How to take a good photo of a car?

Car photography is an interesting and meaningful type. Getting a unique theme in the field of automobile photography may be a challenge, but it is a way to help you get opportunities through practice and building a good portfolio. In this article, we will introduce car photography skills to help you get amazing images.

1, choose a suitable day to shoot.

As we all know, we should avoid taking portraits at noon and cars at noon. If the sun shines directly on your head, the light is the most dazzling.

Because harsh light will produce thick shadows and sharp contrast, sometimes it may become difficult to deal with, and it will also produce the most dazzling glare and reflection, and post-processing may be difficult to remedy.

2. Pay attention to the reflection of the car surface.

A car shining in the outdoor sun is like a mirror. The car will reflect light, and many areas of the car you want to shoot will have prominent highlights. You must keep a balance to ensure that your body will not appear too dark and highlight highlights, and vice versa. One way to solve this problem is to take HDR photography.

Similarly, the body of a car will reflect anything around it. Trees, buildings, lights, people, it is best not to have nothing around the car when taking pictures.

When taking close-up photos, especially when trying to capture the lines of people in cars, please don't shoot at a 90-degree angle directly, but try to shoot at a 45-degree angle to avoid the car body reflecting on your lens.

Step 3 try different angles

Angle test may be a good way to capture the new perspective of automobile and put forward creative composition.

However, there is a classic shooting method that allows you to get high-quality photos again and again.

The angle is from the bottom to the ground, the front wheel of the car rotates at a certain angle, and the style of the hub cover can be seen at this angle.

Of course, I suggest you shoot from other angles and find a composition that suits your work.

4. Up shooting mode

If you shoot a car with a low ground clearance (such as a car or a sports car), then the back lens will bring you a beautiful composition.

For these kinds of cars, lowering the appearance of the car will make it look like a car with a longer life, which may bring great surprises to the audience and will definitely leave a deep impression on potential customers.

5. Try to photograph a moving car.

The car is moving, and some of the best car images are the moving images you took. But this is tricky. How to capture motion in still images?

The trick is to pay attention to what is fixed to the car when it is driving. Regarding camera settings, the following factors need to be considered:

Try using a slightly longer shutter speed. Suppose your camera measures the light of the scene in the time from f/8 to 1/250 seconds. To extend the shutter speed of this motion-blurred shooting, please lower the aperture to f/

About 1 1, and try to make the ISO as low as possible. Your shutter speed will be extended to compensate, thus making the exposure time longer.

6. In nature, car shooting looks great.

Nature has a way to emphasize and add photos of cars, because cars should drive on open roads, so there is no better way to capture the excitement of open roads than to combine other elements in nature.

Think about the vehicle being photographed. Is this to show off-road performance? If there is, shoot it on the uneven muddy road in the battery. There are no hard and fast rules here. Therefore, you are free to try and capture the brilliance of the car.

7. Try shooting in controlled light indoors.

First, you need to set up artificial light. These lights will cause damage because they will be reflected. Therefore, large scattered light should always be used. The bigger the light source, the softer the light produced.

Shooting car photography indoors requires very fine settings. In addition, please try to merge the white wall, because the white wall often produces diffuse reflection of the key light, and then it is used as a fill light for the car body. You can also set a big white background in three directions, just like you want to create a big light box for a car.

Finally, combined with circular polarizer, circular polarizer can help you reduce glare and reflection.

8, the use of light painting effect

Light painting is an interesting technology in photography, which involves the use of small hand-held light sources. You can "smear" the subject with a long shutter speed.

Please note that for light-colored painting, some other skills need to be realized.

First, you need to mount the camera and lens on a tripod. After setting the button correctly, you need to set the shutter speed to at least 10 second, which will have enough time to create a light painting effect for the car.

Light painting works best when shooting at night, especially in a sparkling background, such as city lights at night.

9. Highlight the best details

A brand-new car or a well-maintained classic car has many small details that you can highlight in the photo. You don't have to put the whole car on the frame to make an eye-catching image.

Small details such as the logo, the interesting two-color design of the front grille or the badge at the rear of the car are excellent targets for shooting, which can form some interesting product pictures with the main image.

Sometimes, even the unique cut hubcaps on cars, especially those with signs and details, will produce interesting images.

10, trying to add motion blur to the photo.

Compared with stationary cars, moving cars produce more attractive images.

Cars run very fast, so no matter how beautiful the still car image you generate, the moving car image will make the image more attractive.

When you always capture images of moving cars, you will capture some motion blur. Try to capture these elements in a more convincing and tasteful way, and your image will be more interesting.

To merge motion blur into a photo, you must master translation techniques. Translation involves half-pressing the shutter button to lock the focus on the object, then moving the camera (aiming the lens at the object) to keep it in the picture, and the most important thing is to focus.

At the moment when the shutter is fully pressed and released, shooting will be taken to keep the subject in focus, but all other objects will be blurred.

1 1. Apply portrait rules to car photos to avoid distracting the background.

Always avoid disturbing backgrounds in images. Above, we have learned how the shiny car body truly reflects everything around like a mirror. So it's best not to put anything in the car when shooting.

But what about the background and prospects?

Just as you will avoid distracting yourself in portrait composition, you should also avoid distracting things with image quality in car photos, whether it is the background or the foreground.

12, creative use of depth of field

One thing we noticed when shooting small details of cars is that shallow depth of field can really improve the quality of photos. Shallow depth of field helps us to narrow the focus of the image, and everything we don't intend to merge into the image will be overwritten.

In addition, shallow depth of field helps to really focus on the area to be highlighted. For example, the logo, the grille or the character line on the fender, you can choose to highlight many interesting widgets.

13, using drones

Drones are increasingly used to shoot weddings, parties, buildings, vacations and other occasions. The additional advantage of UAV camera is that it can shoot almost anywhere, and the aerial view of cars or other models will bring you really interesting and unique shooting effects.

14, human factors

Because cars are driven by people, it is undeniable that human beings play an important role in car photography. If possible, please try to take some photos, including portraits. Your photos can also attract potential car buyers, who can imagine themselves replacing the person you are shooting.

So, if possible, please use artificial factors to shoot, which will add some extra meaning to your image.

15, capturing the personality of the car.

Every car has a different personality. As a car photographer, you need to appreciate the exquisite lines, chrome-plated appearance and shiny brand logo of the car. Shooting from a low angle, using a shallow depth of field or using a wide angle depends on the personality of the car and your vision of the final image.

The car photography skills and tricks we shared above are just simple ways to get started. With the improvement of your shooting ability, there will be unlimited possibilities. Remember, there is no hard and fast rule here, and your photography must capture this emotion.