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Critiques requested for car sale images

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A couple of things help for a nice photograph.

Subject - obviously that's your car. But you can do closeups of several shiny details.
Also said before: Background. Choose something that brings out the car or at least does not draw attention - no clutter.

Angles: Try varying height and postion. Photograph it top-down (stand on an overpass). Take a wide angle shot inside the car. Photograph from a cat's perspective.

Light: Vary the light. Hard 11:00-14:00 sunlight is not friendly. Try to place the car in the shade, find another time, wait for clouds.

Creative tip: Photograph your car at night. Put the camera on a tripod; this looks nice from a low perspective. Give it a tiny aperture and a long exposure time (30 seconds?). Works nice with a delay on the shutterbutton to counter vibrations.
Then... run around the car, shining at it from various angles with a flashlight. Don't forget to shine under the car. Very fun to do.
 
Avoid harsh sunlight; drive to a scenic location and get some shots at dusk or dawn, when the light is softer.

Or just hire a professional; I constantly see tales of cars not selling for ages, seller replaces their own photos of the car with ones taken by a professional, car immediately sells.
 
I'd go easy on the contrast, it just makes shadows black. You can also try a warmer WB and try to lift the camera to get a better angle, especially since this is a sports car.

More importantly, as an european i have to ask, what's the fuel economy on that thing? One thing to remember is that in the EU you'il get burned badly with most car engines over 2 litres, taxes are crazy. It's the reason very few people get american cars.
 
extrapolator said:
Bill Ferris said:
Beautiful car!

My observations and comments are mostly in the area of creative options to consider. They're based on the guiding principal that anything in a photo that doesn't contribute to the story of the image or subject, is a distraction to be eliminated.

First, I wouldn't photograph the car in front of your house. It's not a setting that focuses the viewer's attention on the car and it's most attractive attributes. You want the viewer's gaze immediately drawn to the car. The setting should contribute to the vehicle's story or, at worst, be brutal.

Is there a track or road course in the area where you could make the photos? A dark asphalt road surface will set off the car better than a light gray concrete surface. Positioning the car on a bank, in a turn - especially an undulating curve on a road course - would add a dynamic setting that contributes to communicating the personality of the vehicle.

I'd also wait for a cloudy day when the sky will act like a giant soft box. Soft even lighting will lighten shadows, even out the illumination, and avoid overblown highlights. It's a quality of light that will showcase the beauty and elegance of the vehicle.

By choosing a better location and better quality light, you can call attention to two of the most important qualities that will attract buyers... its power & speed and the car's beauty.

Good luck with the sale.
Click to expand...
Got it, thanks. Apparently I'll need to come up with a different location. My problem is, the car for sale has 351 miles on it, and adding miles to a collector car usually devalues it. So I'll probably need to trailer the car to a better location, problem with that being that I don't have a trailer. I'll look into renting one.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering if you really need to do that. Sure, find the most attractive backdrop you can in your immediate vicinity, but assuming competent photography, this is a car that will sell based on what it is more than how you present it. Collectors will know whether they're interested or not based on its description, not whether the photos have pretty backdrops. If you were selling an ordinary car pictures would matter as a way of differentiating your car from all the similar ones, but I'm sure you know how much competition you have, and it can't be much.

On the other hand, having some good pictures as a record of a car you owned might appeal to you. I've still not go to great lengths finding the perfect place. There's bound to be somewhere attractive in your neighborhood.
 
extrapolator said:
Larry_T said:
I am on Bring a Trailer often, I second the suggestion to look on this site for excellent examples. If you are selling on your own, find a simple setting as others suggested, avoid shadow, sun glare, etc. If you are a serious seller and want top dollar hire a professional. I know on sites like BaT where the buyers almost only have access to the car via photos and Q&A with the seller, top photos can enhance the sale by tens of thousands. Best of luck.
Click to expand...
I watch BaT all the time, and that's where I intend to list my red GT. I'll look for a better setting, but I don't care to hire a professional because I want to learn photography and this is a good project to motivate me to really focus and improve. And I'm in no hurry to sell; whenever the images are finished, but really no rush. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Now that makes it sound like fun, and a good way of learning how to photograph cars. You might still want to hire a photographer with experience in car photography, not just to get good pictures, but to pick his brain and watch what he does. That could be quite entertaining.
 
Rambow said:
I'd go easy on the contrast, it just makes shadows black. You can also try a warmer WB and try to lift the camera to get a better angle, especially since this is a sports car.

More importantly, as an european i have to ask, what's the fuel economy on that thing? One thing to remember is that in the EU you'il get burned badly with most car engines over 2 litres, taxes are crazy. It's the reason very few people get american cars.
Click to expand...
It's a very American car, and rare. People who can afford these are not sensitive about gas prices.
 
MarkInSF said:
Rambow said:
I'd go easy on the contrast, it just makes shadows black. You can also try a warmer WB and try to lift the camera to get a better angle, especially since this is a sports car.

More importantly, as an european i have to ask, what's the fuel economy on that thing? One thing to remember is that in the EU you'il get burned badly with most car engines over 2 litres, taxes are crazy. It's the reason very few people get american cars.
Click to expand...
It's a very American car, and rare. People who can afford these are not sensitive about gas prices.
Click to expand...
That's correct ... remember I said the red one I'm selling is a 2005 model with only 351 miles on it. MPG is irrelevant. Even for owners who actually drive them ... my silver GT, also a 2005, has traveled 6,200 miles in its 17 years of existence, and MPG concerns, if any, would be re range, ie Do I need to fill up during this month's Cars & Coffee drive, or next month's 🙂 Even the highest mileage Ford GT I know of, 144,000 miles on it, I'd place a huge bet that its owner also doesn't care about its fuel economy either. All that said, the 2005 Ford GT was rated at 12 MPG city / 19 highway.

Thanks re your shadows, WB and camera elevation comments 👍
 
Last edited:
techie takes pics said:
A couple of things help for a nice photograph.

Subject - obviously that's your car. But you can do closeups of several shiny details.
Also said before: Background. Choose something that brings out the car or at least does not draw attention - no clutter.

Angles: Try varying height and postion. Photograph it top-down (stand on an overpass). Take a wide angle shot inside the car. Photograph from a cat's perspective.

Light: Vary the light. Hard 11:00-14:00 sunlight is not friendly. Try to place the car in the shade, find another time, wait for clouds.

Creative tip: Photograph your car at night. Put the camera on a tripod; this looks nice from a low perspective. Give it a tiny aperture and a long exposure time (30 seconds?). Works nice with a delay on the shutterbutton to counter vibrations.
Then... run around the car, shining at it from various angles with a flashlight. Don't forget to shine under the car. Very fun to do.
Click to expand...
Thanks for all the suggestions 👍
 
vundere said:
Avoid harsh sunlight; drive to a scenic location and get some shots at dusk or dawn, when the light is softer.

Or just hire a professional; I constantly see tales of cars not selling for ages, seller replaces their own photos of the car with ones taken by a professional, car immediately sells.
Click to expand...
Tks re harsh sunlight. As for driving, the car has 351 miles on it, and I'm not willing to add more miles since that would devalue it. The most I will do is do a 1-2 mile drive down the road and back video for bidders to see that the car runs and operates perfectly. As for hiring a professional, I want to learn to do this myself. Thank you ...
 
I think you might be missing the forest by over-examining the trees. Before you start discussing raw, jpeg, and shutter speeds, perhaps we should first look at the overall composition. Is that the best way to position the vehicle? You’ve left a lot of driveway in the foreground, which ultimately needs to get cropped out. Thus, the car is up against the shrubs, which makes it difficult to blur using depth of field.
 
Yes, I'd love to have a wide open space (preferably indoors!) so I can blur it and it won't matter as much, but I just don't have that much space here. So my options are to find the most space here, or look into transporting the car somewhere, which I don't reeeeeally wanna do, but may have to. Thank you ...
 
Even in a studio, a car can be a challenge because of all the irregular reflective surfaces. Big gobos and scrims can help a lot. You can control the light and reflections. The rest, like blurring the background can happen in post.
 
In this image I used my Canon 70D with my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM on a tripod approximately 30 feet from the chair, remote shutter, no filters, and this is an unedited JPG straight out of the camera. 2 questions:

1) I can't seem to get the chair is sharp as I think it should be. I tried f/1.8 and f/2.2 in case f/1.8 is at the bleeding edge and therefore not as sharp. I also tried auto focus as well as manual, and below seems to be the best I can get. Do you think I'm doing something wrong / failing to do something, or is this just as sharp as my nifty fifty can get?

2) The background bushes are about 50 feet behind the chair. If I want the background even blurrier, would moving to say the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM make a significant difference, and at 70mm can you give me an idea as to how much farther back the camera would need to be in order to get the same area in the image?

Thanks as always, and here's the test image:

Canon 70D with my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM on a tripod approximately 30 feet from the chair, set to f/2.2, remote shutter, no filters, and this is an unedited JPG straight out of the camera.

Canon 70D with my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM on a tripod approximately 30 feet from the chair, set to f/2.2, remote shutter, no filters, and this is an unedited JPG straight out of the camera.
 
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