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Brochure car photography

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Daniel Har

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Hi!,

I've been asked to quote the shoot of multiple passenger vehicles in various locations in the City. The importer of the brand wants pictures that reflect the car in the local environment. I have quite a bit of experience shooting cars in racing and car shows, but none in "arranged shots".

Theese won't be studio sessions, but I still understand that the official pictures of the cars that brands like VW or Ford must requier some kind of special arrangement and lighting equipment that I may not have. I also understand that I may not be able to achieve such a level of quality since it requieres experience in this kind of work. But, I'm willing to do some tests first by my own and present the result to the client in advance.

Anyone here have any idea of the kind of setups needed? Take for instance this picture. It seems to me that the sunset is lighting the back of the car, but the front and side reflections are very well done and smooth. Is this a result of photoshop, artificial lighting... etc?

 
I did a quick edit in NX2 to show what I would do, but I wanted to make sure you were cool with me reposting the picture before I did. I'll explain what I did a little bit for you too if you'd like? I think the lighting in the photo is natural and the background is very washed out and kind of boring, especially in the sky IMO. The car look great though! Probably a little saturation added to the red in the car and some sharpness and contrast as well as saturation adjustments.

Chris
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewenzels/
 
Well, that picture of the Polo is an official VW picture, I didn't shoot that one :P

But yes post your version so we can see :D
 
Keep in mind, this was like a 2 minute edit and I would probably make the ground less magenta in color. The JPEG files aren't good for PP, so keep that in mind. All of this would have been better off with the RAW file for sure. I'm not saying mine is better than the official ad, I'm just showing something close to what I would have liked to have seen more. Everyone has their own taste in photography... So, just trying to help or add to the dpreview forum shenanigans... :-)

I added several color points and darkned the sky adding saturation, contrast. I then removed the blimp and plane and quickly adjusted the saturation of the buildings making them warmer and making the grass greener and brighter. Then I quickly fiddled with the asphalt and the dark shadows to the left of the car. That's it.



--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewenzels/
 
Hi mayonaka,

I do like your version better than the official VW pic. But want I want to learn (or at least slightly understand) is how to get the the reflections and lighting right in the original picture so then it's possible to postprocess the image to create a good looking image.

I find that automotive pictures are sometimes the more difficoult to guess the technique used. Many times it's a studio shot photoshoped to a location shot, sometimes it's a real shot but with artificial lighting. Another problem is motion, many pictures are pannings or slow shutter shots to create the road blur, but it's most probable that most of the time theres added blur on photoshop, which creates even more of a problem because the reflections must be eiter removed or they'll show static objects etc...

I guess it's a tricky subject :P
 
I would first recommend two thing.

1. Play around with a polarizing filter. Then you can add or remove reflections as you wish. You'll be stuck with whatever light you get from the sun unless you want to drag a bunch of flashes with you, which I honestly don't think they did here. I think they just locally increased brightness and contrast on the car as well as sharpness where needed.

2. Use spot metering to get an accurate exposure of the car. That's kind of not as important since it depends on how you want the exposure to look in the background.

Have you tried a good circular polarizer? I've taken thousands of photos of cars over my lifetime and these reflections are expected since the curves are reflecting off the open sky on the left even though the main lightsource is on the right. Auto ISO or changing your ISO can sometimes help here depending on what you're doing and how you want the exposure to turn out. A highly waxed car will shine off of anything bright and the sky sure was bright that day!

Thanks, Chris
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewenzels/
 
I would also want to take some pictures with a polarizer on the lens to cut some of the glare from the autos paint.
Definately shoot with and with out a polarizer
 
It would seem the conventional light for shiny cars outdoors would be a diffuse, overcast light on everything(the top and visible sides of the car) except the backround scenic view--that looks 'better' with clear blue sky, etc. They seem to get the closest to this at sunrise/sunset in an open location so there's lots of sky to reflect in the visible panels of the car body. It is nearly impossible to erect a white card or reflector big enough to cover the curved shiny surfaces of the car, but judicious placement of the car near some existing facade with a light neutral color would be next best.--
-KB-
 
You can create very bright reflections by just pulling up the curve in the shadow parts of the car, especially with dark metallic colours or black. Or just take care there actually is something very bright around the car.

Take a look at my portfolio and feel free to ask if there's something you like.

http://www.datzinger.net/portfolio/automotive/

BTW my latest car pics:









Kind regards,
Martin

--
http://www.datzinger.net
 
Martin,

Those picture are awesome! Hat's off to you! I do have two main questions:
  • What should I take into consideration when deciding the placement of the vehicle, mostly regarding to the reflections.
  • For movement pictures, what is the best technique? Panning shots are OK with me as I have a lot of practice cause I shoot many racing events. I'm thinking of getting a truck to try shooting from behind it. How low can you go with the shutter speed?
 
Daniel, I'll throw my 2 cents in here. Try to keep the sun from being in front of your subject or directly behind you. The reflections will come naturally after that. If you don't like the angle of them in your viewfinder, move to a different vantage point. For cars that are moving, I'd use at least a shutter speed of 1200 or so to slow the action. If you want to keep a blurry background, try 250 and pan with the cars. Distance is very important. You can go slower, but you have to have a very clean and nice sweep while panning to capture the subject clearly. Time of day and lighting also play a role though, you wouldn't want to shoot at 8000 fps at night while panning at ISO 200. I think you just need to get out and practice with different settings and see what works for you.

Chris
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewenzels/
 
Daniel,

I did a lot of car photography back in the day, mostly on Sinar or Linhof 4x5", with lenses up to 600mm. It's difficult to put in a few words what you might want to do/try, the best is always to do trials and gain experience, which is what you're doing. Car photography can be affected by so many factors, but here are a few notes on top of my head, hopefully they will be useful, but please don't take these as rules, as there is always the exception and the unexpected.
  • Get the car cleaned, and, if possible, try to get it transported on a trailer.
  • On location, make sure you've got cleaning material (chamois leather, clothes, tire cleaner, small brush (for the tires), window cleaner. Dry clean the rest of the body, to remove the dust.
  • You might want to bring some black velvet and a roll of tracing paper, a cutter and some duct tape, in case you need to cover some of the windows from the inside. In case you need to look through the windows, then forget all that stuff.
  • Make sure you recce the place(s) properly, and make sure to take note of sunrise/sunset and car angle. The client often wants to see the driver side of the car, for some odd reason, but not always. So think car angle, background and position of the sun. That's the difficult part.
  • Use longer lenses, if possible, you'll want to compress the car/background, unless specified otherwise.
  • For softer light, you'll have to wait later, often after sunset, but that again depends on the brief. The softer the light, the less you'll need to fill. Most of the time, you'll want a nice soft side reflection from the sun(set) dusk, and perhaps some front fill.
--
Nick
 
  • I prefer shooting in the afternoon evening, because it's easier to setup while it's bright outside, but sometimes you have to shoot early morning, which isn't nice.
  • You can fill with either a large diffuser, which might give you a more natural fill, or with a battery packed flash unit (Profoto, Hensel, Bowens...). If you fill flash, careful with the colour temperature, you might want some warm Lee filters or so.
  • Avoid pola filters, as you might get some anti Newton stuff in the windscreens.
  • Make sure the client has the appropriate "number" plate (or name plate) ready for you, and that you have a tool with you. Strong double sided tape is also good to bring along. But the number plate can easily be added post these days.
  • This goes without saying, but bring a sturdy tripod and release cable.
  • You might need police approval depending on location.
  • PP is important, but the shoot itself is what you'll need to get right! There's too much talk about PP these days, less about the actual shoot.
This is all on top of my head. Hope it helps a bit :-)
--
Nick
 
Here's a pic taken by someone else with unknown camera before I was about to race on Hockenheim Ring in Germany with my car. Mine is the red one. You can see that even with said probably point and shoot camera that the light reflects off the car pretty well to give the image dimension. You can do this no problem! I always made sure my car was waxed and shiny before any big racing event.







--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewenzels/
 
Chris' tip regarding the sun is certainly right. You don't want to shoot at high noon, too. Except maybe in bright surroundings such wealthy areas of USA coastal cities.

Regarding motion: The trick is to shoot the car with rather longish exposure times on a smooth road from a second car with good ride comfort and a stabilised camera (VR lens or possibly best one of those gyro-bubbles you can mount underneath) with a FL of around 35mm (good compromise between showing a lot of landscape, making the shot dynamic and still not distorting the car too much). I guess using the remote Zigview will help a lot as you know where you're pointing at and still keep phase-detect AF. Thus it will be the next purchase of mine.

This technique, in complete contrast to panning makes the foreground fast and the distant background slow and recognisable. It gives a much more natural sensation of speed as this is what you're used to when you look out of the car. If you want to exaggerate the effect, put a lot of structure into the foreground, either by a low position with quite some road in the image or as I did here driving closely by the bushes on the side of the road:



You can mount the camera on a boom and let the foliage fly by even more dramatically.

Definitely the best way is to use a car-mount boom. But that's very expensive and a wee bit cumbersome with 24h preparation time and so on. But as soon as it is mounted, you can get perfect results at whatever scene you want to put the car in, such as twisty mountain roads. You can then use shutter speeds of many seconds, very slow speed and still get the sensation of extreme speed and a perfectly sharp car, e.g.:

http://www.edmunds.com/media/roadtests/firstdrive/2008/porsche.boxster.rs.60.spyder/08.porsche.boxster.rs60.340.jpg

One thing I want to try will be shooting stepwise: One shot with the car standing still, one shot with really slow shutter speeds while driving. Then combining the two shots - landscape and wheels from the moving shot, car from the still standing. Or rather a series a of images with the best matching and at least moving "fast" images chosen.

Using a polariser may give you a desired effect. But you have to know if your client wants that look of see-through front windows, heavy side reflections, saturated colours but most certainly fancy-coloured headlamps. As far as I could see this is rather en-vogue in the US. My client would probably refuse such images.

Oh yes, have the car carefully cleaned. Heal brush is fast, but physical cleaning is faster.

Kind regards,
Martin

--
http://www.datzinger.net
 
Daniel Har said:
Hi!,

I've been asked to quote the shoot of multiple passenger vehicles in
various locations in the City. The importer of the brand wants
pictures that reflect the car in the local environment.
Click to expand...
Since you are in the 'Dominican Republic' could be a good chance to spice-up the cars image with local colour? Or do they want a slick high tech look?
We do not know enough about your clients brief, so hard/impossible to advise.

Be prepared for some fancy photoshopping at any rate, either by you or a pro retoucher.

I use to shoot editorial for BMW Jpn back in my film days on 6x6 (prior to photoshop)
  • watch the light and reflections etc. Bring at least a few SB's.
--
Rudi - freelancer
 
I haven't got much experience shooting cars, but I shot some cars for a friend of mine last year. So this is my amateur take on it. Just one DSLR, and no light enhancers.

What I did was shoot them in shadow and/or sunset light. Then added a S-curve to spice up the contrast, then use the dodge and burn tool to dodge the highlights (making them brighter) and burn the shadows (making them darker). That had a great effect on the tonality and contrast of the car paint and its reflections - really brought it out.

The older black Porsche in the shots underneath, was really pretty run down, and the pain wasn't looking all that hot. No way to tell from the photos. Of course, washing and polishing the car first is a must.

All the four shots underneath are done quick and dirty, so the transitions in the two shots with blended exposures are badly done, and the overall PP isn't great - but usable. The blending was just done to get the sunset back in the sky. No blending/HDR for the car. Also, for a commercial shot, I would probably have pumped the contrast and colors more, but I tried to keep these shots half realistic.

My point is just to show what a DSLR and some quick dodge & burn can do.








Daniel Har said:
Anyone here have any idea of the kind of setups needed? Take for
instance this picture. It seems to me that the sunset is lighting the
back of the car, but the front and side reflections are very well
done and smooth. Is this a result of photoshop, artificial
lighting... etc?
Click to expand...
My experience is that a bit of curves, and then the all-important dodge & burn will make the reflections and paint sing.

Thomas.
 
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