glyphtrix

STOCK IMAGE:
Fictitious radio station warning light.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Dead Air indeed!
In a commercial setting, should this image have been straightened?
I would have!!
SS

blackest Loc: Ireland

The devil is in the details.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Come on y'all! Here's an ASSIGNMENT for you folks. Just grab any ordinary or mundane object in you home or office and give me a creative shot of it. Who knows- a can opener, a Swiss Army knife, a teapot- whatever.

OK- I decided to shoot my lunch. Tip- one ordinary light fixture directly over the subject and I moved the plate forward so the light was slightly behind the subject. I don't usually drag my camera to the neighborhood greasy spoon so I shot this with my i-phone.

Total simplicity!

Valsmere Loc: New Jersey

Where fun driving begins.

Valsmere Loc: New Jersey

Cranes on a ship what we call ships gear.

glyphtrix

Yes your right. In a commercial setting an unleveled shot wouldn't have gotten paid for.
but it's also illustrating a light table
- so you have to concede me a few points..

glyphtrix

The details will kill ya every time!

glyphtrix

Nice shot. I appreciate the lighting tip too.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

I find cars are very hard to shoot.
If you get the whole car, even a big piece piece of it, you ALWAYS get the crappy distracting backgrounds/forgrounds.
How often do you see a hot girl next to a car with all these other parts of cars, or worse, people all around.
I prefer to zero in on a detail where we see only car, or crop the crap out of it, since most don't have a studio big enough to put a car into it!!!!
That's me anyway.
SS

glyphtrix

Valsmere Loc: New Jersey

Very true and shooting at car shows is hard enough to do!

blackest Loc: Ireland

I know a fella who can do it Phillip McCordall, I have nothing but respect for Phil, this was from an old web page of his.

Car Photography in the Studio

Car photography in the studio is considered one of the most difficult specialities in this fantastic profession.
A special studio is required that looks like the inside of an eggshell , it has no corners just gentle curves and of course is very big.

A film studio can be used as well because of its height and size but nothing is better than a real car studio.

All the major manufacturers have their own studios at their factories, for use by their own photographers and ones working for their advertising agency.

The best one I have seen is in Turin at the Fiat factory, there are five in all one of which must be 30x80x8meters.


Normally lights are never shone on to a car but reflected from a wall to create the lighter parts, other parts of the wall may be painted in black or covered in coloured felt to make a darker area of bodywork.

On many occasions we would paint scenes on the wall to reflect into the car like mountains, forests etc.

Mostly we will work with 2 and 5 kilowatt spots, lighting an exact piece of wall , a one or two degree change in placement can destroy the shape of the car , car photography in the studio is an art on it's own.

For the roof bonnet and windscreen we would have a floating reflector suspended from the studio roof and movable to any position by using ropes and pulleys, this allowed us absolute control. The reflectors would be large wooden frames about 6m x 4m sometimes bigger covered with light material and painted white, light would be reflected from these back to the car.

There are many little tricks we use e.g. an airbrush to paint tiny reflections on the bumpers and black plastic. Talcum powder is used if we want to see the tyre treads although that means removing all those spiky bits of rubber found on some new tyres.
This would take 1 assistant about 2 hours for 1 tyre !!

A can of deodorant spray, the type that leaves a white deposit, used to add a little white reflection, normally on the back of the roof or the edge of the windscreen or bonnet.

For a static shot both wheels should be aligned the same way. In the case of the Jeep the writing is in the same position on each wheel.

You will notice that often the car is on a raised floor, there are two reasons for this one is to allow me to light from a low angle the, other as shots like these can take several days I’m not sure that my back would stand lying on the floor for all that time.

People in cars was also a problem with having to use very big flash units and tiny ones hidden inside the car .So in the end I made flash spot lights with halogen modeling lights that enabled me to see where I was putting the light. However you'll never beat the old tungsten spot. Except for the 8 or so minutes of exposure time, it's strange that immediately I opened the shutter I needed to go to the toilet.

I hope this gives an insight into car photography in the studio

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Good day gang! Just checking in with y'all and commenting on the images and the posts.

Valsmere- Nice image of the cranes. Obviously this is not a "catalog shot", that is it does not show a specific product- there is no product identification as to color, logos or other distinct feature. This is the kind of dramatic shot you may find in a corporate annual report, a catalog or brochure cover or in a feature story in a naval or maritime journal or publication. There are lots of graphic lines and shapes and the kind of silhouetting brings these shapes together in a non-confusing and interesting pattern. The "moon" is a nice touch.

On the GTO- - Would you like a critique? there is some interesting stuff to talk about when we are shooting classic cars etc.

GLYPHTRIX- OK- so we are "SELLING" a Swiss Army knife- The big selling points are all the cool blades and tools! I am going to write a tutorial on shiny metallic objects- tune in soon!

Sharp Shooter and Blackest - Many moons ago, in my other business, I advised on, supplied and installed some of the lighting gear in a studio specializing in automotive product photography- cars and trucks. The place was large enough to shoot a cement mixer or an 18 wheeler on its cyclorama. There were 24 electronic flash lamp heads aimed toward the ceiling which was coated with a flat aluminium kinda paint and a giant diffusing scrim was made of sewn together panels of sailcloth. I guess that was the world's largest soft-box! The lamp heads were powered by a dozen power packs totaling about 15,000 watt/seconds. This was a very costly instillation requiring quite a bit of maintenance. Basically the whole thing was to simulate the lighting from a hazy or slightly overcast sky. The light coming from above would nicely create smooth highlights on the lines and contours of the car and truck bodies without problematic reflections. Many flat reflector and gobo (black) panels were on hand to provide fill light or subtract or block light when required. Of course the ceiling had to very high but the light source had to be close enough to create those soft even highlights. My main job was to determine the distances.

Although, nowadays, some vehicles are still shot in studio environments, many ad agencies and art directors are leaning toward more natural and moody shots on location. If you need to shoot this kind of thing, especially antique or classic cars, a hazy day in a "period" environment can make excellent imagery. Many major car ads are shot at sunrise or sunset or even in the early evening during the "magic hour" and dramatic sky or cloud reflections the paint-job are perfectly OK.

Are we having fun yet?

glyphtrix

Yes.
AND THERE'S even pictures from other people now! It's all coming up to speed.

(You're welcome.)