# Tips for photographing a detailed car with or without a single flash



## technics100 (Jul 9, 2008)

I have been asked by a friend to photograph his S2000 at the weekend, he will just have had a 20 hour correction detail carried out on it. Its black BTW. Can anyone shed some tips for me when shooting it? I kow the 50mm will give a good proportion when shooting and will have a play with the depth of field. I have an SB-800 with shoot through / reflecting umbrella and also a 24” softbox, I have only bought those and haven’t really used them yet, anyone have any single flash lighting tips?

I have the following equipment available;

D90
Nikon 18-200mm VR
Nikon 50mm f/1.8

Accessories
Circular Polariser for the 18-200mm
ND Grad - Cokin
ND4 – Cokin
Tripod

Thanks

Adam


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## OutLore (Jan 19, 2007)

IMO - leave the 18-200 at home. The car is going to be static, so your legs can act as a zoom! You'll never get real depth of focus with it, and the 50 will give you much sharper, cleaner pics with decent proportion ratio. (Of course if you're looking for some barrel/pincushion effects then use it!)

Not sure if I am allowed to post links to other sites but have a peek at www.strobist.com there's loads of good advice over there. Also, if you're not already a member, www.talkphotography.co.uk

With your SB800, I'm pretty sure a D90 can command it remotely so you should be able to use it off the camera which will help. If you're struggling with light then why not shoot at night, and use the flash to "paint" the car - you'll be able to really highlight some of it, and possibly get some unusual effects as well. Long shutter speeds or stacking/combining shots could be your friend here...


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## technics100 (Jul 9, 2008)

Thanks for that, I have recently joined talk photography. Yes u can use off camera flash using the NIKON cls system.

Any links to tutorials? I found this?

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-it-takes-to-light-car.html


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

strobist is *the* place to go. Try it and see what happens...


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## OutLore (Jan 19, 2007)

bretti_kivi said:


> strobist is *the* place to go. Try it and see what happens...


But be prepared for _another_ money sucking hobby!!!


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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

here are a couple done in a dark old industrial unit using 2-3 off camera Vivitar's and my Canon 5D.



















it really depends on where you will be shooting and what lighting you have already? This unit was really dark in photography terms, so I used all the kit I could to bounce light in and create shadow where I wanted it.

The big challenge is balancing all the flashes so you get the power levels where you need them. Remember any flash directed at paint or glass will create a huge hotspot that will look terrible, so you need to take yor time in placing them. Also remember that flashes really arent very powerful int he grand scheme of things so need to be placed pretty close to the car to get much impact. All my flashes were placed just out of shot in these, and in fact they were behind both cars tucked out of site to blow out the backgrounds (which were mucky industrial walls!).

As much of a problem is stopping unwanted reflections on the paintwork, so you will want as many sheets of black card and various supports as you can get your hands on. A detailed shiny car isnt actually always ideal for pics as every damn thing in the environment will be reflected in it somewhere - wheels, glass etc etc, so you really need large areas of black paper to block off as much unwanted stuff as possible. You'll need to VERY carefully check every inch of the car from the camera position to spot those little things that will ruin the picture later.

Do some Googling as there are some good sites with tips specifically about car photography, quality of light, time of day etc that you need to pay attention to. Its a very tricky subject to do well and requires lots of skill, practice and kit ideally. there's a reason those pro car togs get paid a lot of money by the big manufacturers!!

Just found this snap of 1 of the setups for the Atom pic above. With all the clutter out of the way, we didnt need to block out any unwanted reflections but just had to get the light right!


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## Dornrade (Sep 26, 2009)

I'm not very good at cars but I used to love my old xantia and so before I sold it I took its portrait.
I used a bare strobe inside the car and one through a brolly on the side of the car (tad amateur probably) I selectively lit different parts of the car.
I really enjoy the recent nissan advert photos. Some interesting flash work going on there...
IMO shoot at a high Fstop say 9 or above. Get plenty of the scene in detail. Take some time to evaluate where light is needed in the scene.
Good luck mate


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## technics100 (Jul 9, 2008)

well, I went and took some pics last night. turned out ok, but will try again in the near future. I think I need to use the softbox next time to feather the light a bit better.. I had a quick edit last night, need to go through them in more detail though..


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