Hi guys, Love you, love the forum. I'm married to a photographer and she's always "critiquing" my car photos, so I thought I'd pass the nag along to my fellow Mav owners in an effort to help everyone get better photos of our cars. After all, misery loves company. 1. Lighting, lighting, lighting. When possible, take the photo with the sun behind you to give good illumination to the car. Naturally, keep an eye out for shadow, especially your own. TURN THE FLASH ON...ALWAYS. Even in the bright of day....This eliminates the shadow under the car which "screams amateur photographer" according to my wife. 2. Resolution (for digital cameras). "you can always make a photo smaller, but you can't make it bigger, blah, blah, blah." I think that means to keep the camera at it's highest resolution when taking car shots. Even though it takes more space, you'll thank yourself later when you get that spontaneous dream shot of your car (or that skateboarder taking a hit in the groin outside the library), but the resolution is too low to make good use of it. If file storage is an issue, use a program like winzip or pkzip (both free) and compress the photos you don't access regularly. After all, you never know if that photo may end up in the 2010 calendar. 3. Framing. Framing is what makes your photo artistic instead of a regular car show picture. Consider your surroundings and see if you can "frame" the car. Some examples would be taking your photo from a distance through a gap in a tree or bush, framing the car in the foliage. Some of the examples my wife sited included a car behind a mailbox. The mailbox was in the forefront and focused, and the car was behind the mailbox, off to the side slightly out of focus. Surprisingly, this drew more attention to the car. Play with the focus settings on your digital and learn how to use alternate focus. Digital photos are free, so why not see what you can do. You might be surprised. Out of focus shots also help hide any blems in your car. After all, that's the principle that keeps Glamour Shots in business. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Back up a few steps before taking shots of the car. I've taken some beautiful shots of cars but i was too close. Although both bumpers are in the negative, the photo developers' machines cropped just a sliver of bumper off thereby ruining the photo. I can't tell you how many times I have had to take a set of negatives to the developer and argue tell them to reprint them. This usually involves a custom adjustment on their machine and if you lost the argument, will cost money for "custom" prints instead of automated. If you take a few steps back, you will have enough edge space on the photo to work with. After all, since you used the highest resolution (you did, right?), you can crop the photo in. I'm not sure if this topic has already been covered, so I thought I'd throw it in there. Please, if any of you have any more tips to add then feel free to throw your hat in the ring. Teaching us non-artistic greasemonkeys how to take better, more artistic shots of our cars will benefit us all. (Just don't tell my wife, then there'll be no living with her.) Take care, Vince
At car shows I always take 2 or 3 photos of the same car. Reason being is sometimes you have a person standing around picking their noise or picking/scratching something else. Hold the button half way down for a second or two to allow the camera to auto adjust before snapping the picture.
Thanks for the tips!... I'm an amateur photographer and advice based on someone else's experience is invaluable. The best advice I got from a studio photographer was "burn film.... miles and miles of it... you'll learn to take pictures after you've shot 2000 rolls of film". Nowadays it's just digital, like you said. I shot 2000 pictures at the last wedding I went to, mostly candid. 200 were good pictures. 50 were awesome pictures. As for "painting with light"... I have shot directly into the sun on occasion and got very interesting effects when the camera compensates for glare... it's also all about experimenting. I just worked on a movie where the stills photographer didn't even know what f-stop was. Digital sure has changed things.
Man, that's a painful topic for me. My wife is the same way. Most photographers believe that maybe one in 200 pics is good, so they take tons. Problem was, my wife exclusively used a photo lab that charged 10-12$ per role. Ouch. She insisted that a cheap shop like walmart doesn't handle the negatives with respect and there is a risk of getting scratched negatives, which obviously can't be corrrected. Nevertheless, our compromise is that we're saving up to get her a $1200 DSLR camera. Until then, she is using a digital camera and I hear about it every day of my life.
Guys that shoot pictures for featured cars in magazines tend to like the first hour after sunrise primarily and the hour just before sunset as a good second choice. I have heard these referred to as "golden hours". The color of the light is better and not as brightly intense as mid-day, and the angle is very good to work with. That being said ... don't look at either pic in my sig ...
Having once been a pro photographer and now teaching/coaching my 16-year old in photography, I always liked bright, overcast days the best. No, that's not an oxymoron. (1) A lightly gray day brings out the colors, the hues primarily, better. Plus, you don't have to fight shadows. (2)Always use a flash, but not a direct flash. Angle or bounce the flash. (3) Angles make the difference. Shoot you car from up on a ladder or from the ground. Set yourself up to photograph your car from the side or corner for a different effect. (4) Above all, be aware of the surroundings you've placed the car. Avoid tall grass, high traffic areas of both people and vehicles in the brackground, and try to use a surface other than asphalt like clean concrete or gravel. (5) And lastly, frame the shot in the viewfinder. What you see in the viewfinder is what you will see in the picture. Fill the viewfinder with as much of the car as possible. Remember, there is a difference between a photograph and a snapshot. I once had a vast collection of photos of various cars I took in the late '70's and early '80's. Several were published. I'd love to that I know what I'm talking about. But, you know negatives and pictures don't survive house fires. I lost all my work in 1997 house fire.
Definitely no pro here but I take a lot of photos. I figured out a long time ago that my best pics came from like you said...early morning, late afternoon, and overcast days. Keep the tips coming guys. I love taking pics.
