How to photograph your car

[Rickycardo]

We discussed this on another thread but we all thought it would be better as a stand-alone topic.
First of all I am not an expert. In fact, I suck at taking pictures of cars. Actually I suck at taking pictures of people, landscapes, cityscapes, birthday parties, all kinds of things. My hobby, aside from Mustangs and hand-made knives, is astrophotography. For the last 20 years or so I have spent my nights (and days) with cameras and telescopes trying to capture faint fuzzies millions of light-years away. Everything I do in shooting the night sky is very wrong for trying to take a great photo of a beautiful car. After buying my latest Canon DSLR early this year I made a promise that I would shoot more daytime photos and try to expand my knowledge of both the camera and modern photography skills. Really, I promised my wife after I told her of my purchase. I've recently been allowed to sleep indoors again. :lol:
So I turn to the World Wide Web for information. I've got a couple of places where I go to read on techniques and settings for all kinds of photography. I've read several helpful articles on photographing cars and I am sharing the links here. As I've said before, I suck at this. These guys can explain some of the techniques and tips much better than I. And I don't have to worry about plagiarism.
Digital Photography School is a site I go to almost daily to read articles and blogs on equipment and techniques. Along with the cameras I use lots of post processing including Adobe's Photoshop and LightRoom. Those things are like MS Excel, most people use less than 10% of it's capabilities. I'll take every extra nugget of info I can on finishing my photos. This site give tutorials and lessons for all the big three; techniques, equipment and post processing. I've pulled 2 good blogs about photographing cars and linked them here:
http://digital-photography-school.com/tips-photographing-cars/
http://digital-photography-school.com/7-tips-taking-better-photographs-cars/
Another place I have been frequenting since I placed my order for my 2015 is Car Photos Tutorials. It's very dedicated to professional car photography but it has several good tutorials on concept, set-up and my Achilles heel - depth of focus. You can read these here:
http://www.carphototutorials.com/common_mistakes_when_shooting_a_car.html
http://www.carphototutorials.com/the_secrets_behind_a_great_car_photo.html
Again I find the depth of field articles the most rewarding:
http://www.carphototutorials.com/dof_depth_of_field.html
http://www.carphototutorials.com/case_study_dof.html
This link is a great article on post processing your car photograph in Photoshop:
http://www.carphototutorials.com/our_60_second_workflow_on_automotive_photos.html
Lastly, I like this short set of tips from Jalopnik's website.
http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-best-tips-for-taking-a-perfect-car-photo-1466653688
I agree with tip #9. If you're really serious about capturing your Mustangs beauty then lose the Iphone and use a quality camera that lets you control the light, aperture, exposure and DoF. I've taken lots of pics with my cellphone and I've seen some great pics by others but to get everything out of a beautiful photograph (if that's what you want) you need a camera that you can control all the settings.
I started this thread not as a sticky but to start a discussion on how we take pictures of our cars and how we can learn to do it better. The one thing I've learned is that we shoot in a digital world. Take pictures. Take hundreds of pictures. Every different setting, every different exposure. There's no film to waste. If you don't like what you've done, delete it and start over. You not only come away with some great pictures of your baby but you come away with experience.
I'm looking forward to learning from everyone about shooting their cars and seeing (and sharing) some truly great photographs. :coolphotos:

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[Rv-Junke]

You need a large mm lens like 200mm or even 400mm be far enough away that the car and background you want is in frame. F stop needs to be super large, like 2.8 or in the 1's, depending on camera you may need to slow shutter speed at that wide open aperture, so a tripod may be needed.

That will fuzz the world and focus just on the car.

 

[GoodEye]

You need a large mm lens like 200mm or even 400mm be far enough away that the car and background you want is in frame. F stop needs to be super large, like 2.8 or in the 1's, depending on camera you may need to slow shutter speed at that wide open aperture, so a tripod may be needed.

That will fuzz the world and focus just on the car.

Actually the wider the aperture (smaller number) the faster your shutter speed will be (relatively). But the lighting for cars is usually best just after sunset, so having a tripod might be a good idea anyways.

The "fast" lenses tend to be pretty expensive, especially fast zooms. The best fast / cheap / good lens is the 50mm/1.8 - which can be had on Nikon or canon for about $100. This won't flatten out your perspective like a 200mm+ lens will, but it will definitely introduce you to awesome bokeh (the nice blurry parts that aren't in focus) and help you get some killer shots of your car - especially details.

Location is pretty important of course, as is choosing angles to shoot from; sometimes crouching down low or getting a higher elevation to shoot from can make your shot more unique/interesting. Try to make sure the background behind your car when composing your shot is either darker or lighter than the car itself (in the context of the lighting / time of day) so your car doesn't get lost in the shot (unless you're doing it for effect, like your car emerging from the darkness of your garage).

Getting a little technical now...

Shooting without a tripod will give you more freedom to compose a bunch of shots quickly, but as it gets darker you'll want to use the tripod with a short timer (to reduce chance of shaking camera during exposure). When it's not totally dark out I'd dial in the exposure manually - with a fast enough shutter to reduce shake - like 1/500 sec and a wider aperture, like f2-2.8, and leaving ISO on auto. Most modern cameras can deal with ISO pretty well. If you want to make sure you've got noiseless images, keep an eye on how much your cam is pushing ISO in auto mode - and once it's getting into the 2000+ range manually dial it into its base 100-200 and start using the camera in Aperture priority mode which will kick in the longer shutter speeds (and use a tripod).


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[cbrookre]

You need a large mm lens like 200mm or even 400mm be far enough away that the car and background you want is in frame. F stop needs to be super large, like 2.8 or in the 1's, depending on camera you may need to slow shutter speed at that wide open aperture, so a tripod may be needed.

That will fuzz the world and focus just on the car.

Agreed for the most part, but with a 400mm lens getting an fstop below 2.8 is a pretty expensive lens! I would expect at 200mm a 2.8 or 4 will be sufficient. After I get my car I will take our 100-400MM L lens out and get pictures at different fstop and focal lengths just to do the comparison. Or, since my car is far out in the future (probably over a month from now :() someone might beat me to it. If we can get someone in here that has photography experience (smdandb2?) then we can get some real advice!

Chris

 

[Justpassingas]

We discussed this on another thread but we all thought it would be better as a stand-alone topic.
First of all I am not an expert. In fact, I suck at taking pictures of cars. Actually I suck at taking pictures of people, landscapes, cityscapes, birthday parties, all kinds of things. My hobby, aside from Mustangs and hand-made knives, is astrophotography. For the last 20 years or so I have spent my nights (and days) with cameras and telescopes trying to capture faint fuzzies millions of light-years away. Everything I do in shooting the night sky is very wrong for trying to take a great photo of a beautiful car. After buying my latest Canon DSLR early this year I made a promise that I would shoot more daytime photos and try to expand my knowledge of both the camera and modern photography skills. Really, I promised my wife after I told her of my purchase. I've recently been allowed to sleep indoors again. :lol:
So I turn to the World Wide Web for information. I've got a couple of places where I go to read on techniques and settings for all kinds of photography. I've read several helpful articles on photographing cars and I am sharing the links here. As I've said before, I suck at this. These guys can explain some of the techniques and tips much better than I. And I don't have to worry about plagiarism.
Digital Photography School is a site I go to almost daily to read articles and blogs on equipment and techniques. Along with the cameras I use lots of post processing including Adobe's Photoshop and LightRoom. Those things are like MS Excel, most people use less than 10% of it's capabilities. I'll take every extra nugget of info I can on finishing my photos. This site give tutorials and lessons for all the big three; techniques, equipment and post processing. I've pulled 2 good blogs about photographing cars and linked them here:
http://digital-photography-school.com/tips-photographing-cars/
http://digital-photography-school.com/7-tips-taking-better-photographs-cars/
Another place I have been frequenting since I placed my order for my 2015 is Car Photos Tutorials. It's very dedicated to professional car photography but it has several good tutorials on concept, set-up and my Achilles heel - depth of focus. You can read these here:
http://www.carphototutorials.com/common_mistakes_when_shooting_a_car.html
http://www.carphototutorials.com/the_secrets_behind_a_great_car_photo.html
Again I find the depth of field articles the most rewarding:
http://www.carphototutorials.com/dof_depth_of_field.html
http://www.carphototutorials.com/case_study_dof.html
This link is a great article on post processing your car photograph in Photoshop:
http://www.carphototutorials.com/our_60_second_workflow_on_automotive_photos.html
Lastly, I like this short set of tips from Jalopnik's website.
http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-best-tips-for-taking-a-perfect-car-photo-1466653688
I agree with tip #9. If you're really serious about capturing your Mustangs beauty then lose the Iphone and use a quality camera that lets you control the light, aperture, exposure and DoF. I've taken lots of pics with my cellphone and I've seen some great pics by others but to get everything out of a beautiful photograph (if that's what you want) you need a camera that you can control all the settings.
I started this thread not as a sticky but to start a discussion on how we take pictures of our cars and how we can learn to do it better. The one thing I've learned is that we shoot in a digital world. Take pictures. Take hundreds of pictures. Every different setting, every different exposure. There's no film to waste. If you don't like what you've done, delete it and start over. You not only come away with some great pictures of your baby but you come away with experience.
I'm looking forward to learning from everyone about shooting their cars and seeing (and sharing) some truly great photographs. :coolphotos:

I've got a Nikon DSLR and for the most part I'll either shoot on P (Program) or A (Auto) and the pics come all right but field of depth is lacking some times and it doesn't have that crispness all the time if you what I mean.....taking pics of moving objects is another problem I've encountered using P & A modes so I Googled Nikon aperture & shutter settings and found a great deal of info (I know, read the manual)...problem solved for the most part....Google is your friend....

 

[Grimace427]

Agreed for the most part, but with a 400mm lens getting an fstop below 2.8 is a pretty expensive lens!

Just did some quick Ebay searching..........:eyebulge:


From $5,000-10,000!!!!


There are some 4.6 200-400mm lenses in the $600-750 range.

 

[kz]

They're useless. Good long fast lens is a lot of money.

 

[Rv-Junke]

SOME of my Camera Porn:

200-400 f4.

12-200 f2.8 all fixed aperture

 

[MagneticA]

When I get some time, I want to check out the links posted above. I am a hobby photographer who enjoys shooting people and scenery. But once I got my Mustang it became my favorite subject. As of now I use what I've learned from classes back in the day and simple experimentation, but I can stand to learn a thing or two. To date I've snapped over 1,500 shots of my car. This one is in my top three favorites due to contrast, angle, and that liquid metal look...
Canon T5i
75-300 telephoto
ISO 3200
1/125

 

[Rv-Junke]

When I get some time, I want to check out the links posted above. I am a hobby photographer who enjoys shooting people and scenery. But once I got my Mustang it became my favorite subject. As of now I use what I've learned from classes back in the day and simple experimentation, but I can stand to learn a thing or two. To date I've snapped over 1,500 shots of my car. This one is in my top three favorites due to contrast, angle, and that liquid metal look...
Canon T5i
75-300 telephoto
ISO 3200
1/125

Nice shot...if you crank the ISO down on that you would have less brightness. Composure is very nice, and I like the B&W effect.

 

[MagneticA]

Nice shot...if you crank the ISO down on that you would have less brightness. Composure is very nice, and I like the B&W effect.

Thanks! This was a purposeful B&W shoot (my favorite). I have this same shot at the correct ISO, but this ISO setting was much more striking and compelling with the direct sunlight.

 

[davekro]

We discussed this on another thread but we all thought it would be better as a stand-alone topic.
:coolphotos:

Rickycardo,
Huge thanks for starting this thread and all the time and info you invested in it. I appreciate it! Most of this talk is over my nooooobie head so I look farward to reading some of your links. I specialize in getting a little info and being dangerous! :lol:

My wife bought this DSLR Canon 50D from a friend at work for $300 cash plus some stuff in trade. I don't know anything about this camera or DSLR's. It came with a Canon Ultrasonic Zoom lens EF 28-135mm 1:3.5 - 5.6 IS 72mm.
Any input on that lens' quality level and or type of photography it might be suited towards would be good to know. (It's OK to lie to me and say this lens was specially developed to take pictures of 2015 convertibles ;))

Did her coworker give her a decent price (If it was $400 all together)?

I reset to factory default settings mainly to get away from raw and set to jpeg, but who knows what all the other settings were. I looked at pics w/ Quality setting at Large, Normal (thanks for this idea Chris!) as well as Medium, Fine & Normal. I think for just our general shooting we'd be OK with Medium, Normal (so we don't have such large files for all pictures.

After I get my CDC Light Bar, I'll have another round of pics to take of the convertible.
For that I would change to Large. Should I just use Large, Fine? Or is there any reason to prefer L, normal?

 

[smdandb2]

A lot of good information here.

The biggest thing I have learned in my years of taking photos is that it's not all about the gear. The asshole behind the glass is JUST AS IMPORTANT as the glass itself. If you have a DSLR and don't get the kind of pictures you want, spend some time reading up on basic photography principals. I also recommend everyone with a DSLR and a kit lens to spend the money on a 50 1.8. It's a cheap way to up your picture game. The 50 1.8 was my first lens purchase years ago, and it really opened my eyes.

I have a fair bit of variety in my camera gear, but my go to setup is still a full frame camera with the 70-200 F/2.8. I've had my 2.8 since 2004, and it is STILL my favorite automotive photography lens.

My list of gear:
Canon 5Dc
Canon 6D
Canon 7D
Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L
Canon 24-70mm F/2.8L
Canon 17-40mm F/4.0L
Canon 50mm F/1.2L
Canon 50mm F/1.4
Canon 50mm F/1.8
Canon 50mm F/2.5 Macro (what can I say, I love 50s, LOL)
Canon 10-18mm F/4.5-5.6 EF-S (bought this on a whim to have something wide for the 7D)

I stopped taking photos for a few years, but as soon as I ordered my Mustang I bought a Canon 6D in anticipation of returning to the photo game. I was a bit rusty at first, but I have been experimenting with new shooting styles. These are from newest to oldest, so you can tell I was rusty at first.

 

[DABKO]

A lot of good information here.

The biggest thing I have learned in my years of taking photos is that it's not all about the gear. The asshole behind the glass is JUST AS IMPORTANT as the glass itself. If you have a DSLR and don't get the kind of pictures you want, spend some time reading up on basic photography principals. I also recommend everyone with a DSLR and a kit lens to spend the money on a 50 1.8. It's a cheap way to up your picture game. The 50 1.8 was my first lens purchase years ago, and it really opened my eyes.

I have a fair bit of variety in my camera gear, but my go to setup is still a full frame camera with the 70-200 F/2.8. I've had my 2.8 since 2004, and it is STILL my favorite automotive photography lens.

My list of gear:
Canon 5Dc
Canon 6D
Canon 7D
Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L
Canon 24-70mm F/2.8L
Canon 17-40mm F/4.0L
Canon 50mm F/1.2L
Canon 50mm F/1.4
Canon 50mm F/1.8
Canon 50mm F/2.5 Macro (what can I say, I love 50s, LOL)
Canon 10-18mm F/4.5-5.6 EF-S (bought this on a whim to have something wide for the 7D)

I stopped taking photos for a few years, but as soon as I ordered my Mustang I bought a Canon 6D in anticipation of returning to the photo game. I was a bit rusty at first, but I have been experimenting with new shooting styles. These are from newest to oldest, so you can tell I was rusty at first.

Very impressive.

 

[cbrookre]

Rickycardo,
Huge thanks for starting this thread and all the time and info you invested in it. I appreciate it! Most of this talk is over my nooooobie head so I look farward to reading some of your links. I specialize in getting a little info and being dangerous! :lol:

My wife bought this DSLR Canon 50D from a friend at work for $300 cash plus some stuff in trade. I don't know anything about this camera or DSLR's. It came with a Canon Ultrasonic Zoom lens EF 28-135mm 1:3.5 - 5.6 IS 72mm.
Any input on that lens' quality level and or type of photography it might be suited towards would be good to know. (It's OK to lie to me and say this lens was specially developed to take pictures of 2015 convertibles ;))

Did her coworker give her a decent price (If it was $400 all together)?

I reset to factory default settings mainly to get away from raw and set to jpeg, but who knows what all the other settings were. I looked at pics w/ Quality setting at Large, Normal (thanks for this idea Chris!) as well as Medium, Fine & Normal. I think for just our general shooting we'd be OK with Medium, Normal (so we don't have such large files for all pictures.

After I get my CDC Light Bar, I'll have another round of pics to take of the convertible.
For that I would change to Large. Should I just use Large, Fine? Or is there any reason to prefer L, normal?

That lens was first introduced specially for taking pictures of the new Mustang, perfect combination.

So, quick tutorial, not the biggest expert here but not the least either. Lenses come in a variety of different combinations and all have their advantages and disadvantages around cost, versatility, quality and usability (weight and clarity). For the most part that is a very good, versatile lens that is not going to bust the budget. Couple of things, IS is for Image Stabilization which will give you less shake (blur) at lower shutter speeds provided that the subject is pretty much still. As a rule of thumb, you can generally handhold a shot at the same shutterspeed as the focal length (if you have the focal length at 70mm you can handhold at approximately 1/70th of a second or faster shutter speeds). The F-Stop is the aperture, or the diaphragm inside the lens's, maximum opening. If you have a 5.6 aperture, the diameter of the aperture is the focal length devided by 5.6 (if the lens is at 50mm then the aperture is open approx 50/5.6mm). The lower the aperture number the wider it can be open (the more light that gets let in) and the faster the shutter speed all things being equal, you can freeze motion that much better. A larger (lower number) aperture setting will also lower the depth of focus, so the background will be blurred more. So bigger fstop number the more the focus is equal at different depths, but the slower the shutter speed. Generally, you would use a smaller fstop number for sports or portraits (background blurred) and a larger fstop (f20 or more) for landscapes. Getting a lens with a larger aperture (f2.8 or better) will require you to go with a fixed focal length (50mm only f1.8) which is not as versatile but slightly more sharp, or spend a boatload of cash and have a much heavier but better quality lens. That will be a good lens to learn on and you can go to camera stores and try out some more for free (or find a shop around you where you can rent one).

Hopefully that was not too much for now, in general that is a great camera from about 4-5 years ago. Generally the sensors are pretty much the same, newer ones have more pixels but sacrifice sharpness and have more noise to get those pixels. Newer cameras will have a few more bells and whistles but will not take appreciably better photos in the hands of an equal photographer.

Hope that helps!

Chris

PS: As for the settings, obviously Large will give you more pixels, more detail but will be, well bigger files. I personally do not notice much difference in the levels of compression, the algorithms are pretty good. I would take pics in different levels and see which you prefer!

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