Proper Metering for Automobile Photography

I work at a car dealership, and I take pictures for our company website. I'm in and out all day long, so I don't necessarily have time to spend the proper time getting every shot exactly right...I do a thorough enough job to efficiently get out inventory online in a timely manner.

This being said, I would like to learn a few quick tricks to get my photos looking a little better. We have an unused service road in the back of the dealership where I bring all the vehicles when taking photos. I find it very difficult (especially on sunny Florida days) to get a shot looking right: the bright sunlight reflects off the metal, the blaring white concrete, the dark shrubbery in the background...all makes for a difficult metering situation.

I've attached an example photo, and I'm not really sure what I need to do differently. Reducing the exposure time to prevent washing out of the concrete will only make the subject (car) way too dark to see. It seems as though I can only get pretty good looking shots in overcast weather...which seems to come once every week or two. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I think the main problem is the reflection off the pavement - thats really bright on that example. Any chance you can find a patch of black pavement or park it on the grass? A polariser might help reduce some of the reflections. You have enough light for it.

Having the aperture a couple of stops more open will also give you shallower depth of field. Optimally you want the car in focus and the bushes not in focus. You could also park the car farther from your background.

At least you can take a good look at the car colors to make sure your color balance is on.

You could try the sunny 16 rule. On a sunny day, set your camera to f/16, ISO 100, 1/100 sec.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16

Another thing you could do would be spot-meter off the shrubbery. (Zoom in on the shrubs, and then press the * button to lock exposure).

Other tips would be to try to have the sun to your back as much as possible. Avoid midday sun if possible. Turn the steering wheel so you get a wider view of the rim (it makes the shot a little more dynamic). Also, if you look at car websites, the pictures are rarely taken from 6 feet up. The camera is usually a little higher or lower. Also, think about what focal length looks the best. Here is a website that gives some examples: http://www.kevinwilley.com/l3_topic04.htm

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J.V.

Thanks for the insight! I'm running in and out of the office to take pictures throughout the day as I get the time...so it's definitely difficult to pick and choose optimal times of day (in terms of preferred light) to take the shots.

I think the most difficult thing to overcome is the blaring pavement. I guess I can try to find a more shaded area, although about 90% of our dealership property is filled with cars. This little access road I use in the back is by far the most convenient, and isolated, of the areas.

All these tips are good, so I'll address the background.

Considering the limited environment, you can get a good, clean background by getting on a ladder and shooting down on the vehicle. This way the annoying pavement or patch of grass would form a clean, simple background.

Use RAW.

The good news is that will give you an additional 2-stops of latitude.

The bad news is that you'll have to make time to run every pic through a RAW converter. But that's not hard if all you are doing is a simple Shadows/Highlights adjustment.

gibbstom13 said:

Click to expand...

I took your pic and did a Shadows/Highlights adjustment in PSE8. Since I didn't have the extra 2-stops of information, it's not as good as it would be if you used RAW:



The other thing you could do (ans another poster suggested) is to:

1. Move the car to a location where the background is a long distance away.
2. Lower the f/# to as low as you have.
3. Use as long a FL as you have. (I'm guessing the 18-55mm "kit" lens)
4. Raise the sensitivity (ISO) until the exposure works. You may have to do a bit of NR, but as long as you insist on taking the pix during business hours...
5. Get an external flash or 3 and use them wirelessly...put one on the shady side of the car...put one inside the car...adjust their outputs to make it look nice (that will require you to play a bit).

After you show your boss how good the new pix look (don't be shy), get him to approve a 50mm f/1.4 lens to really get the background a creamy blur.

gibbstom13 said:

I work at a car dealership, and I take pictures for our company website. I'm in and out all day long, so I don't necessarily have time to spend the proper time getting every shot exactly right...I do a thorough enough job to efficiently get out inventory online in a timely manner.

This being said, I would like to learn a few quick tricks to get my photos looking a little better. We have an unused service road in the back of the dealership where I bring all the vehicles when taking photos. I find it very difficult (especially on sunny Florida days) to get a shot looking right: the bright sunlight reflects off the metal, the blaring white concrete, the dark shrubbery in the background...all makes for a difficult metering situation.

I've attached an example photo, and I'm not really sure what I need to do differently. Reducing the exposure time to prevent washing out of the concrete will only make the subject (car) way too dark to see. It seems as though I can only get pretty good looking shots in overcast weather...which seems to come once every week or two. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Click to expand...

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"Quantum Mechanics: The dreams that stuff is made of..."

Whatever you do, taking that sort of shot in midday sun is always going to be problematic. If you want to avoid having to PP every shot, you are just going to have to move the car to a less harsh lighting situation or do it earlier or later in the day.

I think the advice about using a 50mm lens and a narrow DOF is all very well, and could produce more creative shots, but that requires real care with focusing. In your position having to produce foolproof, sharp pictures with minimum hassle, I would stick to a stopped down aperture so that everything is sharp. Better a sharp background than having your boss complaining about blurry bodywork.
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tim

timo said:

Whatever you do, taking that sort of shot in midday sun is always going to be problematic. If you want to avoid having to PP every shot, you are just going to have to move the car to a less harsh lighting situation or do it earlier or later in the day.

Click to expand...

Along those lines...if you look at dramatic car ads, most of them are shot near sunset when there is no harsh light and you get long clean highlights all the way down the auto body. If you have big clear skies they should work well to produce even light for late afternoon photography.

a Little Photoshop if you have it.



--
Tom
When my bones turn to dust,
and if my CD's didn't rust,
future generations will see my photos
and think that I was nuts.

If your boss would let you paint the area of pavement that is in the shot, it would be possible to paint a scumbled camo-colored treatment onto the pavement, that would blend with the real plant life behind. Then use a shallower DOF, as has already been mentioned.
--
JohnK
Take a picture, it'll last longer.

I shoot car shows for a living, and most of them tend to be in full sunlight like your example. The biggest issue is the extreme dynamic range you run into, which unfortunately is the nature of the beast. To deal with that and even things out, you have to use a flash. The built-in flash on your camera is tolerable, but a hotshoe mounted unit is really the best. Set it up for fill flash if it has that option (I shoot Nikon and they normally do). Also, if you have the option for high speed flash sync, then set that as well. I tend to shoot shows using aperture-priority @ f5.6 or f8, ISO 200, but depends on the light at the time and I adjust ISO accordingly.

Some advised to use a wider aperture to isolate the background more, but I find that it's more important to get the car in focus front to back than anything else. I focus on the closest point because that tends to be what draws the eyes the most and you want that sharp. If you want to keep the vehicle in near complete focus, but isolated form the background, you need a longer lens like a 70-200mm and need to shoot on the long end. This isn't practical for auto show work due to the tight spaces, but for your situation it's doable.

I would also recommend a circular polarizer as well to control the reflectiions and help with the glare from the concrete. All cameras are different, but in bright sunlight I find that my D3 tends to underexpose, especially with a light vehcle, so I often use +2/3 - +1 exposure comp to get closer to the proper exposure. You just have to play with it on your own to see what works best for your camera. No matter what though, expect some PP work to be needed to bring everything in perfect alignment; again, just the nature of the beast. Also, shooting RAW is a must.

Here's two galleries of shows I shot in full sun this year using the above advice. You can make it work with a little effort, but I still prefer shooting in the evening for the best results in most cases. good luck!

http://emasterphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/2010-Spring-Thing-Cruise/G00008kW1PFJCM4Q

http://emasterphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/2010-New-Castle-Memories-Car-Show/G0000gmG0jywUgrI/
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http://www.emasterphoto.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emasterphoto/

I suggest you use a grey card such as :

http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-Gray-Card-18%25-R-27/dp/B00009R7B0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1292662814&sr=8-5

place this in front of the car and spot measure from that. Also use that for a manual white balance. remove the card and take the photograph. This will give you the most accurate representation. A good suggestion is also to use a polarising filter.

A