[ekm1190]

Hey everyone I've been contemplating a new hobby as of late and I wanted to get some good car guy opinions about it. It's my first attempt at this so please, comments, criticisms, and complements are all allowed.

This first photoshoot featured two cars, my 1996 Impala SS, and my dad's 1985 Corvette Z51.

These are just a few of the photos so if you'd like to see the rest you are more then welcome to visit my CARDOMAIN page. I'll be shooting and uploading as many as i can so stay tuned if you enjoyed. k3:

 

[SPARTAN sui]

Wow, that is so clean, nice work!

 

[NotAWimpyImpy]

I've been getting into the same hobby myself. I like what you've done so far.

Just a couple of pointers for you.

Things "growing" out of the cars are distracting. Such as:

Photo 1: I think it's the antenna out of the front fender, maybe a pole in the background.

Photo 3: Tree in the middle of hood/roof.

Photo 4: The black thing behind the c-pillar, and the building itself, as well as being in the others too.

You kinda of want a neutral or contrasting backdrop that covers the whole background ideally. or just wide open sky up top and whatever you're parked on down below. Large parking lots work well if they have no line painting cause the pavement is very neutral and can fill the entire background. just need to be careful of debris/rocks/trash cluttering up the image. "They" say that grass is frowned upon cause cars are meant to be on pavement, not sure if I agree with that, but that's what I've been told. As far as I'm concerned, as long as it fills the whole background then there's nothing wrong with it to me.

Reflections in the paint can also be a distraction as well. (first and forth image) This is the most difficult thing to get rid of. You def want to keep yourself out of the reflections.

Most of the car mags say to go through them to see what the pro's are using for backdrops, angles etc...

You def chose the right time of day, you want either early morning or late afternoon, harsh midday light is the worst. Cloudy days are best for all day shooting, no harsh light at all anytime.

Most of all listen to yourself, art is subjective, what someone else likes, doesn't mean everyone will like, that's why I try not to copy too much from the car mags, with exception to backdrops really. I think angles and composition is completely up to the person taking the shots personally.

 

[ekm1190]

I've been getting into the same hobby myself. I like what you've done so far.

Just a couple of pointers for you.

Things "growing" out of the cars are distracting. Such as:

Photo 1: I think it's the antenna out of the front fender, maybe a pole in the background.

Photo 3: Tree in the middle of hood/roof.

Photo 4: The black thing behind the c-pillar, and the building itself, as well as being in the others too.

Thanks for the pointers! k3: And yea the background wasn't the greatest i sorta just did this as a spur of the moment thing and drove the cars into the yard and started shooting. However, i'll take these back into photoshop and see what kinda of changes i can make. I'm hoping so find a few warehouses and later night backgrounds so i don't get as much reflection and get a more monotone background since the car is a nuetral color and I'll be trying to emphasize things such as my new lights, rims, ect.

 

[donmateo]

Good shoot! I always do mine with my BB, so I can't complain. lol

 

[NotAWimpyImpy]

Thanks for the pointers! k3: And yea the background wasn't the greatest i sorta just did this as a spur of the moment thing and drove the cars into the yard and started shooting. However, i'll take these back into photoshop and see what kinda of changes i can make. I'm hoping so find a few warehouses and later night backgrounds so i don't get as much reflection and get a more monotone background since the car is a nuetral color and I'll be trying to emphasize things such as my new lights, rims, ect.

Right on man! A good rule of thumb is, the blander the background, the more your car pops! :beer:

 

[ekm1190]

One thing I am a little concerned about it my overuse of soft lighting effects. A great example of this is on photo 3. The rim is not nearly that bright and i didn't have any tire black on the wheel. That's all photoshop "skill" that i used to brighten as well as darken it up. Question for all of you is, too much??

 

[NotAWimpyImpy]

I thought it looked good.

 

[donmateo]

I'd darken the wheel a tad, since it is polished, then it will be perfect. Tires look like they got shine on. lol

 

[Gregg-O]

Nice pics....but if your going to rely on photo shop, you are not going to improve your camera skill's.

 

[ekm1190]

well i mainly used photoshop to crop, and touch up the photos using soft lighting effects. The angles, zoom, and pics were all taken by me. And i'm really just using all this for now until i can get a camera that i can really use for this kind of thing.

 

[NotAWimpyImpy]

You can't go wrong with a Nikon! They are awesome cameras and extremely well built! The new one they just brought out....I think it's called the D5100, has a really cool feature where you can select which colors you want to stay in color, and it shoots the rest of the image in B&W, I'm sure it's crazy expensive, but totally cool though..

 

[ekm1190]

You can't go wrong with a Nikon! They are awesome cameras and extremely well built! The new one they just brought out....I think it's called the D5100, has a really cool feature where you can select which colors you want to stay in color, and it shoots the rest of the image in B&W, I'm sure it's crazy expensive, but totally cool though..

Wow that'd be crazy awesome.. might give me an excuse to paint my calipers now k3:

 

[NotAWimpyImpy]

Hah! Having one of GM's iconic offerings is more than reason enough in my book! :beer: k3:

 

[SPARTAN sui]

You can't go wrong with a Nikon! They are awesome cameras and extremely well built! The new one they just brought out....I think it's called the D5100, has a really cool feature where you can select which colors you want to stay in color, and it shoots the rest of the image in B&W, I'm sure it's crazy expensive, but totally cool though..

Well actually, there's quite a bit of digital cameras that do that. My 5 year old Canon S3IS has that feature and it was about $300 back in '06.

 

[NotAWimpyImpy]

Really? That surprises me. Nikon is usually on the forefront of things....you mean on the camera as your shooting it? Damn....my beloved brand is behind the ball on something.....I'm a little sad now......Is that a DSLR? Cause I know the Nikon one is, and I'm hoping that it's the first one so that it can resurrect itself for me haha

 

[SPARTAN sui]

A lot of the point and shoot & DSLR's made by Canon have the "color accent" feature by now, the S3IS is an advance point and shoot, basically looks like a mini DSLR, except no interchangeable lens.

Anyways, I believe Canon was coming out with that around the same time I got my camera (2006), so it's not a new feature to Canon cameras anyways. I'm not sure about Nikon. xD

 

[NotAWimpyImpy]

This upsets me greatly....haha, Nikon still rules! lol

 

[SPARTAN sui]

Well there's no doubt in that, Nikon and Canon both make remarkable cameras. k3:

 

[WallyLO]

ive seen a commercial for the nikon with that feature. but perhaps its not actually new. they just now realize that that is a good marketing point