Originally Posted by aszatk01

danm you silverbolt--always one upping me with better pics

Originally Posted by digwig2002

When bad photos happen to good vehicles

Seeing as I know a little about photography, and seeing as how I notice so many enthusiasts taking less than flattering pictures of their great vehicles, I thought I would put a short list of tips and hints together to help everyone out.

I am not a professional photographer so please don't flood me with specific questions or bad photos. The following info is a very simple primer on what not to do and how to improve the overall quality of your photography with just a little preparation or forethought.

Lighting for detail
The perfect time to shoot a vehicle to show off its interior and overall surface qualities is midday on a partly cloudy or slightly overcast or hazy day. This is when the sun is at its highest which logically means the light will have the best angle into the interior. It is also the best kind of light - indirect. Indirect light is diffused (meaning the rays are scattered rather than in a straight line). Diffused light bounces and evens out a subject...

Direct bright sunlight is not good because its too bright and causes hard shadows. Most cameras (especially digital ones) dont handle those hard dark shadows really well. Shooting a vehicle in a shadow area (i.e. next to the house when the sun is on the other side) is also bad for obvious reasons. The shadow is dark!! The general rule in photography is more light the better. Just remember that the type of light (direct versus indirect) also makes a big difference.



Showin off the finish
Aaah the old "photo at sunrise/sunset" shot of a new vehicle. Its the unwritten rule of automobile marketing. Well, who can argue? Even an '86 Escort looks great in it! (No offense to those Escort owners here). This is for good reason. The best time of day to show off the lines of the vehicle and that glass-like paint finish is the first or last 1-1.5 hours of direct sun daylight when the sun is low on the horizon...you get that warm yellowish light and long dark shadows which provide nice contrast for the reflections in the paint.

Background
Remember the vehicle's immediate environment will be reflected in the finish, so a busy, highly detailed environment (like trees, buildings, etc) will end up complicating the reflections. Try to find a background or area around the car in that is low in detail or visual clutter. The ideal place is of course a green field, like a park or something with lots of distance between you and the nearest tree, building etc. The lower objects are the horizon (meaning the farther away you are from things like buildings, trees, etc) the better. If you live in an area with lots of hills you can also achieve this by finding a higher elevation to shoot on.

If you cant find someplace like this, find a plain, bright neutral colored background like the wall of a brick building. Remember you want your sweet ride to stand out as the subject of the photo, so the simpler the background the better. For vehicles that are colorful (like you Dakar and Hellrot folks), keep the background as neutral (meaning not colorful) as possible...For those of you more with more neutral colored vehicles (Cosmos, Arctic, Alpine) a solid colored, more vivid hue like red, green, yellow etc will provide a nice contrast. Of course, you can experiment with this to see what you like the best. Just remember that your red car will look different when surrounded by a yellow or green background.



Move it!!!!
Don't just park the vehicle and snap photos as you walk around it. Unless it is a perfectly overcast day (which is not good either) one side of the vehicle will be in shadow! Not good. Find the background you like, pick the best vantage point to shoot from, shoot, reposition the vehicle, shoot again...You get the idea.Think about what angles you want to shoot from too and if you are really **** about it, put a shot list together (front, rear, profiles, 3/4 fronts and rears, etc). I know, it takes a little extra effort, but once you see the results you'll be glad you put the extra effort in. Oh, and if you are shooting at sunset, remember to work quickly...the last hour of daylight goes REALLY fast and believe it or not 10 minutes can make a huge difference between a great shot and something that looks too dark.


Avoid using the flash if possible.
We've seen lots of pics on this forum shot with a flash and we all know its about the most unflattering way to show off your sweet ride Generally, most autoexposure cameras meter the light of a subject in several areas, then average the light reading to decide if the light level is too low. If it is, the flash will kick in. Remember this, if the background of the picture is MUCH darker than the car than when the camera takes the average light level it will think its too dark and use the flash. This means dont shoot your vehicle against a dark background if you can help it. For those of you shooting black vehicles, well you are gonna have a hard time regardless. The only way to ensure the flash doesnt kick in is either:
A) MAKE SURE THERE IS ENOUGH LIGHT!
B) TURN IT OFF MANUALLY


Spot metering, fill cards, tripods and other advanced Stuff
For those of you who wanna experiment, most digital and SLR cameras have a little crosshair in the middle of the viewfinder. While most cameras use average light metering, you may be able to set the camera to look at ONLY the brightness of what is in the center of that little crosshair. This is usually called SPOT metering. While pointing the spot at a darker or shadow area of the vehicle, pressing halfway down on the shutter button will PREMETER the exposure. Without pressing all the way down or releasing the button, you then move the viewfinder to compose the shot accordingly, then PRESS ALL THE WAY DOWN. THis way the camera will adjust the exposure to use that DARKER area as the average light, meaning it will expose longer to let in more light. Make sure you have disabled your flash with this approach. Confused yet?

For close ups of areas that are hard to photograph because they are too dark, or interior areas, you can try using a fill card. A fill card is nothing more than a LARGE WHITE board. Most are made out of cardboard or foam core, a graphic mounting material. Anything reflective like tin foil works too. Position the card just out of the composition and angle it until you see the reflected light hit the subject area that's dark. You can hold it yourself, or bring an assistant to hold it who also loves your car

And finally, if you really want to be able to play with exposure for light and depth of field, get a tripod. Sometimes, in order to have a long enough exposure to get the shadow areas in your photo, the camera will want to set the shutter speed to something slower than even the steadiest hand can hold without causing image blurring. A tripod lets you manually adjust the shutter speed and/or aperture (also called f stop which is the little iris like thingy inside the lens that lets light in). What is depth of field? Well, simply put its the distance interval the camera lens can see in focus. You can play with that if you want to blur the background out rather than have it be nice and sharp. See this link(http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glos...f_field_01.htm) for more info on that!




Well that's it I guess. Hope this helps you closet photographers and those of you that just want to get some good shots for the autotrader ad. Good luck, and always buckle up everyone!


Tim

Originally Posted by aszatk01

although i'm not no where near a great photographer i have learned a few things along the way of my new hobby i thought i'd share with you. these few tips relate to car photography but can also be used generally.
1) NO OVERHEAD SUNLIGHT!!! this is the worst. best shots will be had around sunrise or sunset and possibly a cloudy day. but overhead sunlight provides harsh shadows, overexposed portions and so on....if you have to shoot in day light-use flash. sounds weird but the flash will take away from some of the harsh shadows as a result from overhead light.
2) crap in--crap out. meaning, do your best to get the shot right when you take it, dont rely on photoshop to make your pic look good, it'll always look better and you'll become a much better photographer in the process. (of course photoshop does help for basic level adjustment and cool editing things you couldnt really do without it like applying blur to a still car (go silverbolt!) but dont rely on it to do much more than those things)
2) get down. instead of just snapping a pic, get down on a knee and take the shot...it usually provides a better angle.
3) remember the good old rule of thirds if you're looking for a photograph rather than a snapshot.
4) use a tripod. if you're shooting near sunset, sunrise, or a cloudy day there is not enough light, therefore a longer exposure resulting in blur from hand movements. so try using a tripod when you can so the image is sharp.

those are just a few quickies that come to mind

again-i'm not really qualified to give much photography advise, but these few things i've learned have surely come in handy.
hope it helps

Originally Posted by Silverbolt

I gotta do it while I still can You're camera has alot more potential, and once you harness it, and fine tune your skills with it... your pictures are going to looks so proffesional and kickass! I'd have to photoshop like crazy to get the picture you would just normally snap and shoot at.

Originally Posted by aszatk01

Unfortunately i'm going to have to disagree with this, and reason for explaining is to help everyone else out there thinking the same thing (as I did a month ago before i got my DSLR).
Two things make a photo: composition and lighting. Thats it. These two things are 80% of making a good pic--and neither come from the camera you're using. Sure I have a higher megapixel-but unless blowing it up to a 8x10 or bigger you'd never know. And I do have a bunch of advanced controls at my hands but for everyday pics a normal digicam can do 90% of what mine can. I do have an advantage in low light for sure, i can get much crisper pics--but daylight, we're just about the same. My manual focus is nice to get interesting depth of fields and focusing on different things which a standard digicam cant.
Now-if i had some kind of studio lighting setup (which i dont--just the built in flash) or some cool lens like wideangle, crazy zooms or something like that (which i dont) then i could do some compositional things that a standard digicam cannot. Infact my 18-55 kit lens is the digital equivalent of 2.5x optical zoom, which nearly all digicams have at least 3x.
So while i do have some great tools at my hands....dont fool yourself (and this is for all of you out there that thought like i did) thinking "only if i had a better camera" because unless have/doing the things above you honestly wont really see a difference.
I just dont want anyone to limit themselves with the tools they have, you can get amazing pics from a digicam. I think most people would agree: A much better pic would be taken from a great photographer using a crappy camera than a crappy photographer using an amazing camera.

Happy photographing.
PS: the above info is great, keep it coming!

Originally Posted by PeteNJ

I HIGHLY recommend reading a book called "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. I just finished it and it really gives you an understanding on how the different elements of exposure come together.