Most liked posts in thread: Tips from a Pro, MINI Calendar

There is a very big difference in shooting at car shows, and shooting staged shots of your car for a calendar. You can't choose when and where to shoot car show cars. If you want "car" photos without people in them, good luck. I don't even try. I just work with what I have, and try to get shots where the people are not blocking the car, or doing something stupid, like scratching their butts. A shot of, say, a father and son admiring a car can actually make a good photo.

Biggest tip, don't shoot every car at one height. Some cars look great shot from down low, others do not. MINIs look good from a low angle, IMO. Get close, back up, shoot high and low. My camera was sitting on the ground for this shot...




As for "Auto setting," I use Aperture Priority Automatic mode most of the time. I like to choose my aperture and let the camera choose the shutter speed. Quite often shooting for publication, I want to have a sharp shot of the car, but want the background to be out of focus. This makes the car the star of the shot. Shooting with a long-ish lens with the Aperture set between f4 to f5.6, I can get that effect. Here is a sample.



For other shots, like interiors, I use a shorter lens set to f8, for ultimate sharpness throughout the image.

Choosing your aperture is most important. As long as you shutter speed doesn't get too slow, and the subject isn't moving, the shutter speed doesn't matter.

 

I'd like to expand on something I posted earlier --- drawing attention to your car by throwing surroundings out of focus.

Below is a very simple shot of an AC Cobra in a park just before sunset. The car was in shade, but the trees and brush in the background were in full sun.

The car was about 50-75 yards in front of the trees and brush, and I was about 50 yards in front of the car, shooting with a 70-200 zoom at 185mm. I had the camera in aperture priority mode, and the aperture set at f5.6.

Now, if you don't have a long lens, don't worry. You can use a shorter lens, but you will have to place the car farther away from the background. My "personal" camera is a 500-buck Nikon with a "kit" 18-55 lens. To do this shot with that camera, I would want to get that car at least twice as far in front of the trees and brush, if possible. I'd still go with an aperture of about f5.6.

If you can't set your aperture manually, try to "trick" the camera to open up the aperture by setting it to the lowest ISO (light sensitivity) and shoot near sunrise or sunset, like I did for this one. With a low ISO setting, and lower light, the camera should pick a pretty large aperture for you.



BTW, sunrise and sunset are great times to shoot many cars, especially darker, metallic colors. What happens is that the sky becomes your light source, instead of the sun itself. That's how you get those nice, soft highlights like you see on the hood of the Cobra. More on that later.

CD

 

Thanks MCS02, Nathan and B.A.D.

If someone asks me how to take better pictures, I would never say, you need to buy an expensive camera, or learn advanced professional techniques. Now, if someone asks me how to become a professional photographer, that is a different story. Yeah, I'm going to press them to see if they REALLY want to be a professional photographer, or just think it might be an easy way to make money. Two vastly different scenarios.

MCS02, I used to have a Mamiya 645 as one of my multitudes of cameras, and liked it. I still have a Hasselblad 500c. It sits on a shelf, and reminds me that today's $3,000 camera is tomorrow's $300 camera. LOL.

Having shot professionally in 1985 and 2015, people sometimes ask me if I miss film photography. No, I don't -- not one single bit. I can get better results in a lot less time now than I ever could in the "good old days" of film. You can too.

Okay, I am rambling, as we old folks are prone to doing.

Bottom line -- if you want to take better pictures with what you have, you can. You don't have to spend a bunch of money on gear and software. It's like cars, you don't have to trade your stock MINI for a Porsche GT3, or graduate from the Bondurant Racing school to improve your driving.

CD

 

Just a repeat of tip number one -- don't wait until the last minute.

Most calendars you see in stores are actually printed by August. I'm guessing that Nathan would love to have the 2016 calendar wrapped up in August.

Now is the time to take your 2016 calendar photos.

 

Phydeaux, you got it. If you have a zoom lens or two, try shooting the cars multiple ways, with some close, some up high, some down low... you get it.

And yes, learn to shoot with people at car shows. You can't realistically expect everyone to move away so you can take your pictures. Get ready to shoot, so you can jump when opportunity knocks.

As for post processing, I don't want to go too deep in this thread (perhaps another thread later), but I run every shot I take through Photoshop.

I shoot everything in RAW format. I also look at the histogram when I preview my shots on the back of my camera. The histogram is a graphic representation of your image's exposure (another reason I prefer digital to film). In many cases, my shadow areas will be too low, while at the same time, my highlights are a little blown out. Back in the day with film, you were screwed. But, with digital, you can bring back the shadow details AND recover highlights using Adobe Camera Raw, which is part of Photoshop and Lightroom. Digital sensors have WAY more "latitude" than film did.

My standard process is this:

I run every shot through Adobe Camera Raw and use the "Recovery" and "Fill Light: functions to recover my highlights and bring up my shadow details. Then I open the image in Photoshop.

In Photoshop, I adjust my levels and color balance as needed -- if needed.

I also use the Smart Sharpen feature. Even on a camera like mine, digital images are never quite as sharp as I would like them to be. I think most photographers would agree. So, I sharpen them by just a little.


Search "histogram" and "Adobe Camera Raw" in Google or YouTube if you want to learn more about these two very useful tools.

 

For those of you who don't have the cash to throw down on a $2,000 "hobby camera," I'll keep the focus of my posts in this thread on how YOU can get the best results from the camera that YOU have.

If fishmonger wants to share his vast knowledge of advanced techniques for advanced photographers, he can certainly start a thread on that.

My theory on camera gear is to use the best equipment that you can afford, and justify buying. So, let's work with what you've got -- and don't get intimidated by people who tell you what you CAN'T do with your cameras.

CD