DSLR Photography Forum

Hey guys,

I'm just in the process of putting one of my cars up for sale at the moment, and I wanted to take a nice "product shot" of it for the advert.

I took this shot a couple of days ago. It wasn't really planned, but I had just finished cleaning and polishing the car and noticed the light was good and there were some storm clouds rolling in, so I dashed off to this grass field next to the lake about 1km from my house to snap a few quick shots and then get the car back in the garage before it started raining.

One thing I've found is that it is quite difficult to shoot a black car and maintain a lot of detail in it without seriously blowing out the sky or making the picture look too fake. This shot has had the sky masked out and had different tone curves applied to the sky and the car, but all the detail of the reflections and so on were in the original photo - I just played with tone curves and colour a bit (and some slight vignetting to give it more of a moody feel). But dispite my efforts, I still think the front RH corner (the corner of the car closest to the camera) is still a bit dark and lacking detail.

I also deliberately blew out the sky in the top right a bit and reduced some of the contrast in the gravel on the bottom left, as I intend to overlay some text in these areas for adverts to put up on the noticeboard at work, etc.. I can post a version with text if you like, but I wanted opinions mainly on the photo itself.

Any comments and suggestions on the image would be great thanks.. both from it being a photo in its own right and also as a piece of advertising.

For example, you might think the wide-angle of the shot (16mm, 25mm full-frame equiv) looks good from an aesthetic point of view, but it might not be a good way to advertise the car.

Cheers
Adrian

Wow, I'd buy that car in an instant based on the picture...

I think you've done an awesome effort given the difficulty. I love the sky - black clouds and golden light - really suits the 'attitude' of the car.

I was thinking with the dark areas of the car - perhaps some reflectors might help?

Very cool!

I wouldn't change anything with this shot, the car looks amazing. Great polish job brings outs clear reflections of horizon and clouds.
I hope you get a good price for it. Is it hard to part with?

That's one of the best car photos I've seen: where are you planning on advertising it? A full colour spread in a glossy magazine? This may not be the best photo for the free weekly trader papers.

My suggestion: keep the car, sell the photo.

haha... sell the photo, make $$$$, buy a new car.

Fantastic photo. The colour tones are most excellent. Are you actually selling? Seems to me you just bought this car back.

wow.. thanks for the positive comments guys.

ST - unfortunately I don't think a reflector would help much here because the reflections on the car are so sharp and not diffuse. I used a home-made omni-bounce diffuser on the flash which helped the wheels, but all it did for the car was put a tiny white speck in that corner. I'd need to bounce the flash off a really big white wall or something to make much difference I think.
But.. I think the problem was caused by the polarising filter I was using. Polarisers are fantastic when shooting cars because you can tweak and "equalise" the car reflections by rotating the filter, so you don't blow out some areas of the car to bring out darker reflections in others. But unfortunately sometimes you can't have your cake and eat it too - I think this corner was the price of getting the rest of the car and the sky the way I wanted.

Smarti, the car isn't really hard to part with. I never really got too attached to this car for some strange reason, but I do have an emotional attachment to the car it has been replaced by. See This Thread for photos of that car.

Matthew, thanks. umm.. I wish I could keep the car and sell the photo!
I agree that it might look a bit strange as a photo to appear in the local Autotrader paper, so I'm not quite sure about that. But if it grabs people's attention amongst a mass of photos of cars parked in driveways then that's a good thing, right?
But I'm also posting it on noticeboards and emailing it to a couple of local car forums, and its an appropriate shot for those things I think.

And Peto, this isn't the car I just bought back (Here is a photo of that car)... This was the car I was driving before i bought my red car back.... this is the one that got replaced.
But I was very happy with the colours and mood of the shot too.

Cheers
Adrian

Kombisaurus Wrote:I agree that it might look a bit strange as a photo to appear in the local Autotrader paper, so I'm not quite sure about that. But if it grabs people's attention amongst a mass of photos of cars parked in driveways then that's a good thing, right? But I'm also posting it on noticeboards and emailing it to a couple of local car forums, and its an appropriate shot for those things I think.

It comes to a "know your audience" question. Try showing the photo to non-photographers who know the kind of ads you'll be placing it amongst. You might not want to be too different: if I saw this photo mixed in among the cars-in-driveway on cheap newsprint, I might expect a "pro" car seller or scam. If you're target market is the car aficionado, the extra appeal of this photo could add a few hundred dollars to the selling price.

True true...

And some car selling websites allow you to upload photos too, and the thumbnail versions link to a bigger version. So provided people notice your ad in the first place, they might get to appreciate the extra effort you went to...

This is a great shot, Adrian. Maybe a hair too much distortion, but it works for this photo.

As someone who shoots 100-150 cars a month for sale I'd say the exta effort on the car picture will pay dividends. The reflection shows the gloss of the paint and the lack of deep scratches and dings in the bodywork.

The front 3/4 angle is by far the best for showing off a car... and the most important thing, the picture will stanf out against all the other shots of cars in driveways.

I'd love to be able to spend that kind of time taking pictures for the cars I sell.

EnglishBob Wrote:I'd love to be able to spend that kind of time taking pictures for the cars I sell.

Maybe you should.. you might sell more !

I spend about 3 minutes a car..... and don't have anywhere photogenic close by.

I tried a Shadow/Hight lights adjustment in PS4, to me, appreciable difference. Could lift the car out, and put it anywhere. Last one I did, totally blurred all but car, effective. Ed.

Cool advice, but this is an eight year old thread

Ta, I have a lot of catching up to do?? Cheers. Ed.