Car Photography

[Michael_2010]

What takes a photograph of a classic or custom car to the next level?

Yesterday, I had business a few miles away and while I was there I decided to make a run by the beach to see how it was looking since the oil spill. There just happened to be a registration point setup a few blocks from this section of beach with signs leading the participants along a designated route.

I found a fairly comfortable place to sit on the ground in a 90 degree bend in the road and just waited for the vehicles to come wheeling down the road and slowing to make that turn. It didn’t take long before the drivers were coming to a complete stop in front of me and waiting for me to give a thumbs up. lol

In an hour’s time I had taken over 1,500 shots of these cars and trucks.

As far as clarity and color saturation goes, I am pretty happy with most of the results and these were taken at high noon. But now as I look through all these files and set aside a few for a closer look, I am wondering what makes for a really good car photograph.

Anyone out there have any expertise in this area?

[RichardTaylor]

This may help.

Car Photography Tutorials - A CHRONOLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF ALL OUR TUTORIALS

and more (basic)

http://www.cobracountry.com/fototips/

[Michael_2010]

Thanks for the links! Just scanning through some of the tutorials has already given me some ideas to try and maybe bump up a couple of my car shots beyond average ole snapshots.

[BuddhaPi]

you need to get with MaxHarvard, he's the resident car shooter and does some outstanding work IMHO.

[Michael_2010]

When I get home later today, I will select a couple of my favorites and post them here. Maybe they will stimulate some conversation and get some creative juices flowing.

From reading one of the tutorials from the above links, changing out the background in post is pretty common. Another trick is to use motion blur in PP to help eliminate distractions and add a little something to the shot.

[RecurrentNerve]

Unusual angles are always good I think, especially low angles.

[RichardTaylor]

I shoot a lot of cars, however they are almost always on a race track. (motor sport).

You can do a lot to make life easy, by getting it right in camera, and reduce your PPing.

(1) watch your background

(2) Motion blurr can be controlled by shutter speed (don't shoot at very high shutter speed to "freeze" the car as you may as well be shooting parked cars) or by panning.

For examples of the above two points see my panning tute on this site.
Panning: Motor sport

(3) In line with some of tutes on the links lighting is very important.
The worst is harsh sunlight. My preference is early morning or late afternoon. Raining can be great as well.

Examples.
(1) Very late in the afternoon. The red on the tyres is caused by the setting sun


(2) Again. The smoke is caused by buring rubber.


(3) In the rain. The spray and headlights reflecting of the track help a lot


(4) Rain also has other possibilities as well (It was raining when I shot this).


Hope this helps.

[Michael_2010]

Those all definitely stand out and most present a feeling of action. Nice work!

[Michael_2010]

As I said earlier, no preparation went into any of these shots and they were taken at noon on a very bright, sunny day. I had taken a stroll on the beach with my wide angle lens, looking for a possible subject that I might want to explore at a different time of day. As I was headed back to my car, the impromptu parade began. I sat down pretty low to the ground and just started shooting rapid fire.

I think the colors grab my attention with most of these old custom jobs.

With these two, I did a little cloning to get rid of some clutter in the background and then had a go with Gaussian Blur.





Nothing has been done to the background with these. I cropped them using 4x6 aspect ratio and I think I messed with the contrast trying to darken the sky a little.

[RichardTaylor]

Shooting low has certainly helped, as has your PPing..

For an impromptu shoot they look pretty good.