thank you for all the suggestions! I have a long way to go still, for the time being I've looked up some free resources on the exposure triangle and i'm trying to learn the big three. for right now I switched my camera to aperture mode, after i'm comfortable with that I'm not sure if I should tackle ISO or shutter speed. I do need to get a cheap tripod too, since everything used to be done with just my smartphone around here we don't have any equipment like that. One post mentioned using a bulb flash and another mentioned a wide angle lens, while I'd like to use all the accessories and lenses I can i'm restricted to what my boss thinks we need here unless I pay out of pocket. The camera was a necessary business expense-It's pretty much mine to do what I please wherever I want but anything else for it comes straight out of pocket....so used equipment is probably where i'm going to be on that front.
I will take the positioning suggestions into account too, when they told me to start taking pictures of the cars on the lot they never had anyone dedicated to it as part of their job routine, x salesman would snap a few on his phone when it was ready to go to the lot. I looked at the larger city dealerships to get a basic idea on where to stand and what angles to take my shots at and that's all we needed here until now. There are a lot more variables to look at now than what a smartphone could have done and I'm starting from the ground level. With all the help you guys have offered me I feel like I can really make big improvements from here on out, thank you very much everyone.
wow, so much feedback. thank you everyone for all the tips and references. I've begun studying up on the exposure triangle and for now have changed my camera to aperture priority. I'm going to experiment with that for a little while until everything clicks. All the free online resources have really helped my basic understanding, I'll be focusing on one aspect of the exposure triangle at a time and then I'll try to integrate them all together. Baby steps till then. There's no shortage of cars to shoot here so I'm really looking forward to seeing all these different changes in action as I go along.
Joined not too long ago after getting a Sony alpha a6000 to use at my workplace to get interior and exterior car shots. It's a small dealership in the boonies so there's no proper area to take staged pictures at, heck half the time they have dust and bird poop on them. I've had this camera for a week and I'm still learning the basics to eventually hop off auto mode. I wanted to post a couple pics and see what you guys think.
This is with the basic kit lens, I could have probably taken a better shot by sitting in the back seat and leaning forward between the seats but it's stressful trying to get 25 pictures a piece and trying to find 40 cars in the lot. Speed and efficiency is the name of the game but I would still like my pics to be the most appealing to a customer that they can be.
the second picture is when I realized how just an auto function on a true camera could beat the pants off my dinky smartphone I've been using all this time. I've never had a device that could take such crisp looking photos and these pictures here are what made me want to seriously start learning how to use all of what my camera can offer me.
Thank you all for the wealth of info. Got a lot of studying up to do.
Hello, I just joined and like the topic says I'm looking for any resources I can to better myself. For some background I've been taking pictures of vehicles for 9 months now using a smartphone for a dealership. I finally talked the owner into getting a high quality camera to shoot better pictures without taking up all my storage and cloud space. We settled on the Sony alpha a6000 mirrorless since all the reviews we looked at said it was great for starting out and it was one of the very best out there for under $500.
Fast forward a week and I'm having a ball with this thing. most advanced camera I've ever used (they were using a cheap point and click type camera before I worked here and showed them how much better my phone was taking pictures. My phone up until now was the best camera I'd ever used.) This camera I can honestly say has lit a fire in me and I want to master all the ins and outs of it. Let me just say that I'm a complete amateur, I know nothing of the terminologies yet or how to harness anything better than the auto modes, but now I find myself looking at online photography courses and how to guides and it's all so jumbled seeming. Kind of like assembling a puzzle with pieces missing.
So what do you guys think I should do to start out? what resources can I use to break out of auto mode and start branching into the other features? I was looking at this very compelling dslr guide linked on this website but since my camera is mirrorless I don't know if I'd get much out of that, I'm not sure how well one translates to the other.
Hello everyone. Saw this forum when I was trying to get any info I can on photography. My job is a mixture of online website tweaking for a car dealership and taking pictures for all the new cars that come in. After using my apple i7 smartphone for 6 months (because it has better image quality than the point and click camera they used here before me) I was able to convince them to get a step up camera. I've had a Sony Alpha A6000 now for about a week and the difference is like night and day. holding this camera has awakened a passion for photography I never knew I had, even though I know it's an older model I want to learn this camera 100% through and through.
TLDR: Hi everyone I just got a new toy that beats my smartphone and it made me like photography enough to want to take it much further than just point and click.