# Red Cars



## rmitch32 (Jan 26, 2007)

How do i get a nice picture of my car... It is a red Focus St but whenever i take a photo it seems to be overexposed and not look right.

Any hints tips or ideas people can share with me??


P.S I am using a Casio Exilim z500 - It works fine on all other colours but not on red!!


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## mattbeef (Feb 7, 2007)

some camera's struggle with red espescially cheaper ones (not tryin to say your camera is cheap) it might be the light sensors that cant cope with it.

Only way around it would be to borrow someone else's or but another


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## nzgunnie (Feb 3, 2007)

mattbeef said:


> some camera's struggle with red espescially cheaper ones (not tryin to say your camera is cheap) it might be the light sensors that cant cope with it.
> 
> Only way around it would be to borrow someone else's or but another


That is not necessarily required. Simply get a grey card and meter off this, that will ensure you get your exposure dead on. From here you can under-expose slightly further, say another 1/3 - 1/2 a stop if required.

Use photoshop to make any fine colour adjustments.

It's not just 'cheap' cameras that struggle. I have a friend who had his red commodore photographed by a Nikon D1x, and it still came out looking slightly orange.


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## 190Evoluzione (Jun 27, 2007)

Red 'advances' more than any other colour in digital captures.
That's why it's difficult to render true detail in red paint - imperfections 
are 'filled in' and even if your camera is up to the job your computer display
probably doesn't have a wide enough gamut to render what you saw with 
your naked eye when you photographed the car.. 
That's why a relatively shiny red car always looks sh!t hot in forum pictures


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## Bulla2000 (Jun 5, 2007)

Take this position for shooting, you´ll get always a good reflection shot


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## rmitch32 (Jan 26, 2007)

I can get the shine photos to show quite well, but some photos tend to become a bit pixelated. It normally does this in the bodywork areas..

Shine pics: (My Old Car)



















Bodywork Pic (My new Car)

If you look at the paintwork you can see the graininess and blockiness of the picture:










Any tips for better pictures (using the camera i already have) would be greatly appreciated.... (camera is a Casio Exilim EX Z500)


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## 190Evoluzione (Jun 27, 2007)

The main problem with trying to render so many close, vivid tones on a
compact digital camera is that these types of camera mostly only produce JPEG files - compressed, compromised, pre-sharpened images with limited
colour information.

When budget allows, see if you can pick up a camera that produces
RAW or at least TIFF files - i have a Panasonic Lumix LX-1 (now superseded
by the amazing LX-2) that gives me the choice of shooting RAW, TIFF or JPEG. 
The images can then be opened using the Camera Raw plugin of Adobe PS CS2/CS3.

Your 'blockiness' is down to JPEG compression, nothing else.


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## davy st2 ni (Jan 21, 2007)

check out some of the photo,s on the ffstoc site there is some good pic,s


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## mneame (May 16, 2007)

couple of red ones that i've taken on my 30d these are all in jpeg. i don't have the function for photoshop to be using raw or i would only use raw.+





































Play about with your levels and sharpness functions in what ever editing programme you have. It'll help but not get rid of the blockiness. as above that's down to compression of the file.


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## mneame (May 16, 2007)

also the grain effect will depend on the amount of light and iso that the camera is using. the higher the iso the greater the grain. ideally, you'd shoot on 100iso all the time to avoid grain or noise as it's called with digital images.


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## Guest (Jul 22, 2007)

certain reds show differently in pictures

here is mine and a mates bmw , his is hell red mine is brilliant red










mine on the left, was taken with a canon 350d


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## mr v6 (Jun 29, 2007)

I found reading this site helped me in how best to photo a yellow car, but have a read though, it's full of tips.

http://www.cobracountry.com/fototips/


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