Is it me, or is everyone using professional photographers to take pictures of their cars.

I took some pictures and they are hideous (i.e., shadows all over the place, reflections of me in the paintwork, etc.).

Any tips on getting great shots, or should I just post what I have?

 

Tell me about it! I can't take a decent pic of my car to save my soul.

 

Here are a few tips:

• Use a camera with decent low light level performance.
• Don't take pictures in bright, sunny days unless you know what you're doing or you will get ugly shadows.
• Watch your backgrounds. e.g. Don't take pictures in a parking lot with distracting items or people in the scenery.
• Stand far back and zoom in to avoid reflections and ugly distortions.
• And finally, when taking pictures of the interior, make sure the interior is clean and the steering wheel is straight (a personal pet peeve).

 

Professional photographers aren't always that. A lot of people with a basic understanding of a DLSR and touchup software take pics of cars and aren't necessarily professional photographers. I'm not claiming to be a pro by any means - I'm quite the opposite! But I have a few friends that are often around and take some nice shots of my car, touch them up, slap on a watermark, and post them on FB or a forum.

It isn't that I'm having people take professional pics of my car, they just do it and I repost them when the occasion arises.

Oh what do you know??

 

Good to have artsy friends Half my friends are either architects, free lance artists, designers and they are a great source for pics

 

Like this one?

 

Unfortunately, yes

 

Doing light editing, like darkening highlights and lightening dark areas, can do wonders too. Many appropriate software packages out there.

 

before digital cameras I did a lot of motorsports photography as a hobby. I had great success using a polarizing filter which helps reduce the glare and reflections, with digital imaging and software now they probably don't even make them anymore.

 

Polarizing filters are still in use and relevant in the digital imaging world.

 

good to know I'm not completely out of the picture on photography! Pun intended

 

The kit makes some difference but most if it is in the composite!
I've had no formal training took most my pics on a $50 point and shoot (8MB no processing or filters) no software processing either.

French Loop 1407_resize by mikey k V8VR, on Flickr

French Loop 1768_resize by mikey k V8VR, on Flickr

Our last trip I invested $400 dollars in a Sony NEX5T, great little camera with some neat on board processing, took this one with it with mild HDR and no other processing. Looking forward to learning more!

M Alps 2014 020 by mikey k V8VR, on Flickr

 

^^^Washing your car before taking pics also helps hahaha

 

ha! beat me to it!!

Great pics Mikey!

 

That middle one was after two weeks and 5k miles touring Europe

My point was you don't need good kit or training
Just think about what you want it to look like and try to compose it
One technique I've found works nearly ever time is the rule of thirds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
Oh and this might please the clean freaks

Remberance S day 096 by mikey k V8VR, on Flickr