Multimedia Exchange - How do I take better photos?

I've been trying to take good pictures of my car lately, but they just don't seem to come out NEARLY as well as some of the pics that I see on here. My car looks MUCH better in person than it does in the digital photos I've been taking with my Kodak DX6340 3.2M camera.

I don't know if it's my camera, the lighting, the technique I'm using or what. Are there any good tips or resources out there that I can use to improve my pics? Photography seems like it could be a lot of fun if I knew more about it. Thanks!

I have a Sony DSC-P92 Cyber-shot and it take's awsome pic's. Its a 5 megapixel camera.

Use a tripod, and use the timer on the camera. That way you eliminate blurry pictures caused by a slight movement of your hand.

Make sure the picture you are taking fills the whole frame. Before taking the picture, see if there's anything out of place. Crop before you actually take the picture.

Shoot facing away from the sun. Try to use different heights/angles. Pictures taken while standing upright are usually boring. Get down low, or get higher.

Avoid taking cliche pictures like placing the camera on the ground and taking the picture. Or taking a picture from the back of the car where half of the rear is in view and the whole side of the car is in view. Try to highlight the good parts of the car and leave out the bad parts like the lack of curves in the rear quarter panel of the Camaro. Clean your dirty exhaust tips. It's the details that make the picture.

Oh and take multiple shots from the same angle and different angles. The more shots you have, the more the chance of finding a really good one.

I am tired so some of this might not make sense.

Oh and another thing, never take a picture of an object out of its natural environment. Camaros belong on roads, not lawns, meadows or prairies. On the dirt off the side of the road is okay.

Those are some good points Gev. Really good information.

But I have seen some pictures of cars in a grass field and I think they looked awesome. But you definitly have to have the right landscape for it to work, otherwise it looks like crap

Light...the most important think in photography is light.Dont waste your pictures with busy,confusing backgrounds.always focus the main object.Try not to take your cars pictures under direct&heavy sunglight.(Around afternoon)You don't have to use the golden method of 3's always but fallow those rules as possible.

Post up a few of your pictures so we can see where you need to improve

1. The best time to shoot is not in direct overhead sunlight (too many shadows) but during sunrise or sunset. Still bright outside, but no harsh shadows.

2. Fill the camera shot with your vehicle, try to balance the empty areas on each side of the photo if there are empty areas. Center the vehicle in the shots.

3. Avoid glare when shooting digital. Keep the sunlight to your back.

4. Try various angles, and shoot more photos than you plan to keep. I typically keep about 1 out of 5 photos I take, in order to get the most appealing shots.

5. No cluttered or busy backgrounds! So many nice shots are ruined because of stuff in the backgrounds taking the attention from the car. Find a blank wall to shoot against, or an open field, or at least something uniform. Avoid telephone wires in the air, or telephone/electricity poles, etc..

6. Make sure if you do have the front wheels turned for a pose that the wheel face faces the camera. Nobody wants to see the tire tread. Keep the wheels straight, or turn them to face the camera a bit. Don't turn them too much or they leave a sightly gap behind them which stands out too much. When you do photo them with the wheels turned, make sure not to chop the edge of the wheel with the fender, move over until you can see the full wheel showing (not tire, just wheel).

I shot these photos with a Sony 2.1 mpix camera, its all you need for internet photos:

simple background, shot from above (standing on stairs at a truck loading dock)
http://www.ls1tech.com/02Camaro/images/HPwheels01.jpg

in front of a simple brick wall at a business complex:
http://www.ls1tech.com/02Camaro/images/lowered03.jpg

in front of a nice glass building, matched the truck well:
http://users.ev1.net/~ynot_dv8/GMC/lifted21.jpg

Thanks guys! There's some excellent advice in this thread! I recently detailed my car, prepped the paint, then used NXT and took some pictures. I took all of them just holding the camera in my hand and most were taken at a normal standing height. I did try lowering the camera closer to the ground for some. The first round was taken in my driveway in direct sunlight and they didn't come out well at all. Here's a sample:

http://images6.fotki.com/v77/photos/1/134180/942244/100_1280-vi.jpg

I made the mistake of having a busy background in this picture:
http://images6.fotki.com/v77/photos/1/134180/942244/100_1276-vi.jpg

This next set of pictures was taken later the same day in a school parking lot near my house. The light was a little better (maybe too dark outside?), but the pictures still just seem kind of boring. I definitely need to work on finding better backgrounds too!

http://images6.fotki.com/v77/photos/1/134180/942244/100_1316-vi.jpg

http://images6.fotki.com/v77/photos/1/134180/942244/100_1321-vi.jpg

You can see all of the pictures that I took Saturday at this link (http://public.fotki.com/jaime302/cars/z28/nxt/), there's probably 100 of them there including the full-resolution versions.

So it sounds to me like I need to find better places to take pictures so the backgrounds aren't as distracting, take the pics in better light, get a tripod, and try using elevation to improve the perspective of the pictures. Would that be a good start?

Chad, lets roll sometime soon and find some good backdrops. I've been dying to get some good pics of my car, other than the fence I used in my last photoshoot.

Chad, lets roll sometime soon and find some good backdrops. I've been dying to get some good pics of my car, other than the fence I used in my last photoshoot.
Sounds good to me, do you have a tripod?

Yup, sure do.

Like Nine Ball said, the best time to take pictures is sunrise or dusk. Try it out, but remember to use a tripod in low light situations!

If your camera has adjustbale shutter speeds and aperture settings, set the shutter speed a little longer and the aperture a little smaller and experiment.

For night pictures, I set the shutter speed to like 10 seconds and setthe aperure somewhat smaller than normal. This allows a bucnh of light to enter through and makes night pictures possible.

I wish I had a slide scanner... I'd show you the pictures I took while experimenting with my camera. Saving up for a Digital Rebel now though...

Thanks again guys, I will take some of this advice and put it to use for the next photo shoot. :) That's one thing I like about my new digital camera, you can take 3412515234 pictures while experimenting and not spend an extra dime. I'll play around with the settings! I'm pretty sure this camera has a manual mode where you can adjust all of this stuff yourself.

This photo had good potential and stands out:

http://images6.fotki.com/v77/photos/1/134180/942244/100_1323-vi.jpg

If you had just taken the time to pull the car up some more in that parking lot and avoided the stuff in the distant background, it would have been a sweet photo. Nice light/cloud reflections on the paint.

That car is metallic, and overcast days will make it look drab. You need a sunrise or sunset time frame, so we can see the sparkle more on that color. I edited the photo with Photoshop, here is how it may have turned out with a bit more sun, and with no cluttered background. This would have been a magazine-level shot!

http://www.ls1tech.com/misc/frontZ1.jpg

Subtle things can make a big difference on impact.

Nice job Tony, now get your ass in the photoshop request thread and help out Mr. Photoshopper :P

It's slated to rain here all week, but next time I get a chance to clean the car up I'll try my hand at some more pictures. Thanks again for all of the great tips!

I disagree 110 % with the cars on grass coment , I think they look awsome on grass !!

Good tips :)

I disagree 110 % with the cars on grass coment , I think they look awsome on grass !!

Good tips :)
:jest:

That coming from a guy with the username JoeDirt, kills me! :rock:
How about up on blocks?

Great tips Gev. :)

Cars look killer on grass. Taking a car out of its element and placing it on a deep green feild of grass, especialy if the cars color is vibrant, can give a powerful visual effect.

Nice mullet smiley knob ;)

Whats wrong with 'woodsy' shots?? ;) :D

http://www.doodnet.com/doodvision/busse02bird082502/02formula082502-0012.jpg
http://www.doodnet.com/mfba/mfba110103/mfba110103-054.jpg

DóòD
Whats wrong with 'woodsy' shots??

Wrong grass!

Whats wrong with 'woodsy' shots?? ;) :D

http://www.doodnet.com/doodvision/busse02bird082502/02formula082502-0012.jpg
http://www.doodnet.com/mfba/mfba110103/mfba110103-054.jpg

Most auto photographers do not like wooded areas as backdrops because you get too many artificial sources of light thru the leaves and trees, and the reflection of your surroundings on the paint break up your smooth body lines. Look at the black car photo for a good example, that body line on the side of the front fender is all thrown off due to reflections.

Don't get me wrong dood, those are great pics! I have to agree with Tony though, if you're highlighting the car, you lose the lines like he pointed out. Not what you would want on a magazine cover. But if you're just going for an artistic shot, those are very nice!