Lighting: In most cases, you want to photograph the sunny side of your car, so make sure the camera is between the sun and the car. Watch out for shadows from YOU, light poles, cars, etc. The best light to shoot any vehicle in is sunrise or sunset, when the sun is about 90% hidden from the horizon.

Car Angle: You want to show as much of the car as possible, and at a flattering angle. At the very least youll want a front 3/4 that shows one side of the car and grille, and a rear 3/4 that shows the other side of the car and the rear taillights. All the other angles are gravy, pick up a car magazine and look at the angles the car is shot at, then duplicate them

Tire Angle: We want to see wheel, not tire tread. For instance if your shooting the front driver side of the car, turn the wheels a little bit to the cars right so that the camera's perspective you see most of the wheel, less of the tread.

Background: Don't let the background steal attention from the car, and don't have things "growing" out of the car, like trees, fences, people, etc. If you notice the background, then you should find another place to shoot. Thats why you don't want to shoot the car in front of monuments, fountains, or anything like that.

Foreground: Before shooting, look at the ground in front of the car and pick up and trash, rocks, or other stuff that is noticeable.

Reflections: While setting up the shot look at whats reflecting in the car's paint and minimize it as much as possible. Also look for "hot spots" where the sun is reflecting off the chrome, windows, or paint and move the car or camera until they go away.

Details: When shooting details, like the interior and engine compartment, try to do it in a open shade. Under a tree or on the shady side of a building works well. This technique eliminates shadows. If you have a tripod, use it and turn the flash off. Also look at the junk in the background. When shooting the interior, look at whats visible out of the windows. Preferably you won't see anything but sky or maybe a blank white wall.

Camera Tips: For overall exterior shots, a longer lens usually makes the photo more dramatic. Zoom the lens all the way out and get farther away from the car to ensure that you don't crop any of the car out of the photo. Interior, engine, and other detail shots are usually best done with the camera set at the widest angle possible. If your camera allows it, set the aperture to the highest number. F11 is better than F5.6 in nearly every case, but it also will slow down the shutter speed. So make sure you either have a tripod of can handhold the camera without creating a blurry photo.

In a Nutshell: Pick up any good car magazine and find a car feature that you like. Then just duplicate it shot for shot, paying attention to angles, lighting, background/foreground, and all the stuff just covered.

Article taken from Hot Rod - June 2007

 

good post

 

x2 good stuff

 

Good tips. At first, I thought you came up with that stuff yourself.

 

i typed it up myself haha dosent that count!!

 

I personally think the tire angle thing is over rated, no offense, but I like to keep the tires straight. It's just my thing.

 

Really? I have always like the tire turned. They both look good though

 

Yeah, I guess IMO I just like to do stuff different than most others. When most turn the tires, I keep em straight, when most take the pics with good lighting to show off everything, I choose creative lighting and show only what I want to show. I guess I'm weird

As it says in the lighting section, you most of the time want to get the sunny side of the car, I really want to get like two work lights (the 500watt ones) and place one behind the car, so you can't see the worklight, but you get the effect of the light coming from behind and creating long shadows coming towards the camera, and then maybe a less powerful one (so it doesn't eliminate the shadows) to give the front side of the car a little light (this all being done at night that is)

I have seen that method in a few magazines, but not a lot.

 

kool beans

 

What would truly be helpful is if examples could be provided. This would enable the readers to SEE what the article is trying to say.

 

So people have been asking me for a while about some ways to help their car photography. Here is a little write up that I found+added and removed information from some of my own experience. It's a long read, but well worth it.


The Basics

1) Color Photography is about LOTS of LIGHT--not shadow--LIGHT--and

2) V is BAD, H is GOOD.

That is to say:

Vertical light (e.g., high-angle, high-in-the-sky sunlight) is BAD.
Horizontal light (e.g., low-angle, rising/setting sun, obliquely-reflected light (such as sunlight reflected off of a white structure or all-glass office building)--AND your fill flash--is GOOD.


-Color photography is about LIGHT. LIGHT. It is not, repeat NOT, about shadow. LIGHT. Light, dammit, light. And your camera needs MUCH MORE light to "see your car" than your eyes do. It needs lots of smooth, evenly-distributed, horizontal or low-angle light. Once more: color photography is about LIGHT. You don't get photographs by shooting in harsh, glaring midday high-angle sunlight (you get color-faded paint on the top surfaces, harsh, murky shadows in the lower regions, and a thoroughly bleached-out ****************pit), and you don't get photographs by shooting the shadow side of your car.


-Here's a digital-camera-settings Golden Rule: Permanently set your digital camera's "Quality" selection on "Best" or "Extra Fine" or whatever represents the HIGHEST quality (i.e., lowest JPEG-compression damage). Permanently. No exception--no matter what you're aiming your camera at, and no matter what resolution you select. For photos you intend to print out, especially at 5"x7" (±12cm x 18cm) size or larger, set your resolution at "MAXIMUM." For photos you're shooting for professional presentation on the Internet, set your resolution at at medium-to-highest setting (a minimum of, say, 1024x768 pixels), "fill your viewfinder" with motorcar, NOT real estate.


-Unfortunately, almost 100% of the time that you're setting up to shoot your motorcar (or your family, or your house) out in the bright sunlight, the sunlight is in ALL the wrong places. You're confronting a mélange of harsh glare and harsh shadows. On this page you'll learn how to position your car and schedule your outdoor shoot (or, alternatively, to engage your camera's flash) so that you'll end up with top-notch photographs--instead of birdcage-liner snapshots. Once again: color photography is about LIGHT. Ideally, lots of soft, evenly-distributed, horizontal, low-angle, even upward-reflected (bounced off of white concrete pavement, for example) light. And your camera requires far more light than your eyes do. For photographing YOUR car, lots of light translates to LOTS of (dawn, dusk or overcast) sunlight. Set your dial for "aperture priority" mode (anything but "AUTO").


Photographing a yellow-painted car, especially bright yellow,
requires you to change your strategy a bit. By the numbers:

1. YELLOW CAR ADVISORY #1: You cannot (repeat: CANNOT) shoot your yellow car out in midday sunlight. All you're likely to get is bleached-out top surfaces and murky/ orangish lower areas... generaly making a mess of your gorgeous yellow paint job. If you insist upon shooting your yellow car out in the sun, you MUST time your photo session for either dawn or dusk... with the (low, unobstructed) sun at your back, and with your car properly rotated so that the sun's rays are illuminating all of your car facing your camera (in a 3/4 view pose, that means the sun MUST BE illuminating both the side AND the front of your car).

2. YELLOW CAR ADVISORY #2: Here's a piece of concrete advice: park your car on white concrete, so that you'll benefit from the upward-reflected sunlight and skylight; this strategy often works splendidly with yellow cars.

3. YELLOW CAR ADVISORY #3: Shoot your yellow car in the shade: although you can photograph your yellow car in direct dawn or dusk sunlight (i.e., near-horizontal sunrays) and get good results, your best game plan may be to take all of your photos (listen carefully!): at mid-morning or mid-afternoon, entirely within the "clean" shade of a building or other solid obstruction (not, repeat NOT in the uneven/splotchy shade of a tree, and NOT in your garage), on clean pavement, and use your flash on every single shot of 1) your entire car, 2) your engine, and 3) your ****************pit.

If you follow those three simple guidelines, you're almost certain
to capture superb, richly-colored images of your yellow car!

 

The three worst mistakes a novice makes
when photographing his/her car:

Mistake #1: Bright overhead sunlight. Not good. Harsh overhead midday sunlight (resulting in bleachout glare on the top surfaces--and just as bad--corollary harsh shadows in the lower regions) wrecks more motorcar photos than anything else. Solution: wait 'til near sunset and position (i.e., rotate) your car to take full advantage of that softer light. Direct sunlight as a light source improves steadily as those rays approach horizontal... as long as you rotate your car so that those horizontal rays are lighting up ALL of your car's surfaces facing the camera. Alternative: wait for an overcast day and take advantage of that softer light. IF YOUR CAR HAS A METALLIC PAINT JOB, you'd do well to ignore "overcast day" light, and instead opt for dawn/dusk clear sunlight, since that direct/ low-angle sunlight will serve to "bring to life" the "glistening effects" of your metallic paint job.

Mistake #2: Park your car in any old spot, then back up a mile back to snap your shutter. Not good. Solution: back up the proper distance, then zoom-in and "fill the frame" with automobile. Your objective is to photograph motorcar, not real estate. If your photos come out 10% motorcar and 90% real estate... you're getting it all wrong. This is especially important to keep in mind if you're using a digital camera: as many as possible of those precious pixels MUST represent your motorcar, not the surrounding real estate. "Real estate" is defined herein as anything that is not motorcar.

Mistake #3: Stand up and "shoot down" on your car. Not good, and for several reasons. Are you listening? Don't stand up and shoot down on your car.


-1. Make sure your car is sparkling clean. Use Armorall (or similar rubber treatment) on the tires (hint: spray your Armorall onto your towel, not on the tire, so that overspray on the pavement won't show up in your photos). Take along a bucket of cleanup/touchup items on your photo session, for on-the-scene detailing. And take along a container of water to wet down the pavement beneath and around your car.

2. For digital images THAT you intend to keep and use for yourself, make sure that upon uploading them onto your computer, you resave them IMMEDIATELY as "TIFF" format (or ".psd" Photoshop-native format) files, before you do any editing or resaves. You see, every time you resave a "JPEG" image in an image-editing program such as Adobe Photoshop, you degrade the image (a fact that the camera makers seem to never caution folks on). You can resave your TIFF image as many times as you desire without fouling the quality. Be advised that this cautionary note refers only to RESAVES in your image-editing application; merely copying your image from one disc to another is not a problem.

3. Zoom in and "fill your frame" with automobile, not real estate. This tip is all-the-more important if you're using a digital camera... you must not waist those precious pixels on real estate. People don't need or care to see your entire county, they want to see the car you've got for sale. Repeat: zoom in! Focus on the part of your car closest to your camera, and select an f-stop of between f5.6 and f8, so that all or most of your car is in focus, and avoid wide-angle zoom settings. And if you're going to use those photos on your own website, then crop out whatever real estate. You gain nothing by forcing folks to patiently download all that unnecessary real estate when all they care to see is your car.

4. If it's bright overhead sunlight (which means you've got a harsh shadows beneath your car), go fishin', not photographin'. Bright midday/mid-afternoon sunlight introduces two phenomena, both undesirable, both... ugly: 1) HARSH GLARE and 2) HARSH SHADOWS. Good automobile photography demands even, soft lighting all over and around every part of your car facing your camera. You should either wait for an overcast (cloudy) day, which provides much softer and more-evenly-distributed illumination (although you should avoid getting the cloudy/overcast sky itself into your photograph), or schedule your photo session for when the sun is low (i.e., at dawn or dusk). Be sure to shoot the sunlit side(s), not the shaded side(s). Color photography is about light, not shadow! Repeat: rotate your car so that the (dawn or dusk) sun is on the camera side!! Once again, EVERY PART OF YOUR CAR facing your camera should be lit by the sun. Have you got that yet? This means that if you're shooting a "3/4 view," with mostly the side of your car but also the front end in your viewfinder, the sun should be lighting up the grille and your tire tread just as much as the side of your car. If your car has a metallic paint job, you're best off employing dawn/dusk clear sunlight, NOT overcast day light. Reason: that direct sunlight will "bring to life" your metallic paint. Also, forcing your flash to work can similarly "bring to life" your metallic paint job, especially in relatively low-light/shade settings. When I advise you that color photography is about LIGHT, that admonition is especially true in regards to metallic paint.

There's one thing: with all dawn/dusk shots, you must be careful to keep your own shadow off your car! But there are two things you can do to prevent your shadow from reaching your car: 1) get down on one knee and shoot from waist level (which you should be doing anyway), and 2) back up a little further from your car and zoom-in your lens a little more so that your viewfinder is still "filled with motorcar," but your shadow is no longer invading your photo.

And don't position your car under a shade tree to avoid harsh sunlight; your resulting photos will leave the impression that you painted your car in a chaotic jungle camouflage scheme; indeed, you should always be on the lookout for unwanted reflections on the body (trees and buildings and road signs can produce really wretched, chaotic reflections, especially on black and dark-colored cars...). You can sometimes obtain very good results by parking in the (dawn or dusk) shade of a building, but only if there's a very bright sky overhead to provide adequate illumination. Whatever the weather or time of day, make certain that the normal "shadow areas" (e.g., the 'chin,' the grille, the tire tread) have ample light to show up in the photo. Position/rotate your car for optimal lighting... on the camera side of the car! If you need to shoot the other side(s) of your car, then reposition your car NOT yourself. Take some shots with the headlamps or parking lights turned on; for your rear-end shots, have someone sit in the driver's seat with his/her foot on the brakes to light up those brake lights... yet another splendid lighting effect, especially in regards to Lamborghinis and Ferraris, with their typically large taillight fixtures.


-Think of it this way: your camera MUST be aimed in the direction of your (dawn or dusk) shadow. You could mount your camera onto a tripod facing in the direction of the tripod's shadow, epoxy your tripod and the camera into fixed position, then shoot all of your views of your car by doing nothing but "rotating" your car. And you'd have ideal lighting every time. One more time: photograph ONLY the sunlit side(s) of your car; for example, if you're shooting a typical "3/4" front/side view, your car MUST be rotated/ positioned so that BOTH THE SIDE AND THE FRONT of your car are sunlit.

* Crouch down and shoot at ± headlight level. As the dusk light fades, take some shots with your headlights or parking lights ON (this often results in a splendid 'highlight' effect). The doors and decks should be closed; if you're shooting for an ad, typically it's not a good idea to include models (i.e., people) in your photos; for an ad on the Internet, you should never have anyone STANDING beside your car, and your hood should be closed, since in each event you wind up with far too much "aerial real estate," thus adding to filesize and download time, with nothing at all gained on the positive side.
* Use a "normal" focal-length lens, or set your zoom lens accordingly (avoid wide-angle settings except for engine, ****************pit and luggage-compartment shots).
* Zoom in so that you're "filling the frame" with automobile, NOT real estate.
* Beware of ugly shadows and reflections on the paint surfaces (especially, avoid the chaotic shadows of shade trees!). Ideally your car should present an uncluttered surface, with shadows, glare and reflections reduced to a minimum.


5. Make sure that the backdrop is neat and appropriate. A fashionable restaurant or hotel or downtown plaza or fountain or a college campus scene or a '50s-styled drive-in restaurant or even a beach or wharf scene can make an ideal backdrop. Make sure there is no signpost or tree "growing out of" the top of your car or a parking-lot line jutting from a tire (parking-lot lines are a chronic spoiler of motorcar photographs). Make sure the steering wheel is straight. Keep your car on clean, unlined/uncracked pavement and off the grass; a motorcar photographed on grass or tree leaves tends to look like an abandoned vehicle. Above all, remember that it's your car that's the primary focal point of your photograph, not the background or the live models (altho' we do prefer LIVE models to the alternative).

6. Take your photos from different angles and different camera heights, from ± headlight level. Novices typically "stand up and shoot down" on their car. Not good. The most dramatic, even menacing, sportscar shots are low-angle and zoomed-in to "fill the frame." Position yourself for 3/4 view, 3-dimensional shots that capture part of the front and more of the side. If you intend your photos to be used on the Internet, also shoot a few "broadside" shots; a broadside shot (with the decks and doors closed) enables you to display your car on the Internet at a larger physical size while the filesize remains relatively small, which means a bigger image/faster download for each person viewing your car. If you really want to get serious, mount your camera onto a tripod (adjusted down low) so that you can critically examine and adjust the composition of each shot.

7. If your camera offers you the option of imprinting the date/time onto your film or digital image... for cryin' out loud, turn off this image-wrecking "feature" when photographing your car.


Engine & ****************pit shots

Use your flash (that is to say, FORCE your flash to work) for EACH AND EVERY ONE of your engine and ****************pit shots; move your car out of direct sunlight and use ONLY your flash to illuminate your ****************pit and engine shots. Steering wheel straight, tilt column down, sunvisors in horizontal position. Spotlessly clean carpet and upholstery. Wide-angle lens (or wide-angle zoom setting) okay for these shots. Again, use your flash.

Use your flash. Repeat: use your flash. One more time: USE YOUR FLASH... FORCE IT TO WORK! If you think that a lot of bright overhead sunlight is all you need for your engine and ****************pit shots, then you haven't been paying attention. In fact, for your ****************pit and engine shots, you'd be well advised to move your car COMPLETELY OUT OF DIRECT SUNLIGHT: park it in the shade of a building, where there's still plenty of ambient overhead skylight, but no direct sunlight, then FORCE YOUR FLASH TO WORK to provide the lion's share of illumination.

For ****************pit shots, make sure the upholstery and carpet is vacuumed to spotless. Straighten the steering wheel; if it's a tilt wheel, tilt it down to driving position. Remove your keychain from the ignition. You can use your wide-angle lens (or a wide-angle zoom setting) for engine and ****************pit shots. And did I mention this: engage your flash for EACH AND EVERY ONE of your engine and ****************pit shots.

Since your flash will sometimes generate unwanted reflections from your underhood chrome, or from your dashboard gauges, take 2 or 3 shots each of your engine and ****************pit, from slightly different angles (move around to different shooting positions), to make sure you've got at least one "keeper" shot.

If you carefully heed these ****************pit/engine-compartment photo tips, you'll capture gorgeous, eye-popping images, and (in your ****************pit shots) the color of your upholstery, dashboard and carpet will come out rich and colorful.



When people ask me about wanting to buy a camera with a high amount of megapixels, this is what I tell them:

High megapixel count doesn't equate to great (or even good) photography. You can capture a world-class photo at very low resolution... just as you can end up with a high-resolution crappy snapshot captured at your 5- or 8- or 12-megapixel camera's highest resolution.

I cannot stress this enough, good photography is still about photography;
it has nothing (NOTHING) to do with how many megapixels
your digital camera can capture.


-One thing that I HATE seeing (this should be a no-brainer): forcing your flash to work when you're shooting a distant skyline, or your football team from the bleachers 75 meters away... or your motorcar parked 15 meters away... isn't going to improve your photo at all. Leave it turned off. Everytime i'm watching a Cardinals game and I see someone's point and shoot camera flash, I laugh to myself because I know it's doing nothing, and probably making the picture worse.



I hope to see some GREAT pictures from you guys after reading these tips!

Source used: http://www.cobracountry.com/fototips/home.html (With a little bit added/deleted for my own taste/preferences)

 

Nice addition to the thread...

See ya on the road,
Matt

 

I definitally have to agree, great advice

 

i do a lot of car/wedding/scenic photoshoots so i figured i'd chime in on your thread

 

Sweet lakes of chocolate, it's Tony!

Tony is the man to go to for photography. He's wicked with a lense in his hand. He's one of my local fellow club members

 

they didn't let you say co ck pit lol

 

useful sources here

 

Great info. When I take pictures of my car I like to have the lights on including the fog/driving lights. Looks more "active" to me.