My First Photoshoot (rx7,rx8)

[chaser33sum]

hey everyone i just did my first paid vehicle photoshoot, i usually do portraiture but was asked by a friend to do his car for him.

This is a sample of what i have taken (one pic has a Import Tuner logo, i thought id add that there to see how it looked haha)

feedback and room for improvement welcomed and appreciated.cheers

excuse the quality, i had to resize them

[ZENNON]

feedback and room for improvement welcomed and appreciated.cheers

I'm assuming this is a HDR of sorts.. which is good for the car but creates some halo'ing around the bridge.

Might be worth overlapping this image over a single exposure in photoshop and then 'erasing' the halo bits so the normal single exposure shines through.

(wow didn't explain that very well - maybe someone like Kory knows what I mean and what that is called...)

[MaTBoY]

nice shots.

zenon i think you explained it well enough.

in more detail. create your hdr shot. then open up the best orignal exposure so your background has no halo's. then place the hdr version of the pic over the top of the normal pic. and only mask in the parts you want from the hdr exposure. so for this pic you'd overlay the hdr black car and maybe the ground. leaving out the sky and rails. this is will give the shot a much more natural look.

[FST513]

Yah, pretty bad halo'ing. I'm assuming this was a one shot HDR and not 3 shots combined? Just judging that by the details, unless you cranked it all down so it looks more natural - If thats the case, GOOD ON YOU!!!!! Overdone HDR's suck especially with cars.

Basically what MATBOY said.

Open your HDR image.

Open your normal exposure before you created a HDR.

CTRL-A and CTRL-C to select all and copy it.

Go to your HDR image.

CTRL-V and paste it on top.

Click on the "camera" looking thing in the bottom of the layer palette which is a mask. No need to invert it because you want to keep the original exposure and paint in the car/ground/rails.

Change your brush colour to black.

Become picaso and paint in what you want!

DONE!

[chaser33sum]

thanks for the replies everyone..First pic, believe it or not, isnt HDR.i basically enhanced the highlights to give a cartoonish look while keeping the car natural. i can definately notice the halo effect, thats if you are referring to the white around the bridge rails.

below is a version of the pic without highlight enhancements:

i only charged $50 for the shoot which compensated for petrol and insurance, is this an appropriate price? what is everyone else charging for car photographs? ended up with 20 useable pictures fortunately lol

[NA_Goodness]

I usually charge a carton of Corona or a bottle of American Honey. Some times more if I'm really busy, but thats just me. I'm not where near an expert, and the price will definately go up when I get better. Help to pay for more equipment, ect.

[FST513]

If it's a single car, around $150-$200 depending on if they want light painting or not. Will go up more when i get my rig too.

[MaTBoY]

My prices are about the same.

Usually allow for a couple hours shooting and moving around, and what ever your post time is.

[ZENNON]

If it's a single car, around $150-$200 depending on if they want light painting or not. Will go up more when i get my rig too.

My prices are about the same.

Usually allow for a couple hours shooting and moving around, and what ever your post time is.

Yeah SAU QLD Exec wanted me to do a shoot with 10 cars.. for free!

[FST513]

10 cars!?!?!?!!? By yourself? Holy sh!t. If it was like a group shot and thats it, then it would be fine. But 10 individual cars would take almost an entire day, at LEAST 12 hrs allowing for lunch/dinner, moving spots etc.. 10 cars i'd charge $3000 at least lol. Way too much work, not only taking the photos, but travel, your own time, food and the longest of them all... processing. And then organising digital copies/prints for people... bah!

[MaTBoY]

i reckon 5 is the most you'd wanna do if you wanted to actually focus on each car and get a few decent shots with set ups. 10 is ridiculous to do yourself. for free no less. the problem is most people don't understand what's involved. they assume it's just like pointing their camera phone at a car and getting instant awesomeness. if only that were the case haha.

[ZENNON]

10 cars!?!?!?!!? By yourself? Holy sh!t. If it was like a group shot and thats it, then it would be fine. But 10 individual cars would take almost an entire day, at LEAST 12 hrs allowing for lunch/dinner, moving spots etc.. 10 cars i'd charge $3000 at least lol. Way too much work, not only taking the photos, but travel, your own time, food and the longest of them all... processing. And then organising digital copies/prints for people... bah!

Yeah my reply was along the lines of

"If I spend around 20 hours (5hrs shooting & 15hrs processing) at $20 per hour that's $400. (That's if I get paid purely for my time). If there are 10 cars that's only like $40 per car which isn't that bad. We can give each person a DVD of the photo's"

and never heard anything back!

i reckon 5 is the most you'd wanna do if you wanted to actually focus on each car and get a few decent shots with set ups. 10 is ridiculous to do yourself. for free no less. the problem is most people don't understand what's involved. they assume it's just like pointing their camera phone at a car and getting instant awesomeness. if only that were the case haha.

head-nail-hammer

[NA_Goodness]

I did 10 cars once, that was f**kED!! My legs were soooo sore afterwards, and it took my 3 months to finish all the processing My computer was shit back then though. All for free no less, but I did have fun doing it. I wasnt very good back then though, things have changed a bit now and its a hell of a lot of work! Mind you, my shoots arent as intense as you guys. I'm not awesome like that, lol