How to: Tips for Taking Better Automotive Pictures

JRM · Post by **JRM** » Tue May 29, 2007 6:14 pm

• Centered is rarely best – It’s easy to take a picture and put everything you want in the center, but unfortunately it doesn’t make for good photography. Generally, you want to follow the Rule of Thirds, which basically means that you want to put your subject at the cross section of two lines that cut your photo into thirds. An easy way visualize this is to imagine a tic-tac-toe board on your screen or viewfinder. Some cameras may even have this as an option to overlay on the screen.

• Angles can be good, but at the same time not so good – Going overboard on crazy angles to get a unique picture is very easy to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Remember that you want the viewer of your photo to truly grasp what you’re trying to capture, but if they have to break their neck or do a headstand to see it, then they’ll probably just look elsewhere. Make no mistake, there’s a time and place for crazy angles, but use them sparingly and make sure that everyone can tell what they’re looking at. Also, keep in mind that a very slight angle can change the feel of a photo.

• Avoid the cut-off – Just a quick and simple tip. If you’re trying to take a picture of the whole car, make sure you actually take a full picture of the car, and don’t cut off the bumpers, wheels, etc. It makes sense to cut off sections if you just want to single one or two things out, but if you want to get everything, cutting off part of the car is not a good idea.

• Wheels vs. Tire Tread – In this grudge match, the wheel always wins. If you’re taking a picture of a car, especially from ¾ position, angle the wheels so that the face of the wheel is facing the camera, not the tire tread. While some tire tread is really aggressive-looking, 99% of the time the photo will be better showing off the face of the wheel instead of the tire tread, especially if they’re aftermarket wheels. Even stock wheels can look good in a properly taken photo, but we won’t know that unless we actually see them, right?

• The background is not just noise – While the car is going to be the subject of your photo, that doesn’t mean that the background doesn’t matter. Even with proper composition, a good background can substantially help or wreck a photo. Industrial backgrounds are very overused, but it’s understandable to use if you’re in a pinch. Ideally, you want a background that helps add to the theme of a photo or just plain looks good overall. A driveway photo shoot isn’t all that great either unless the driveway is filled with a bunch more nice cars. Just be careful not to choose a background that blends in too much with your car, because then your subject won’t stand out.

• Camera elevation – A key point of any type of photography is to try to capture something that isn’t normally seen by your naked eye. Thus, try your best not to take photos from standard standing height. If you get real low or get real high, you’ll have a much better overall photo.

Photography is Light

Remember that when you’re taking a photo, you’re capturing how light is reflecting off of everything in the photo. Light rules everything with an iron fist, and getting the proper exposure is key to a good photo. After all, if you can’t see anything, what’s the point?

• Avoid backlights – Remember that you generally want your light source behind you, so that it lights up your subject. If you’re taking a photo of a car with the light source behind it, such as the sun or a streetlight, then you’ll more than likely get lens flare (the ugly green or brown series of circles that emanate from the light source in question) and your subject will not receive enough light. If you have a set of strobes though, you’re all set, and you can produce some awesome photos. A quick glance over at any of the photos on Jtuned.com can give you many good examples.

• High ISO / high-speed film is no substitute for a tripod – A tripod solves almost all of your focus and noise issues, whether you’re using a digital or film camera. If you don’t have a tripod, get one! It will be one of the best investments you can make. Sure, you can turn the ISO up or use high-speed film to increase your light sensitivity, but only at the expense of more noise and graininess in your photo. If you’re really getting serious about things, make sure you don’t go cheap on your tripod. You’ll want one that will properly hold the weight of your camera and lens, and is adjustable enough for your tastes.

• Avoid midday sun – I have seen countless midday pictures on here, and it kills the picture, so try and avoid it if you can help it, try not to shoot in the middle of a bright sunny day. It will mess up your colors and create rather harsh reflections, especially from the windows. The best times to shoot by far are right before sunrise and right at or just after sunset. Cloudy days can be good as well, but you need to be mindful of your contrast and saturation. An overcast day can almost be ideal for even lighting, but just about any shot pointed upward toward the sky is going to have a very overexposed, ugly background.

• Avoid having your headlights/tail lights/parking lights on - this causes lens flare, and throws your camera out of whack when trying to adjust for the picture. For most on here, you are using a point and shoot camera. Which can not in most cases adjust for the extreme light, SLRs and DSLRs have a manual range of adjustment to accomidate for the flare otherwise.

Use your equipment properly

You don’t need an $8000 Canon EOS 1D Mark III or a $5000 Nikon D2Xs to take good photos, but SLR cameras definitely have more of an advantage with their interchangeable lenses. However, that isn’t to say that you still can’t get good results out of a point-and-shoot. All you need is the know-how to use what equipment you have properly.

• Tripod Tripod Tripod – ‘Nuff said. If you don’t have one, get one.

• Adjust your aperture for good times – Ever wonder how photos have one thing singled out, and the rest blurry? That’s because the aperture is adjusted to shoot wide open, creating a blurred effect away from the focus point. Shooting “wide open” means that you lower your aperture down to the lowest possible f-stop. Many lenses have a lowest f-stop of f/3.5, but other lenses can go down to f/1.8 or even f/1.2. On the contrary side, using a higher f-stop will keep everything in focus, but at the expense of letting in less light, which again leads to a tripod being a must. Experiment and see what kind of results you can get. Switching your camera to aperture priority mode will help you play around with things. Also, remember that if you zoom in (in other words, use telephoto) for a photo and use a lower f-stop, you’ll get even more blurriness in the background. I use my telephoto lens with a low f-stop very often to make a car pop out from the background.

• One filter to rule them all – Special effect filters can be fun, but there’s only really one filter that you need: the Circular Polarizer. The circular polarizer is key to getting rid of nasty reflections, especially those given off from windshields and other glass. It’ll also help when taking interior trim shots. I never leave home without my circular polarizer, and it should ALWAYS be in your camera bag. The only excuse not to have one is if you have a point and shoot camera that doesn’t support one.

• Turn off that flash – There are certain ways to use a flash effectively on a car, but you usually need more than one, and it definitely won’t be the one attached to your camera. Thus, keep it turned off, and refer to the tripod rule above one more time.

• Post-processing for the win, or the lose – Of course to get your photos up on the web, they’ll need to be transferred to a computer in some fashion. Most people just upload them and call it a day, but if you take the time to post-process your photos, you can make yours easily stand out more than the next person. Often times you’ll take a photo that looks absolutely perfect right out of the camera, but even doing little things like a little sharpening or a little boost in saturation or contrast can turn your photo into something more. Just don’t go overboard with it! It’s very easy to go overboard with contrast and saturation especially. Too much contrast will remove definition and details from dark areas, and too much saturation can make a photo look very artificial. Use your best judgment and discretion, as you’ll know very quickly if something’s starting to look too extreme.

teamliviD · Post by **teamliviD** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:36 pm

Very nice write up, I read the whole thing. Thank you very much for this!

60trim · Post by **60trim** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:30 am

I tink sumwun is dissin on me fotografy skillz yo. lol j/k excellent write up. Very good info.

OB · Post by OB » Thu May 31, 2007 3:06 am

nice write up I really needed to read this! I think a tripod moved up my list. My camera is 5mp and all my pics end up slightly blurry and not very sharp. I bet the tripod rule would help this issue a lot huh?

Midnight_Rider · Post by **Midnight_Rider** » Thu May 31, 2007 3:13 am

Thanks for your time and effort with this post. Very professional.

janothan · Post by **janothan** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:39 am

its true. TRIPOD TRIPOD TRIPOD is what you should live by. WHy? Stable and when using higher apeture, the camera needs time to capture all the lght, therefore keep its position longer. Hence a tripod

DesperatePhotographer · Post by **DesperatePhotographer** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:04 am

hey i think this post is right up my alley..... and i couldn't have said it better my self, coming from a photographer.. and a vehicle photographer, YOU HAVE TO USE THE TRIPOD..... especially at night, the cars not going anywhere so let the camrea do its thing....... and of course if you are in a pinch and dont have a camera there are somethign stou can do to fix this with out the tripod.....

brace the camera... no man is completely steady in there hands we all shake..... use another car (if at a show) or the ground for low angle, so place the camera so that it has a platform to sit on.

thats probably silly to restate but its my passion, and my job, i could not out in my 2 cents....

have a great time shooting guys and gals....

Trinity · Post by **Trinity** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:33 am

grain only looks good with film.

then again you get grain at 400ISO with film...and it's usually "artistic" lol

and an example of having no tripod... get on the ground.

it was 35deg out... even asphault is cold then... all in the name of a photo though. I had CD cases and jackets stacked up just to get the camera high enough lol.

Also another lil tip... wireless/wired remotes. Helps with that lil blur you sometimes get when you press the button (even when it's on a tripod)

flamingpinhead · Post by **flamingpinhead** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:59 pm

very good writeup!!!

2003silverneonsxt · Post by **2003silverneonsxt** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 11:13 pm

or use the timer delay, even if its onlyt he 2 second one, it still gives the camera enough time to stop shaking and focus right before it takes the pic eliminating , well atleast reducing the "blur"

relenger · Post by **relenger** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 3:07 pm

NICE:) i needed that!