Car picture tips

Do any of you have any tips for taking pictures of cars...like stuff to do w/backrounds and certain things to focus on.
thanks.

Where are you taking these? Indoors or out?

I'll guess out.

I think it is always good to look first past the car and at what is in the background. Garbage cans, hoses, people, power lines, other cars, etc. Try and position yourself so you eliminate these distractions.

Try different angles, too. Squat down and get the car from a low angle, and if possible, from an angle with the front tire that is closest to you turned in to the scene. This shows off the wheels and gives a nice look to the shot.

Close-ups of the grill, wheels, hood ornaments, badges, special paint jobs/graphics, side shots, dashboard, steering wheels, special tail/headlights, any thing like that could be a nice print. Even rain drops in a close-up looks cool on a waxed body!

My boyfriend races, and we show. Don't be shy to ask the owner about special shots they want. Believe me, they usually know!

Experiment and consider DOF when doing the angled shots. You will want to get the entire car in focus for many of them.

Have fun!

As Cricket says above really.

My biggest bit of advice is if you are shooting outdoors try and do it in the magic hour, i.e. sunset. Saturation really increases here. In addition, find a good location for car shots and note it down, then you can return there again and again.

Close ups also really work, getting a stock shot of a car is easy, getting a good series of shots of the details isn't so much.

Couple of book if you are really serious are:

How to Photograph Cars - James Mann
How to Photograph Cars: The Enthusiast's Guide to Techniques and Equipment - Tony Baker

One of my random detail shots below but is simply indoor, piece of white paper on ground under car, two 500w halogen lights and tripod mounted 10D:

Cheers

Ian

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Nice shot. And Cricket's advice is awesome. I don't shoot cars. It's hard to do well. And my car shots look like crap (here is an example). But don't sweat it. Just get out and have fun.

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you havo to find an angle that not many people use!

i always get the camera on the same height as the cars headlights!

here's an example of a picture i took from my friends car. in the end there where lots of people that wanted this picture because they liked the robust look the car had on the picture.
and i didn't even like it so much because of the reflections

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Oh ya sure. Looks like crap. Admit it. You just wanted to show off your Porshe.

My suggestion is polarizing filter and use flash to eliminate shadows. it was said to shoot in the twilight or in my opinion overcast. Angle is everything too. You can get everything else right. Lighting and exposure, but if the angles aren't right you wont be happy. I have some shots that I saved from a poster a while back. I do not want to post them as I did not shoot them but I merely kept them as a reference for angles to shooting cars. e-mail me if you'd like me to send them to you.

Prompted by this post, I've finally got around to uploading my new gallery dedicated to the Litchfield Imports, Subaru Impreza Type 25.

This hopefully will give you some ideas for various shots at various locations:

Type 25 Gallery

Cheers

Ian

Love the studio shots Ian. Thumbs up man!

what about during night in a pretty empty supermarket parking lot or a gas station where they have those bright white lights?

my car always look squeaky clean and so smooth under those conditions

would it come out well in photo?

Yes, it would work well. However, you would probably need to tripod mount the camera for a fairly long exposure.

The only problem would be the amount of contrast between really bright spots and those parts in dark shadow, but several attempts should give you a good range of shots.

Cheers

Ian

I personally am all about action shots. Depends on the car of course...but experiment with different places and what not. For still shots go long exposure on a clean car, it will look like a million bucks.

...a few examples of action shots you might be inspired by.

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Here is a shot of a friends car done last summer. Shot off of tripod about a foot off the ground, just before the sun started going down. Shooting that low allowed for an all tree background.

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here's some i took tonight

Most of these were in a parking lot, at and after sunset:
http://img72.photobuck​et.com …18/PhotosGuy/Ca​r%20Stuff/

I have been having a lot of trouble taking pics of my car at nightime. I just got my canon S1 camera and the only real place i've tried taking pics were in my driveway at night. For some reason the street lights and other lights around the car cause this bubble effect and I see all kinds of light blotches in the pic. Even with a lower apature i see a bunch. Here are a couple of the pics. Don't laugh..I'm a noob .

Heres my car

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