Help with nightime car photography.

[sduk]

hello all, tomorrow night myself and my friend are going out for some pictures of our car!

I have only owned my DSLR for about 1 week and have the Sony A200.

I have been reading about aperature, exposure and shutter speed etc and have a vague understanding.

My question is can anyone help me to produce some decent pictures of my car like this in the dark.....

and this during the day....

mine just dont seem to be as crisp and good quality like you can really tell it is a dslr camera.

i do use a tripod at night and my car is a white astra if that makes any difference for the settings i should use?

Thanks

Sammy

 

[tummelv]

A tripod will be essential for nighttime photography. I recommend you use the countdown timer so the photo won't be effected by any movement of the camera by pressing the shutter.

Settings of:

10 Sec
F/10
ISO: 200

would be a good starting point for you, I guess. You can play around with the settings to get the desired effect you need. Also, remember that raising the ISO will increase the noise on the image. A larger aperture (smaller f/ number) will result in a brighter image but at the expense of the photo as a whole maybe not being totally focused. A smaller aperture (larger f/ number) will result in better overall focus, but less light entering the camera, so you will need a longer shutterspeed.

Hope this helps as a starting guide.

 

[seriousrikk]

Well I don't rate the first example you posted, white balance is totally out.
What do you rate about these shots? The only one I think is above average is the mustang... and that is made by the lighting.

Shoot in AV mode, increase the aperture value to F8 or above to get the whole car sharp in the frame
Shoot Raw - the chances of you getting the while balance right with camera setting under the street lighting are moderate - easier to set it bang on in post (You have a white car, this helps...)
Tripod - yes, a must, mirror lock up if you have it.
Location - you want somewhere with reasonable lighting really. Car parks are good one empty, old tunnels with strip lighting, or just get out of the town/city and shoot in the countryside at dusk.

ANd be prepared to go out a few times till you get it right!

 

[GeForce Junky]

Do you have a flash gun? If so you can do stuff like this:

Not great but you get the idea.

Shot at ISO 100, 15 sec, F4 I think. What you do is find a dark place (preferably pitch black), then set the camera to 10sec timer, focus using a tourch shone on the car, then walk around the car and fire the flash 4 or 5 times manually from different angles during the exposure.

 

[candlestick]

Yep, I think the 1st one is way too orange too!! Would a circular polariser help with reflections too??

 

[Byker28i]

you can get creative. I got this shot by using a long exposure and two battery powered camcorder lights pointing down on tripods.

However - this was three nights of trying stuff and about 100 shots to get this right, including climbing the lampost to kill the yellow light with a dustbin bag from the streetlight

This was on the road outside my house!

 

[Byker28i]

Dusk is a good time as well, depending on location, car colour etc. I took this on top of a local carpark just as the sun had set and the sky was a nice dark blue

 

[Byker28i]

Or you get creative with the street lighting. These were in the millenium dome car park at about 6am

 

[HoppyUK]

hello all, tomorrow night myself and my friend are going out for some pictures of our car!

I have only owned my DSLR for about 1 week and have the Sony A200.

I have been reading about aperature, exposure and shutter speed etc and have a vague understanding.

My question is can anyone help me to produce some decent pictures of my car like this in the dark.....


mine just dont seem to be as crisp and good quality like you can really tell it is a dslr camera.

i do use a tripod at night and my car is a white astra if that makes any difference for the settings i should use?

Thanks

Sammy

The kind of pictures you've shown are not that hard to take if you know what your camera is up to.

But night photography is not the easiest thing to start out with and maybe you'd be better off honing your skills in daylight first?

There is tons of info on here, and lots of friendly and knowledgeable peeps. The best way to learn is to shoot stuff and if you're not happy, post a few pics up here for specific advice on them.

Good luck

 

[gazedd]

I shot my mates teg type-r when I didnt know what I was doing etc, but they were ok
ISO 100, Around F8 and just played about with the remote to operate the shutter release until I got a shot I liked (IIRC)

 

[Cranky]

Maybe post a couple of pics that you've already taken, might be easier to give you advice knowing what your starting from