesphoto.com the guy named Vendetta0814 wrote this, very helpful tutorial when shooting at night

OK its 2:11 Am September 29 2005 and i am Re-Writing this because alot of people have asked me to fix photos so i figured i'd spend the time to explain more.Well as you know many times you guys take photos at night or under a lamp and your photos come out with a yellowish tint, like 35mm film the camera can not see White.On a film body you would use a grey card cus the camera does not know the grey settings, ( but i'll leave that for another time)ok well i know alot of times you shoot at night especialy with this forum and all the car photography that goes on you guys HATE The yellow tint that parking structors and streetlamps give off. for example i took this photo under the lamp in my room and even tho in my eyes it looks white when i take the photo with my camera it comes out with a yellow tint like so.
Step 1, Take a Photo:

Notice the yellow, its ok but i am anal and it really bugs me.ok now find a pure white piece of paper.. i was too lazy so i picked up a napkin i had laying around from eating with a friend earlier in my room.
Step 2, Take a photo of the white card:

( Forgive me guys but i took this photo last so the white balance was already set!! )Ok i usally do it on manual and dont care if its in focus cus that **** is hard to focus up close, try to get nothing but the whitecard in your photo like such
Step 3, Setting the white balance:Every camera does it different mine i set it to Custom White Balance and then click "Choose Photo" then i chose my White Card :

( once agian notice the yellow tint)this now tricks my camera and tells it that the yellowish tint is WHITEso when i snap my photo after changing the white balance i get this.

Notice the difference in white?i use this with alot of my night shots HOWEVER it is not ALWAYS perfect, sometimes my white light turns blue (some may or may not like the effect)
Here is a side-by-side
this photo was taken by me, the tutorial helped me ALOT



and PLEASE can someone tell me how to make this kind of shot?



where to put the "car rig" ?

P.S. I know that my english is terrible, sorry ;)
 
#95 ·
Motion Shots

Hey guys,
so after reading the previous couple posts I decided to take a crack at motion shots...I think this came out "ok", but I want to take a picture of my whole car with the wheels moving, how do I take that shot? Do I have to be moving next to the car while the car is moving with a slow shutter speed? or am I stationary and I follow the car with the camera on a tripod? some help would be great, thanxx!
--Alex

---
first try:

 
#97 · (Edited)
You can do either or..

Here are two examples of mine..

Firstly, standing still, following my car..
Side,

More from the front,


Now in another car..



Moving in another car is a lot easier, unless you are far from the car. But still, as seen above, still accomplishable.
 
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