Photography guys.. How would you photograph an automobile without sunlight

[MrMaxwell]

There's no sun here and I have to get nice looking pictures of these things
The plan is to do them in front of an upper middle class home, but without sunlight... hell I don't know how I'm going to get a decent look

You can't just throw pictures of a car up for sale if it's all cloudy outside
Believe it or not, that gets you less money for the cars

I have no idea how to get around this
I doubt it, but is there any way to add a sunlight effect to photographs? A REALISTIC looking effect? The ones I've seen look really stupid.
Almost as bad as those fake cumshot pics!

Any ideas ????

[digitaldivas]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

There's no sun here and I have to get nice looking pictures of these things
The plan is to do them in front of an upper middle class home, but without sunlight... hell I don't know how I'm going to get a decent look

You can't just throw pictures of a car up for sale if it's all cloudy outside
Believe it or not, that gets you less money for the cars

I have no idea how to get around this
I doubt it, but is there any way to add a sunlight effect to photographs? A REALISTIC looking effect? The ones I've seen look really stupid.
Almost as bad as those fake cumshot pics!

Any ideas ????

Set you aperture to as big as it will go eg. F4.0 or F2.8. Set your shutter speed to around 1/60, white balance your frame, start with 200iso and work your way up to 800. Or if you have a tungston rig, set the white balance to that, about 10 feet away from your lights. you will get a yellowish exposure from this, but it will re render beautifully in photoshop. Raw files, of course, and just replace your color

[2MuchMark]

Actually, to me, it depends what kind of car it is.

Do not add sunlight or lens flares to your photo (or any photo) in Photoshop. It will look dumb, and potential buyers will wonder what else has been photoshopped.

If you are selling a sports car, you can make it "look fast" by shooting it from the front / left side (in front of and to the left of the driver's side) angle. It may stand out from all the other car ads, and people interested in the car will want to see as much of the car as possible.

Take the car to any empty lot with an interesting background. Plan to shoot the car from the front. When you park the car, turn the steering wheel 1 full turn to the right. Shoot your car from the front, but side-step a few to right of the car so that you can see the car plus the turned wheels. This is done often in car brochures and always looked kind of cool to me. Experiment with some different angles too.

[Grapesoda]

pretty simple.... tripod, and 1-1 1/2 second exposer OR parking garage

[Jarmusch]

The used washing machines business didn't work out for you?

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by Jarmusch

The used washing machines business didn't work out for you?

What are you talking about, stupid?
Because I did sales for an appliance hustler for awhile last year, you're saying, what?
I was on the phone making sales for a couple hundred a pop.. we ALL have to work SOME TIME

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by digitaldivas

Set you aperture to as big as it will go eg. F4.0 or F2.8. Set your shutter speed to around 1/60, white balance your frame, start with 200iso and work your way up to 800. Or if you have a tungston rig, set the white balance to that, about 10 feet away from your lights. you will get a yellowish exposure from this, but it will re render beautifully in photoshop. Raw files, of course, and just replace your color

What if you're just using a normal consumer grade digital camera??

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by **********

Actually, to me, it depends what kind of car it is.

Do not add sunlight or lens flares to your photo (or any photo) in Photoshop. It will look dumb, and potential buyers will wonder what else has been photoshopped.

If you are selling a sports car, you can make it "look fast" by shooting it from the front / left side (in front of and to the left of the driver's side) angle. It may stand out from all the other car ads, and people interested in the car will want to see as much of the car as possible.

Take the car to any empty lot with an interesting background. Plan to shoot the car from the front. When you park the car, turn the steering wheel 1 full turn to the right. Shoot your car from the front, but side-step a few to right of the car so that you can see the car plus the turned wheels. This is done often in car brochures and always looked kind of cool to me. Experiment with some different angles too.

That's what I was getting at, I think the attempts at sunlight being added to a picture usually look pretty fucking horrible!!

I'm pretty good with the angles and making thumbs pop..

[woj]

just shoot it in the middle of the day? even with no direct sunlight it might not turn out half bad, just adjust it a little in photoshop afterwards and it should work? or did you try that already?

[Robert Day]

Where is Andrew Yeadon when you need him?


http://andrewyeadon.com/

Study his photos, a lot of Andrew's photos are used with natural light.

Invest in real camera and a 135mm fixed 2.8 Lens always use a tripod for product photography

By the way, I am customer of exotic cars

also consider an 85mm 1.2 prime that will get your low light for sure

[Lassitor]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

There's no sun here and I have to get nice looking pictures of these things
The plan is to do them in front of an upper middle class home, but without sunlight... hell I don't know how I'm going to get a decent look

You can't just throw pictures of a car up for sale if it's all cloudy outside
Believe it or not, that gets you less money for the cars

I have no idea how to get around this
I doubt it, but is there any way to add a sunlight effect to photographs? A REALISTIC looking effect? The ones I've seen look really stupid.
Almost as bad as those fake cumshot pics!

Any ideas ????

Well....can you rent gear? A 4K HMI light, and a few 2K's will solve your problem. You might also simply get a 4 1K's to model your scene as well.

I have seen this done and it has given very dramatic and striking results.

You might also try a flash array, with a radio master and slaves. I have seen photographers use up to 8 radio slave flashes to fill out an area and model the subject.

Renting is the way to go for this case.

[justinsain]

I don't like to take pictures of cars