# Picture Tips



## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

I'm trying to get some tips for taking a good picture. I went out today, but it was just too sunny.

I started at my driveway, just to test, then found a nice place by the lake. All the pictures were too bright with the shadows being too dark. If I took the picture from the all sunny side, the car almost had a pink look from the sun's reflection.

Anyone out there able to give me some tips on taking a good car picture?



















LOOKS PINK


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## BlackJackByte (Aug 31, 2009)

S%#! That's pretty sweet looking man nice! I take a lot of pictures at dusk around 5-7 to get some pretty even soft lighting.


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

Did you do your profile pic - if so, was it around that time? That pic is nice because the car just pops. Yellow Jackets love having their picture taken :lol:


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## GM4life (Mar 18, 2007)

I can't see your pic because I'm at work. I've read the best time to take pictures at around dusk or dawn.


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

Yeah - seems to be the case from what I'm reading. However, I don't have a very nice camera.

I tried to go out just before the sun was down, but it's getting darker way sooner and I missed it. The lake where I want to take the pictures will have the sun behind the car at dawn, and shining towards the car at dusk. I wonder which time would make for the best picture?


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## GM4life (Mar 18, 2007)

It goes both ways. I'm not a photographer myself. I've taken some good picutes with my point and shoot and I have taken some bad with my SLR. Position the car and yourself where the light hits it but not taking any pictures directly toward the sun.


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

I've read some great tips on various sites. I'm going to try at the location pictured below. I've never really gave picture taking any effort, but I'm hoping I can get something that's not pure garbage.


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## jetstang (Nov 5, 2008)

My body guy asked me to take some pics for his business cards. So, I took the Jury to the bay to take some pics. The sun was on the bay side, so I took sunny pics with the parking lot as a back drop. That didn't work, so I turned the car around to get the sun on the right side, now the car was just backwards?? Sun 
JK.. I need to take the pics in the morning as the afternoon did not work.


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## BlackJackByte (Aug 31, 2009)

Mike_V said:


> Did you do your profile pic - if so, was it around that time? That pic is nice because the car just pops. Yellow Jackets love having their picture taken :lol:


Thanks, actually that one was taken around 12:30 one Saturaday morning. I have several pictures I took and man does it pop in the right light! Too bad you're not near me or I'd be glad to take some pictures for you with my Canon T2i :cheers


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

When taking a pic in sunlight.....

Have the sun behind you. Look for the shadow of the car and try and photo the car with the shadow on the opposite side of the car so you cannot see it.
Best time to photo in the sun is when the sun is right over head. 
When photoing the car, even though a nice backdrop is nice it can take away from the car and the focus of the picture will be of the scenery instead of the car. A plain backdrop like water or a wall with proper lighting and high resolution will give a nice picture. When photoing in front of trees depending on how the car is situated it may look like a tree or shrub growing out of the car.

Ideally, a pond, field, wall, or lake will make nice backdrops and accent the pic of the car.


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## BlackJackByte (Aug 31, 2009)

GTO JUDGE said:


> When taking a pic in sunlight.....
> 
> Have the sun behind you. Look for the shadow of the car and try and photo the car with the shadow on the opposite side of the car so you cannot see it.
> Best time to photo in the sun is when the sun is right over head.
> ...


These are the pictures from 07 with me and the little lady's car. 2007 LTZ Impala and Mazda3 The last one is nice but a bad picture really. Too much sun.


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

Man that last pic is great.

I came home today and the street after my culdesac is torn up to crap - they did that scrape before a new surface.

GTO is stranded now


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## BlackJackByte (Aug 31, 2009)

Mike_V said:


> Man that last pic is great.
> 
> I came home today and the street after my culdesac is torn up to crap - they did that scrape before a new surface.
> 
> GTO is stranded now


Thanks man! I had just washed it and decided to take some pictures. I plan to take some more around the farm sometime. That sucks your road is like that. I know the pain, my parents live on an untraveled dirt road with some gravel and a ton of potholes....its in "the sticks" as my gramps would say.


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## Zdenek2334 (Sep 7, 2010)

Wow nice pics! I love the stripes on the side! Are your tailights custom? or did you buy them? If so where and how much? Thanks.


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## Korsakoff (Aug 11, 2010)

What kind of camera?

The reason you're getting bad pictures is probably because you are using auto mode, try manual for better results. 

for really sunny days:

200-300 iso
sunny white balance 
1/250 shutter speed
4-7 f-stop


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## Rauq (Jul 19, 2010)

Oh and how your car NEEDS pictures taken of it! I love it!

It's been said before but you're going to get your best pictures manually controlling all of the settings on your camera, and there's no magic rule about what the best settings are, but Korsakoff did a good job with starting numbers. However, if you don't have a camera that gives you full control over all of those settings, try changing simply your exposure, setting your white balance to daylight or something similar, and your focus point to spot or more of a center-weighted focus point. Those are all settings that are available on my Canon Powershot SD750, a pretty basic yet still very good point and shoot camera. If you're really motivated, though, you can hack the Canon Powershots and get full control over EVERYTHING that goes on in the camera. Let us know what kind of camera you have so we can know what you're working with!

By the way, did I mention that I love your car?


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## BlackJackByte (Aug 31, 2009)

The reason my pics looked that way is because I really wanted it too. It was an old Sony camera from years ago, now I have a Canon T2i and several accesories/attachments. Its a fairly professional camera, esp if worked properly. I do a lot of graphics work on the side. I NEED to take some new pictures of the Goat.


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## Bluegoat05 (Mar 22, 2010)

i agree the car looks awesome! i like what you did with your rear valance, it sets it off nice! the tails are pretty sweet as well:cheers


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

Hey guy - thanks for the compliments. I can't try taking more pictures until they finish working on the roads here. I'm hoping it's before the weekend.

To answer the questions.

- I have a crap $100 camera and I do use auto everything. I just don't know anything about taking pictures.

- The tails are from eBay Astralia. I don't remember anything about them because it's been way over four years. I just knew I wanted black and beyond the norm. The quality of the lights are 100% OEM.

- The paint design came from family at GM and early things they were playing with for the GTO (it was a dark gray in GM's stuff, but I wanted black). I took GM's stuff to five shops and, finally, ended up at a place that could do it. They had a car there for Michael Jordan, so I figured they were good. You can't even see or feel where they blended the clear into the rest of the paint. The designs were for 04, so the shop added the rear design, in addition to tint, painted grilles, and black 6.0. They wanted to do a transparent black on the Pontiac emblems, but I wasn't too sure. I think it would have looked good.


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## X-Ravin (Oct 6, 2010)

If you have a copy of Photoshop you can do a lot to help crappy cameras. As long as the shot isn't too dark or blurry you have some play room. Here's a quick redo of that pinkish shot I did in about 2 minutes.










It's still a bit bright on the car, but with some patience that could be worked on too.


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

That does look 100% better. I do have PS, and use it often - I just didn't think about more than a good original shot. I guess it's the 'can't see the forest' focus :willy:


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## roy (Jun 1, 2010)

*pics & tips*

Early morning or later in the day, when the shadows are long is best for detail & contrast, do take time to frame the car, & the background should have no detail, look back on this post & see the guys car with a telephone pole growing out of it!
If you fiddle with your depth of field, u can make the background fuzzy, hi-lighting the car or use a large aperature which will only sharpen what your focusing on
A great trick, use a big piece of aluminum foil, or 4 x 4' piece of aluminum, something that reflects light is what you want, with your camera on a tripod or a helper, from the side, play the reflected suns rays over the car, u will see how the reflected light will help your pic, taking out or even adding shadows, or lower body shadow which gives your car a belt line
Never shooot straight on ,that is full side, or full front or rear, unless your showing off a particular part(s)
A step ladder will do wonders for that pic that stands out from the norm.


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

Crap, I'd rather pay some guy than do all that work lol. I've just never liked taking photos. I can detail the hell out of a car though. Maybe next year a local member and I could work a trade


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## Nomad (Dec 22, 2009)

Taking pictures of a car is not unlike taking pictures of a person. There are features on a car that mimic a human being. For example, a car has a "face" where the grille and headlights are. There are plenty of muscular lines and flanks and nostrils and haunches that will be accentuated by the right light. The trick is to get the car in the right light. Obviously, we're just talking about snapshots here and not a full-scale photo shoot with lights and reflectors and so forth. I would suggest waiting until the mid to late afternoon to shoot it. I would highly suggest NOT shooting with the sun directly overhead. The sun will be rather oppressive and will give it a "toppy" look. What that means is that all of the light will be bearing down on the top of the car and you will have very little to no shadow on the vehicle's curves, thus losing that bit of accentuation. The windshield will also be glaring as will other surfaces that are on top of the car. Light blasting down from overhead doesn't do much to bring out the detail. Picking a background is also key. Someone mentioned being careful to not have any plants growing out of the top of the car. I totally agree. You can have the coolest picture in the world ruined by a tree limb sprouting out of the top of the car at some obtuse angle. Take pains to make sure the background doesn't overpower the car. It can be something as simple as a brick wall. Mountains work well if you have any to shoot against. 

I would look at pictures in auto magazines. _Car and Driver_ and _Road and Track_ have good photographers. You might want to check those out. Above all else, it's a subjective thing. The only person that needs to be happy is you. Have fun!

Here are a few pictures to check out:









Note the wheel position and the light on the hood accentuating the fenders and intakes.









This one is beautiful. The side of the car looks like glass. The tach poking out of the hood is an interesting detail.









Cloudy days work well too. The light is entirely even. This gives a different effect, especially with a dark car. No hot spots on the paint. 









This is the reverse effect of the previous picture. The background isn't very good, (the pickup kind of kills it) but the image of the car is kind of original. Those hot spots give a totally different effect with this car. It's quite unique. It just matters what you want. 









This is absolutely beautiful. Just the right camera angle and light coming from the right direction. 









This one is very nice too. Not too much more to say about it other than it's a very nice shot.


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## jpalamar (Jul 22, 2008)

I used my buddy's DSLR and even with my car dirty it looked better then my normal camera after a detail. I'm convinced a novice with a good camaro can take great pics, add some skill and your taking amazing pics.

Also scouting can make a break a photo. Background does alot.


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## jetstang (Nov 5, 2008)

This is the best pic I've taken of my car. I realize there is a shadow through the rear quarter, damnit.. And I didn't get the entire car, but I like the pic. What do you think?


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## Instg8ter (Sep 28, 2010)

got the right idea Jet, angle is good,:cheers location is the key, want sky or flat background behind roofline (trees blur the shape), nice grass or blacktop below, and something interesting to the right (mountains, ocean, sunset...so we can see it in the reflection in your paint), and frame the shot a little wide next time, them you can always take it on the computer and crop it for more effect.

these are very nice









great flat sky, nice vibrant color, long shadow and hot spots make it pop









notice how the lights on during the day draw your eyes to start at the front of the car









just the way he parked made this shot from normal to interesting


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## Instg8ter (Sep 28, 2010)

and with the most recognizable face in the auto world how can you go wrong with this...try this, shoot at boat launch (slope will change the angles) early in the morning or at dusk with light playing in the water behind your car and off the paint, wet blacktop underneath. do not just stand and shoot, move around and get on your knees, and take a ladder, shoot wide and crop later.


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## Mike_V (Mar 10, 2006)

Damn, ^^^^ is why I shouldn't even try.


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