Tips for car photography?

[Louisa911]

Hello, I'm an art/design student but have yet to properly try my hand at proper photography, and having an interest in cars makes photographing my new car the obvious choice. I also have photoshop so some tips including that programme would be really appreciated thanks.
At the moment I only have access to my own digital compact camera, with only a few manual settings, and lots of presets (the usual - night, snow, party, landscape, portrait etc) and a manual setting where you can change the basic setup.
Will soon be able to access a better one hopefully.

But in the meantime, any suggestions or tips on the best ways to capture a car? What settings, compositions and other such factors will contribute towards a good looking image? (ford focus 1.8 zetec in dark green by the way, nothing special)

Considering I prefer the more arty / interesting / dramatic style shots!

Thanks a lot

Edited by Louisa911 on Wednesday 11th June 14:52

[Scho]

zoom in and get further away, this will help make the car in focus and the background blurry! try using the smallest number aperture you have too.

like this:

[Andy M]

http://mattwatkinson.com/tutorial/

[Dai Capp]

I tend to get down low as well - this is more a preference thing, I think cars generally look better photographed from ground level. These are two of my Z3 - the first isn't so low down - I was just kneeling but you get the idea...






This book is great as well:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Photograph-Cars-Enthus...

goes through a whole series of techniques. If photographing cars is a big part of your portfolio it's well worth a look...

HTH

DC

[cryton]

A good location always helps.It can make a photo.Night time shots are always cool too.Just play about with camera settings.Best try just as it gets dark and remeber you tripod or sit camera on the ground.

[CivicMan]

Hi Louisa,

Another thought or two! I have two fairly boring cars sitting outside my house at the moment. Having read your post I popped out and shot three pictures. To do an image of the whole car just is not interesting - BUT, maybe looking at design details it makes it more graphic and sometimes quite abstract. For example:







And why stick with your two worthy but not the most exciting cars? Have a wander round car parks and streets and find yourself some photogenic machines with interesting elements.

The pics above were straight snaps, buzzed up a little in Photoshop.

It's just another avenue you could possibly explore?

[paul911]

One from me http://www.cobracountry.com/fototips/home.html

[sublimatica]

If the subject car is sporty and you want to accentuate a long front end, get low and close to the front quarter and shoot with a wider-angle. This brings the front right out to the camera and the back gets lost in the distance, making the car look longer and sleeker. Here's an example:



Shot from a similar angle but further away with a zoom:



The second one is nowhere near as dramatic.

I also like to turn the steering so the visible front wheel is more perpendicular to the camera lens, as in the first photo above.

HTH

[4hero]

and don't be scared to do some processing! This was 6 exposures, merged in photomatix, colour selection done in photoshop, then some adjustments and vignetting in lightroom.



some may say it's over the top, but I like it

edited to add: make sure all sun visors are up, and if possible remove the number plates, much cleaner finish in my opinion.

Edited by 4hero on Wednesday 11th June 22:44