How to Take Pictures of Your Car
by Paul Economou
stealth_bombaz@hotmail.com
Page 4
A. Panning. Panning takes practice, a steady hand, and a capable camera using the proper settings. The results show a blurred background, blurred wheels, and it gives of the feeling of the car really moving. Generally, you don't want your shutter speed to be any faster than 1/125 when doing this, with an F stop F8.0 or more. Depending on how much zoom you're using and the lighting. Using a tripod or a monopod will allow you to use slower shutter speeds which will in turn give more blurring effects. What you do, is follow the car with the camera as it moves down the road or track. While following the car, keep taking pictures, the more pictures you take the better chance you have of getting a good shot. Experimenting and practice is all I can suggest with this. I'm new to the idea, so I don't have much practice, so my example shots will be less than Ideal, but you'll still get the point.
A less than perfect example of using panning:
A better example of using panning:
B. Shooting from another moving car. This is a great, and relatively easy way to get some very cool pictures. The way I've done this is ride shotgun in one car, hang out the window, and fire away, it will take multiple shots to get a nice clear picture because most roads are bumpy, and wind is also a factor. Other things you could do would shoot from an open rear window, hatch, sunroof, convertible top, etc. at slow speeds. The same ideas for backgrounds of a car standing still apply to this technique. Try to get a flattering background if at all possible, if not possible, fret not, you'll still probably get some great shots. If its possible to catch the car turning on a banked turn, that will also help.
An example of a picture I took from the passenger seat of another car. As
you can see, the background was good, but not perfect, yet it still gave awesome
results.
5. Lighting. Lighting is another thing that can make or break a picture. The general rule of lighting is shooting within an hour ("the golden hour") of sunrise or sunset, will give a nice soft, warm look to the pictures. This is because it creates a nice golden color shining on the car, giving it nice reflections, and warming up the foreground and background. In my opinion, it is best to shoot during the sunrise, but for the most part it depends on the weather conditions, and if you have a great sunset one day, it very well might give better results than a sunrise under less than perfect conditions. Also, shadows are something that are created by different light sources. When the sun is behind you, face the part of the car being photographed towards the sun. Play around with angles to get the right reflections on the car with this. One thing to be careful with while doing this, is your own shadow finding its way into the picture. Try at all costs to avoid this, as it will most likely require cropping later on.
Example of what not to do, getting your shadow put in the frame:
