Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hi I was wondering if anyone had any links to good sites about car phtography? I need to learn about camera angles and lighting etc as I would really like to get some good car pics but they just keep on turning out average... I would especailly love to find out how to get good pics at indoor car shows like autosalon and the motor show where those overhead lights are a pain in the butt....

Any help would be great

Thanks

Top 8 DON'T - As Advised By 'Speed' Magazine

-Don't shoot your car on grass or sand (You wouldn't believe how many times this came up over the article) leave it for the cows.

- Don't allow telegraph poles or trees to be in the background as it will look like they are sticking out of your cars roof.

- Don't leave windows half open.

- Don't shoot dark cars in the middle of the day.

- Don't have shadows cast under or over the car.

- Don't forget to wash your car, dirt really shows up in pictures.

- Don't just take one shot.

I know most of them a gimmies but you'd be surprised how many cars I see on here not following the most obvious ones.

Top 8 DOS - As Advised By 'Speed' Magazine

- Do shoot your car on concrete or asphalt; it looks natural

- Do shoot dark cars in soft ambient late-afternoon light. (Sunset always looks awesome)

- Do examine the paint all the paintwork for clean, simple reflections

- Do point the wheels AWAY from the camera (so everyone can see your wicked expensive rims)

- Do keep the background clean and simple (remember it’s about your ride not the scenery)

- Do try to find a low angle that will make your car look phat.

- Do detail everything, such as windows, tires and inner guards.

- Do experiment and practice.

Other photo tips from professional photographers such as Mark Bean, Guy Bowden, Cristian Brunnelli or Tony Rabbitte.

- Shoot dark cars at sunset or sunrise, shoot bright cars in sunshine. Pearl, candy and metallic need sun and lots of it.

- Again NO grass, sand or trees growing out of the roof.

- Gaffer tape is a useful waxing tool on carpet if a vacuum cleaner is not at the ready.

- Black the tires, black the tires, black the tires.

- Check the off-camera objects and make sure your mates yellow R32 isn't reflecting in your beautiful paintwork. Ensure your shots are clean. Top photographers use the reflection of the landscape horizon to emphasize body lines.

- Hit the deck cars look great from a low angle, giving that mean outta-my-way stance. Beware of ants.

- Do try taking shots of your car on the move action shots always look great.

- Again make sure your car is immaculately clean with all those little extras not forgotten.

- When taking interior shots park the whole car in a shaded area.

- Study your subject first. Walk around the car and view it at different view points, to see which angle looks best.

- Don't be afraid to move your car around, this will make your collection more diverse.

Unfortantly when it comes to trees in great locations for photo shoots, there really is no choice. So best idea is to usually try and work around them.

I've also found that having "people" in photos with cars is disturbing to the photo. the point of the photo is the car, not the person. a good backdrop can sometimes be good but make sure you dont have one thats more over powering to the eye.

As much as I hate to refer to boostcruising.com site... alot of the photos we've recently been taking and uploading there have been getting alot better.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I mean the other day I had to walk someone through diagnosing why their timing belt was walking off the cam gears. At least one of the issues was a bent tensioner stud. Local mechanics have found runout on the CAS mechanism causing weird failures. I'm also no saint here I've documented some of the things I've had to learn the hard way. Something I discovered recently is that my CA emissions catalytic converters weren't even welded correctly to align the downpipe to the main cat and they tossed the support bracket that goes from the transfer case to the downpipe to support everything there. I spend a lot of time chasing down these decidedly unsexy problems and the net effect is it feels like I never actually get to the original objective (flex fuel, VCAM, oil control, cooling, etc).
    • At times with how you make everything sound, all I imagine Americans doing when they see a gtr is standing there looking at it and bashing it with a gun like how a caveman would with a club and hoping it fixes itself 
    • I think this is just a product of how the US market works for this stuff. Shops are expensive and there's no real way of knowing what kind of results you're going to get, people don't really have the institutional knowledge. I have heard too much at this point to really put faith in anybody "full service" except maybe DSport and they aren't really a full service kind of shop. If you go to the right place I have no doubt they'll get it right for you. Some locals have set it up right but the cost really is nuts and even now they're still fighting issues. And you know I'm a crazy person who thinks things like twin scroll, relatively short low-mount cast headers, PCV recirc to intake, recirculating BOV, right-sized for ~400 whp, MAF load, validating all of that to a standard comparable to OEM test programs, etc are relevant. For what it's worth, multiple local owners at this point have been stuck in a perpetual cycle of blowing a motor -> getting someone to rebuild it -> some missed detail causes the bearings to wipe and spin just outside of break-in mileage or drop valves or some other catastrophe -> cycle repeats. I usually only find out about this because I'm perpetually helping random friends with diagnosing car troubles, Skyline or otherwise. The single turbo stuff if I'm honest is mostly secondary, it just doesn't seem to achieve the numbers in the ~2000-3000 rpm region that I would expect given the results I've seen here or in Motive's videos. I don't really know what we're missing here in the US to be causing this. Lots of people like to emphasize the necessity of finishing the project first and foremost, but I'm not made of money and I can't afford to be trashing a 15k+ USD engine build with any regularity. Or spending my relatively limited garage time these days unable to triangulate problems because too much was changed all at once. Also, even if it isn't a catastrophic failure I would consider spending the cost of single turbo conversion with nothing to show for it to be pretty bad. 
    • The water pump is know to leak as well. So if the coolant is low checking that first as well as hoses. 
    • Reading your posts Josh, sometimes I feel like I've gone in a time machine back to the 90's when everyone was doe-eyed and figuring things out for the first time.  I've lost track of how many single turbo GTR's I've seen on track that haven't burnt down lol. Everything has been figured out a long time ago. These things are at the point now where its essentially turn-key to go single turbo. 
×
×
  • Create New...