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Picture taking advice?

Find a good location to take a picture of the car, and take pictures from angles where there is a good contrast of background scenery but still have the focus on the car. Places with graffiti on walls, the beach, buildings with neat architecture, lots of trees, factories, warehouses and scenic parks are cool places. The Wal Mart parking lot is not.

Pinned.
 
Contrast and color.
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This one would have been better if it wasnt so dark. Also, there is two cars present, which means you can do the cool trick I mentioned earlier about having the second person flick the lights on for about 1/2 second. If you have too, take two pictures so your buddy can do the lights in each vehicle, then just splice the pictures together.
 
Leaving headlights on for night shots seems to be a Turbobricks thing... it looks retarded/is really stupid

One thing you can do is, if you have a tripod and your camera has a timer, set the timer and quick jump in the car. When the shutter goes off flick the lights on for like 1/2 second or less and bam, better night pictures.
I'm going to try and make a quick example of this sometime tonight.
 
Alright, here we go. I know the pictures arent that good but I did this in like 5 minutes in my driveway. And no my headlights arent blue, thats just the way they look because of the white balance.

All these pictures are unedited except for size. All three were taken at 15 sec., aperature at 7.1 on my canon A80.

First picture is with lights off.
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Second picture I left the lights on the whole time.
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Third picture I quickly ran and jumped into the car and turned the headlights on really quick, because my camera doesnt have a timer in manual mode.
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photoshoped thrid picture, see how much better it looks when the lights dont wash out the whole picture
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Also, cross hatch/star filters = goodness ;)
course, if you have too many points of light it just looks gross, you gotta balance it well. If you have a camera that you can manually set the apature, depending on what you're trying to do, sometimes get that puppy cranked right open (the lower the number, the wider the apature is open) This gives you a more shallow depth of field, so if you have something in the background you just don't like, or you want all the focus on the car, this is the way to go. If you are trying to get MORE background, then you want a greater depth of field, use the more 'closed' apatures. Basically, digis are great, experiment and see what comes out. And a good tripod is worth its weight in gold. If you want to go really crazy, or if you're doing the longer exposure shots, a remote shutter cable is also very handy.
 
Where were these taken at?
The one of the Sunset was taken at Sunset Bay State Park near Coos Bay, Oregon

The one with the blue water was taken at Freshwater Bay State Park near Port Angeles, Washington.


KEEP YOUR CAMERA LEVEL TO THE GROUND....Avoid the 'temptation' of HDR
Ignore both of these suggestions :-P

HDR is good...about 70% of my shots are HDR or Pseudo-HDR
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mistayuck/484271017/" title="Volvo in Petaluma Garage by Mista Yuck, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/180/484271017_662668174e.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Volvo in Petaluma Garage" /></a>

Tilt the camera, but make sure it's on purpose, keep the horizon level, unless you want to tilt the camera for drama.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mistayuck/365572321/" title="My Car. by Mista Yuck, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/188/365572321_5b986a6bfe.jpg" width="500" height="313" alt="My Car." /></a>
 
For help w/ composition, cut the picture in thirds, both vertical and horizontal. Put the important stuff where the lines intersect. Go back and review the past photos. When a photo really looks "RIGHT", notice the eye is drawn to those points.
 
Stand on something or crouch to avoid the boring perspective we see all day every day. Putting the car in it's own territory helps. ie: sport car on clean asphalt, 4x4 on rocks/dirt. If you got an old car, go for a vintage look.
Cheap camera tip: Flash helps a lot where lighting is limited, or the sun is behind the car casting shadows where you want to see the shape of the car. Unfortunately you end up with white license plates. I put scotch tape on my flash and drew over it with a sharpie for a little extra lighting that's not as likely to highlight the license plate. When I'm crouching I rest my elbow on my knee to reduce camera shake. Particularly helpful if you're suffering from adrenaline due to recent spirited driving.

I stood on a concrete road block. Not a huge difference in perspective, but enough. My "half flash" helped with the cloudy conditions.
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Use the "Magic Hours" when the sun is coming up or going down. The color and quality of the light is perfect. Background and subject are usually easy to get exposed corectly. The sun and horizon reflected in the doors always looks great. And since the sun is low shadows will be longer and therefore more interesting to the eye.
For cheap night lighting Gas stations ususally have good lighting with all the overhead hard lighting. Although you'll need to color corect in PS. If you can find a gas station with a view you could compose a nice pic. When the lights are on and the sun is going down.
 
You must simply invest in a 10mm lens and build yourself a rig, then hang out the door like a lunatic:

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Alternately, sit yourself down in the gravel with said lens and the sun setting behind the car and spot meter to the black bumper:

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PS if there's anyone willing to make a road trip to 44312 for some shots like the two above, send me a pm. If you have a sweet ride and will cover your own travel expenses, I have plenty of locations and about $3k in photo gear plus everything I know about photography (which is a tolerable amount).
 
thank you...sweet jebus that took way to many responses...photography, in general (i don't care if you are taking pictures of a car or a dog turd) is about LIGHTING. Flat general 1 in the afternoon blah lighting leads to, flat general blah pictures. A nice dirty hippie way of thinking about it is utilizing the earths natural beauty.

Use the "Magic Hours" when the sun is coming up or going down. The color and quality of the light is perfect. Background and subject are usually easy to get exposed corectly. The sun and horizon reflected in the doors always looks great. And since the sun is low shadows will be longer and therefore more interesting to the eye.
For cheap night lighting Gas stations ususally have good lighting with all the overhead hard lighting. Although you'll need to color corect in PS. If you can find a gas station with a view you could compose a nice pic. When the lights are on and the sun is going down.
 
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