Car Photography Tutorial

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taxboy

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I have watched this video http://www.photographymonthly.com/Videos-and-Podcasts/Videos/Creative-Lighting-Photographing-Cars and am a little confused regarding the exposure when he gets to the walk around section with the off camera flash.

Just so I understand is the tog setting the camera to bulb and manually triggering the flash to light the car ? Whilst I can see how this might work if the surroundings are dark e.g. night time how would you calculate an exposure in the situation shown here where there are lights in the car park.

Sorry if this is a stupid question but I've watched the vid a couple of times and maybe missed something important
 
I wouldn't really call that a tutorial to be honest, more of a "look how we did it" approach.

And basically, they take a load of photos and then use photoshop to make something they can use.
 
Harvey_nikon said:
I wouldn't really call that a tutorial to be honest, more of a "look how we did it" approach.

And basically, they take a load of photos and then use photoshop to make something they can use.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that - you've qualified my thoughts. It was just that it seemed a bit of a hit and miss technique for a pro to use
 
What an utter crock of ****. Geez, I saw that dude in a mag a while back and thought little of him or his images and this just compounds my thoughts.

Let's get this right, he takes a Ferrari California to a car park to 'bring out its personality' - a car park ffs - and then attempts to use relatively weak off-camera lighting of a different temperature and hue to the ambient lighting. In that environment he'd either need high ISO or low f/stop for his bounce flash to register, in which case the ambient lighting would blow the car; or he'd need narrow aperture - properly narrow judging by the exposure durations he appeared to be using - in which case his speedlights etc would have little or no impact.

OP - don't try and follow this tutorial, you'll tie yourself in knots. As has been said, your understanding is pretty much right already- find yourself somewhere dark enough to get the exposure duration you need. In my experience you're looking for a location that's 15seconds at f/8 dark to be able to light a car using composited lighting - side, front/ rear, separation. Then add a final exposure for your background if required.

If you're on flickr check out some of my light painted cars and leave a comment or drop me a flickr mail if you need to.
 
Pistonheads (haymarket publishing) are running courses in their studio at Teddington Lock, £150 for the day, for no more than ten people at a time.
See http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/...&i=0&nmt=PH Studio Shoot....Updated&mid=60570

They provide cameras etc if you don't have, you do a lot of the work adjusting the lights in the morning and are then left to it in the afternoon.
Really interesting to see how magazines do studio work and a great introduction to car lighting.
 
its not really a crock os **** is it. its a method you can apply to lighting a subject. His method seems to work for his clients even if you or I think his images are pish lol


AndWhyNot said:
What an utter crock of ****. Geez, I saw that dude in a mag a while back and thought little of him or his images and this just compounds my thoughts.

Let's get this right, he takes a Ferrari California to a car park to 'bring out its personality' - a car park ffs - and then attempts to use relatively weak off-camera lighting of a different temperature and hue to the ambient lighting. In that environment he'd either need high ISO or low f/stop for his bounce flash to register, in which case the ambient lighting would blow the car; or he'd need narrow aperture - properly narrow judging by the exposure durations he appeared to be using - in which case his speedlights etc would have little or no impact.

OP - don't try and follow this tutorial, you'll tie yourself in knots. As has been said, your understanding is pretty much right already- find yourself somewhere dark enough to get the exposure duration you need. In my experience you're looking for a location that's 15seconds at f/8 dark to be able to light a car using composited lighting - side, front/ rear, separation. Then add a final exposure for your background if required.

If you're on flickr check out some of my light painted cars and leave a comment or drop me a flickr mail if you need to.
Click to expand...
 
POAH said:
its not really a crock os **** is it. its a method you can apply to lighting a subject. His method seems to work for his clients even if you or I think his images are pish lol
Click to expand...

It's the tutorial that's a crock, not the lighting technique. He doesn't explain at all about technique, beyond loosely referring to lighting the surroundings and watching where the reflections fall and then ignoring his own advice.

My guess is that the final images you see were produced using similar lighting techniques to those he demonstrates, but using composited short exposures. The long exposure technique wouldn't work in that instance for reasons I mentioned in my prev post. But any half-decent tutorial shouldn't leave you guessing, hence why IMO it's a crock of ****.
 
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