View Full Version : 1st attempt at shooting a car
Cozen
10-23-2009, 03:28 AM
Here's a shot from my first car shoot. It's much much harder than I thought it would be. I don't think 3 lights is enough, but I do like how this one turned out. A little levels/sharpening/contrast in Photoshop. Critiques are welcome!
Cozen
10-23-2009, 03:30 AM
Guess I'll throw this one in too. Not a car, but I was working on these a few weeks ago. My favorite of the bunch.
Cozen
10-23-2009, 04:21 AM
Another pic form the car shoot. Yeah we were outdoors and it was misting.
Very nice. What really bothers me is that both car pictures are not 100% leveled. Even though they're almost perfectly leveled, the few missing degrees really bothers me.
Cozen
10-23-2009, 04:49 AM
by leveled do you mean there are areas that are too hot and too dark? If so, I know what you mean. Need to practice my photoshop some more.
by leveled do you mean there are areas that are too hot and too dark? If so, I know what you mean. Need to practice my photoshop some more.
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No, that's not what I meant... I meant the other leveling (horizontally).
Cozen
10-23-2009, 05:18 AM
you mean the angle of the shot?
Well yes, but to make sure you understand what I mean, here is one picture which worth 1000 words:
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Bogen-Manfrotto-337-Hot-Shoe-Double-Bubble-Level.aspx ("http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Bogen-Manfrotto-337-Hot-Shoe-Double-Bubble-Level.aspx)
alexniedra
10-23-2009, 08:04 AM
I aggree.
Also, try and play around with your perspective a little. Try positioning yourself closer to the ground - See how this works out for you.
I've also seen some great car pictures with a bit of telephoto perspective - give it a try.
Just some ideas...
alexniedra
10-23-2009, 08:10 AM
For your first car shoot, these are great. For the last one, I would have positioned the car in the frame so there's no overlapping of the building in the background - I think the building and fountain add a cool element to the image.
peety3
10-23-2009, 08:14 AM
For the second car pic, I'd also consider gelling the flashes to get closer to the background color temperature. It'll help hide that you've artificially lit the car.
Sean Setters
10-23-2009, 08:58 AM
I think the first one is more interesting--but I think you need a tiny bit more light on the logo on the grill.
For the second car pic, I'd also consider gelling the flashes to get closer to the background color temperature. It'll help hide that you've artificially lit the car.
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I agree. :-)
Cozen
10-23-2009, 05:14 PM
Thanks for all your feedback. These are all things I will consider when I try this again. I really think having a 4th light will help, 3 seemed like just enough, but not enough, if you know what I mean.
As for the color temperature, what do you think if I just altered the color of the background? I didn't match up the color because I wanted the car to pop out at you.
peety3
10-23-2009, 05:38 PM
As for the color temperature, what do you think if I just altered the color of the background? I didn't match up the color because I wanted the car to pop out at you.
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Light it right, and the car will pop out at you.
This is a criticism, but I want it to come across very lightly, so keep that in mind: this sort of mismatched color temperature has a "snapshot" look to it. We all know that you can't get this shot with a camera in full-auto (i.e. a snapshot), but it has that type of feel to it.
I'd shoot the background structure in K white balance, starting from 4200 and working your way down until it looks good/right. I'd bet it won't look white until 2600 or 2800K. I'd come "back" about 400K for your car, so perhaps 3200K. Set your WB for that, and gel for that (i.e. 3/4CTO). That'll leave the background a little warmer, but not so drastically different than the subject.
Sean Setters
10-23-2009, 07:48 PM
Thanks for all your feedback. These are all things I will consider when I try this again. I really think having a 4th light will help, 3 seemed like just enough, but not enough, if you know what I mean.
Honestly, you don't need anything more than 1 light, a tripod, and decent photo-editing software to get great results. However, you need to take several pictures, move the light, and combine the pics in post. Take this shot for example:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3431/3933512886_a434fdd363.jpg ("http://www.flickr.com/photos/budrowilson/3933512886/)
I set up 3 lights for the original shot (one light firing in each window in the living room). However, once I saw the picture on my computer, I realized that the doorway leading to the kitchen was completely black and drew the eye's attention. So I set up my tripod again, made sure it was in the same location, and set up 1 flash firing through the kitchen window. In post, I simply aligned the doorways (there wasn't much alignment to do because I had fortunately set up the camera in almost exactly the same place) and used the "Lighten" blending mode in Photoshop. If I hadn't told you this was a composite, I doubt you ever would have known. ;-)
Using this technique you could take 10 shots lighting the car from all sorts of angles with a single strobe. What's nice about this method is that you can control just how strong each flash is by simply adjusting the opacity of each layer, thereby drawing the viewer's attention to whatever you wish.
Fink_Studios
10-26-2009, 08:01 AM
The first thing I. noticed is that you need to pick up a bubble level the car is at a slight angle horizontally and its.very noticable that could be fixed by cropping but you cut the car so close to the edge I don't if you could even do that
Good luck next time
Rember keep the lines horizontally level
Keep on shooting
Cozen
10-26-2009, 04:06 PM
Light it right, and the car will pop out at you.
Can you help me light it right? I am not a professional by any means. Working on a intro to digital photography class and what I've learned from reading on the net. What are some suggestions for improvements? Anything other than the color temperature suggestion?
I understand the leveling and degrees thing now. I guess it just slipped my mind, or it was so dark and I had so many other things to worry about that I didn't notice. But thanks for pointing it out. I will remember that for next time.
Sean Setters
10-26-2009, 06:43 PM
Can you help me light it right? I am not a professional by any means. Working on a intro to digital photography class and what I've learned from reading on the net. What are some suggestions for improvements? Anything other than the color temperature suggestion?
Read through this ("http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-it-takes-to-light-car.html) strobist post and take a look at the setup picture and final image. It's a good way to see what effect each light is having on the car and/or background.
peety3
10-26-2009, 06:51 PM
Can you help me light it right? I am not a professional by any means. Working on a intro to digital photography class and what I've learned from reading on the net. What are some suggestions for improvements? Anything other than the color temperature suggestion?
I think you did light it right - the car has some nice sizzle to it.