Car Photography Tips for Great Photos

There are many reasons you may want to take photos of your car, including if you’re planning to sell it or if you just want some memories to look back on. But while almost everyone has access to a camera and editing apps, not everyone is a natural photographer. The good news is that you can quickly learn to become as good as the professionals — whether you’re a seasoned photographer who’s learning how to photograph different subjects or just a car enthusiast wanting to show off your precious investments.

Reasons to Take Nice Photos of Your Car

You might want to take some glamour shots of your car for several reasons. Maybe you want to show off the result of years of hard work and saving. Perhaps you want to brag about the dream car you’ve always wanted and finally scored. You might be interested in becoming an amateur photographer who specializes in automobiles. While these reasons are closely related to your own wants, there are other reasons to hone your automotive photography skills that can benefit the entire automotive community.

Passion

It could be your own passion for cars or the collective passion of car enthusiasts across the world, but car photography is a great way to unite fans and keep the passion of cars alive. Generally, a good looking car is not too far from clicking shutters — just look at car events, like Cars, Coffee and Karts meetups. Automotive photography is a way for automotive enthusiasts to commemorate their own cars as well as the many unique and interesting cars they see. Photography is a quick and easy way to keep the enthusiasm alive.

Spotlight

All cars aren’t memorable, but memorable cars deserve to be in the spotlight. Each car is unique and photography is an excellent way to show off every minute detail. Whether it’s the interior stitching or the exterior ornamentation, automotive photography with a focus on these details allows everyone to appreciate the extent of a car’s beauty and personality.

As a photographer, you should take the time to notice these little details for yourself and truly appreciate good handiwork.

Happiness

Whether you’re photographing cars for social media or your own records, there’s an inarguable joy that comes from taking pictures of a beautiful vehicle. Photography is a great way to indulge in a hobby — in this case, automobiles — while flexing your creativity, so have fun!

Choosing Your Camera

Not everyone can afford a thousand-dollar professional camera just to take some good photos, but many photographers will argue that it’s not the equipment that makes a photo great but the photographer. So if you’ve got a professional digital single-lense reflex (DSLR) camera, a disposable 35 mm film camera or just a smartphone, you’re more than ready to start snapping away.

Whatever your camera is, just make sure you’re comfortable using it. That means knowing its strengths and weaknesses. Modern smartphones have advanced cameras that shoot photos as well as an older generation DSLR — and film isn’t dead yet, so if you’re more comfortable using an analog point-and-shoot camera, go for it!

Depending on your goal for your automotive photoshoot, you may want to invest in accessories, like special lenses. Macro lenses are great if you’ve got a lot of unique details to capture, while a wide-angle lens can help give your photos a sense of openness. Luckily, there are now even miniature macro and wide-angle lenses for smartphones so you don’t have to feel limited by your equipment.

Finally, a camera tripod is a great investment for any sort of photography, especially if you plan to take photos outside of daylight hours. Tripods will help steady your camera, reducing the chances of blurred shots and making it much easier to take long-exposure shots — which are ideal for low-light situations since you can reduce the shutter speed to let as much light in as possible. Tripods are also great to shoot your car moving to get beautiful action shots.

Setting the Scene

Aside from making sure your car is clean, there are three main factors to consider when setting the scene for your photoshoot:

• Location: The location will depend on your vision for the photoshoot. You may opt for a more natural location, like the beach, or decide on the interior of a warehouse. Whatever your location is, make sure it complements your car and enhances its positives. After all, your car should be the center of attention.
• Background: Part of choosing the right location is ensuring there isn’t anything that could steal attention away from your car. A good way to improve the chances of your car being the center of attention is to use a technique called bokeh. Bokeh is when you unfocus or blur the background, forcing the audience’s eye to the subject in focus. If you’re familiar with manual photography, you can achieve bokeh by setting your aperture wide and boosting the shutter speed. For the layperson, there are many smartphone editing apps that help you achieve this and other unique looks that are well worth the cost of the app.
• Lighting: Natural light is often better than artificial light, especially if you manage to catch “Golden Hour” — the hour or so just before and during sunrise and sunset, which is great for giving your photos a gentle, warm glow. With artificial light, you can have a little more freedom and experiment with what works best for your photographic goal.

Tips for Taking Better Car Photographs

We’ve covered the major aspects of car photography, but there are always more photography tips out there to help you take the best photos possible.

Here are four quick car photography tips to use:

• Angles: There’s nothing wrong with shooting from eye level, but car photography is a great opportunity to experiment with high and low angles to show off your car in a new, unique way. Choose angles that will help you portray your car the way you planned. This is a great opportunity to experiment with the lighting and position of the car as well.
• Details: Don’t get bogged down in the big picture and ignore the details. Both the interior and exterior of a car have unique elements that deserve to be highlighted. Sometimes even seemingly normal things — like a door handle or a steering wheel — can seem extraordinary from the right angle and in the right lighting.
• Panning: A great use of the tripod is to get action shots of your car. Just set your camera on the tripod on the side of the road and set a timer to take a burst of photos as you drive by. This will result in some cool shots, which you can later edit to enhance.
• Editing: Don’t listen to people who turn their noses up at the idea of editing photos. The technology exists to help enhance photography, so why not take advantage of it? You don’t need to make massive changes that alter your entire image, but post-production is great for fixing issues with lighting or even just cropping the photos.

Tag Tampa Bay Grand Prix in Your Photos to Show Off Your Skills

Whether you’re a hobby photographer just taking pictures for fun or an aspiring professional car photographer, we at Tampa Bay Grand Prix would love to see your talents! When you post your photo to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, just tag @TampaBayGP to share your hard work.