Automotive Photography

[Rassva]

Hey guys, I thought of doing this thread so we get some criticism and advice regarding our car photos.

Here we can discuss any tips and tricks we found out and trade opinions on photo gear and photos.

What lenses do you prefer?

Editing Techniques?

Be sure to show us some of your work down below!

[Eudemon]

Come on Rass kick us off with one of your own. :)

[Rassva]

I'll start of with this, was shoot with a D3300 with Kit Lens, and played around lightroom with the colours and lighting.

 

I'm still not entirely sure if I want a 35mm or 50mm 1.8

[CarMadMike]

I totally see this thread as shade at how bad my photos were yesterday :p I was hungover/on an iphone/wasn't in the mood for it :lol:

 

I like what you've done with the BMW, it's a lot more striking in the second photo, but I'd say it's probably 5% too dark imo, especially on the lower part of the front bumper.

[hassan1995]

You've bought the TOO DARK meme here ras, you're own doing :lol:

[Eudemon]

I agree with Mike, it is just a shade too dark but I do like how you've brought out the edges (via contrast?) of everything which has given more clarity to the whole image.

[mau92]

Here's my take. An M4 I saw near Wall Street in Manhattan. I think I tend to be more conservative with editing, although I sometimes try something more "complex" like blurring the background and such.

 

Original

 

DSC_5979 by Mauriciooo!, en Flickr

 

Edit 1

 

DSC_5979_1 by Mauriciooo!, en Flickr

 

Edit 2 (This is the edit that made it to flickr)

 

M4 by Mauriciooo!, en Flickr

 

You've bought the TOO DARK meme here ras, you're own doing :lol:

 

Maybe, just maybe, that was the whole point of this thread :P

[Rassva]

By lighting it up I feel it lost some of the moody rainy dark day vibe and feels a bit flat too.

 

@Mau, the one you uploaded on flickr looks really cool, I usually like to add extra clarity to the headlights, in some cases it looks a bit better.

I mean..not really in this, as it was accidentaly shot at 3200iso on a crop camera in daylight lol

[TDUFREAK500]

@mau92 The editing is nice, albeit the shadows are a bit on the dark side, which means you have lost detail in the wheels. As for the shot itself, you have used too much dutch angle, a little bit can be effective in certain situations but too much can detract from a photo, and in terms of where you placed the car in frame it's pretty good, but I would have personally placed it in the lower left corner so there is less of the covered bike in the background and more of the building, otherwise not a bad effort! @rassava The composition is pretty good, perhaps the car is a little bit too close to the edge of the frame, but otherwise very good, not a big fan of the editing, but that is probably just because it isn't really my style, but overall not a bad shot considering the area you had to work with.

[mau92]

mau92[/url] The editing is nice, albeit the shadows are a bit on the dark side, which means you have lost detail in the wheels. As for the shot itself, you have used too much dutch angle, a little bit can be effective in certain situations but too much can detract from a photo, and in terms of where you placed the car in frame it's pretty good, but I would have personally placed it in the lower left corner so there is less of the covered bike in the background and more of the building, otherwise not a bad effort!

 

Thanks for the feedback! There's sometimes I get tired of getting the photos "squarely" framed, so I use a little bit of angle on the photos. I agree maybe it's too much but it's good for trying something different from time to time. I think that placing the car on the lower... Right? Might have gotten too much building on the shot. Maybe I have to go back to NY and find some more nice cars :P (Although NYC is the worse big city for car spotting)

[TDUFREAK500]

I feel like having more of the building in the shot would have actually made for a nice backdrop, and cut out the bike in the background and drawn a bit more attention towards the car. But I can understand that the reflections in the windows might be distracting, but if you were to use a polarizing filter on the camera (not sure if you have a DSLR or not though) you could cut down on the reflections both on the car windows and the building. Just some ideas for the future, I have also found that if I am unsure about composition I will take several photos with different compositions and choose the one I like best.

[Rassva]

He has a D7100, you can use sunglasses as polarizing filter as long as they're polarized, from my experience it works a bit better with phones as they're smaller. You can with a dslr too but you need someone to hold the glasses for you

[mau92]

Also, Rass, regular sunglasses might not cover the whole lens.

 

I feel like having more of the building in the shot would have actually made for a nice backdrop, and cut out the bike in the background and drawn a bit more attention towards the car. But I can understand that the reflections in the windows might be distracting, but if you were to use a polarizing filter on the camera (not sure if you have a DSLR or not though) you could cut down on the reflections both on the car windows and the building. Just some ideas for the future, I have also found that if I am unsure about composition I will take several photos with different compositions and choose the one I like best.

 

As Rass said, I use a D7100. Most of the shots are taken with a UV filter on the camera. Maybe I should get a polarizing filter and start trying with that. And yes, I sometimes do that also, just take a couple of pics from different angles or the object somewhere else and I just take the one I like the most.

[Rassva]

They don't, that's why you need someone to hold them and you need to extend the lens, also you can get away with some cropping of 6000x4000 images. Usually aviators work, but it depends tbh

[Rassva]

Before:

After adding some blur, dust and randomly editing it

[Eudemon]

What's the deal with this pic @Rassva: Is the car moving and you've captured it as a static shot and given it more movement afterwards, or is the car static and you've turned it into a moving one through editing?

[Rassva]

Given it more movement as the conditions were complicated for me at least, the forest was dark but the road was very bright, as to not burn the white on the car I had to use a fast shutter speed(still it doesn't look very okay), hence it seems a bit frozen. It was pretty scary to stay with the pro photographers as we were 1-2 meters from the cars racing around us.

[Eudemon]

Ah okay, thanks for the explanation. Your before and after was just making me question some of the great images I have seen and was wondering if they were taken like that (with some minor corrections) or had been made. I only have basic photography knowledge so you kind of threw me for a loop there. :huh:

[Rassva]

Most of the commercial work is either shot still and then the motion is added or they attach a camera arm to the car. If the whole car is nice and sharp then the shot was modified to look like it's moving, it's really hard to obtain the whole surface of the car sharp in a panning shot and still have some motion blur around.

Added some extreme motion blur as an example:

 

[mau92]

I was going to point out same thing as Diablo did. The wheel's motion blur doesn't fit to the background blur. And the second shot has that weird glare around the edges of the car that reveals what has been made to the photo.

The Skoda pic looks nice, although the rear wheel looks a bit weird, maybe it needs a little bit less of blur.

 

This is a pic I took earlier this year in India. I thought the composition was good because how pristine the bike looked surrounded by all that beige-ish color India has all over the place.

 

Royal Enfeld by Mauriciooo!, en Flickr

[TDUFREAK500]

Most non-commercial stuff is done in camera though, and outside of commercial circles, adding blur in post is often frowned upon in the photography community. it's better to try and push yourself to get the best image you can in camera. You could have still tried to shoot the car with a slower shutter speed but taken the photo either in the shade or in the sun, trying to get the whole car lit right between such different lighting is very hard to do, an important part of photography is reading the light and working with it, it's something that takes time to learn though. The shot of the Skoda you easily could have gotten that level of motion in camera, the lighting is pretty even and you are pretty much parallel to the camera, panning does take practice but it looks so much better in camera than added in post.

 

@Mau, it's not a bad shot, but again too much dutch angle, I feel like I need to twist my head to look at the bike, and the composition is a little bit tight, the bike feels cramped into the corner, I also feel like the blacks need to be darker and it needs some contrast, it doesn't really pop in the image and just kinda blends in with the background and I'm not really sure where to look. That is another key thing, you need to make sure that the viewer is looking where you want them to in the image, so it needs to pop a lit bit compared to it's surroundings.

 

Edit: Just realised I haven't posted any of my stuff in this thread, so have a few random ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rassva]

I wouldn't really bother with the photography community and stuff, they tend to whine or brag a lot more than they should. I don't really care how you take a photo as long as the end result is nice, most people who see the photo don't care. I admit that the pics that I've posted aren't the best and the editing took no more than 10 minutes, hence the bugs and stuff, will try more stuff from now on as now I have my own camera. Still, I kind of prefer sacrificing the good motion blur for car sharpness. Will try more things at the next event, cheers!

 

That AMG shot is really nice, so is the RX7, love how you managed to make it dark without overdoing it. Plenty of detail in the clouds without sacrificing much of the car. I seem to spot some minor chromatic abberations at the wing but nothing terrible.

That photo of Mad Mike, I feel that you should've lightened up his face and made it more dramatic. Also, the framing is just perfect.

[TDUFREAK500]

Thanks man, and yeah a bit of CA is to be expected with kit lenses, they are low quality glass and that comes with the territory. In terms of the mad mike shot, I did try brightening up his face more, but it felt unnatural to me, I do like to have some drama to shots, but I also try to keep things looking reasonably realistic, golden hour being a rare exception as I love to make the oranges really pop.

[Rassva]

Didn't realise it was the pancake lens with a 1000d until I checked your flickr, thought you had something a lot better, proof you don't need to spend a ton on gear to take good pics. Is 40mm good? Was looking at a 35mm lens, but there's a nice deal on a Nikon 40mm which can also do macro, even though I don't really care about that.

[TDUFREAK500]

Yeah man I love the 40mm, it's a great bit of glass, it's a bit of a pain to shoot with compared to the 18-55 kit lens, with it being a prime so you have to walk around a lot more to get your framing just right, so for shooting in a motorsport environment it's not the best, but I still love using it when I can. But I usually use the 18-55 as it's a more practical lens if you have to work around groups of people or you don't have a lot of time to frame your shot, but the quality of the 40mm is much better, so it's still a great lens to have in the camera bag. and in terms of you choosing between the 35 and 40mm, look up reviews and see which one has the better quality glass, and is nicer to shoot with, it's not a huge difference in length at such a short focal length, even though with a crop body the 40mm is more like a 65mm (if your sensor is a 1.6x crop like pretty much all canon crop bodies, not entirely sure about Nikon's crop factor though) at the end of the day the lens with the better quality glass will produce better images. Btw macro can be cool for shooting details on cars.