Photoshoot Tips/Advice

[petrolveins]

Hey Guys, been into Photography for quite a while now, and am particularly keen on automotive photography. I've done a few photoshoots with my own car, but this is the first i've tried with more than one car. Just wondered what you guys all thought of them. I was also wondering what bit of kit should be the highest on my shopping list. At the moment i've got a 450D, 18-55mm lens and 50mm f/1.8 lens. Been looking at flashes, tripods, lenses and can't decide what is the most important to get first if I want to get my pics looking really good.

Anyway here are some pics on my Flickr of mine and my mates car that I took today for you to all critique. I'll add some of the older ones soon too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlynchie/

Tom

Edited by petrolveins on Saturday 5th December 22:03

[GFWilliams]

Kit isn't important.

Get composition right first.

shooting 2 cars is very difficult to make look good. Look at how they position the cars in magazines such as evo and try to replicate it. Also look at the locations they use - I don't think that I've ever seen them use a car park

[petrolveins]

GFWilliams said:

Kit isn't important.

Get composition right first.

shooting 2 cars is very difficult to make look good. Look at how they position the cars in magazines such as evo and try to replicate it. Also look at the locations they use - I don't think that I've ever seen them use a car park

Yeah I kinda thought that's what people would say about the kit, yeah car park was a bit lame, I just new it would be empty and have lots of space, I quite liked the trains too. I notice you're in the surrey area too, some of your locations are great, are they relatively local?

[petrolveins]

For some reason my link isn't working for me so I'm gonna try and post some pictures...
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[GFWilliams]

It's quite a distracting background tbh. I do like the train wizzing past, but look at the fence and sign in the background - both detracting from the image.

Also, I think that you need to shoot at a higher F-number aperture - Ie. F11-22ish. That would bring the back of the car behind into focus which would improve the images.

The positioning of the cars isn't too bad tbh. If you did it at an interesting location (country road, somewhere with a nice view etc) it would work well.

If you've got 2 mates, you could get them to drive along close to each other (again in a better location) and try a few panning shots..

Tbh, I try not to shoot more than one car at the moment - just try to keep it simple and do one car at a time. It means that you can be a lot more creative...

HTH
George

[petrolveins]

Yeah, fair point about the aperture, I just thought it would look cool, and location is distracting. As for panning I've been itching to give it a go, but don't really know where, you couldn't possibly give me any hints as to good locations for such a thing?

[GFWilliams]

Find a nice country road with good viability and 2 places that you can turn maybe a bend too