Tips and advice for my car photography side job?

[KmH]

Tongue-in-cheek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (note the :er

IIRC, he is a she.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

amazing car photos.

Pix or shenz.

If you want to see his flickr just click the link in his..... oh, wait, NVM. :er:

Welcome to the land of centered subjects...Official Home Of Captivating Creations Photography

 

[Village Idiot]

Buy lights. That's $1,750 for the cheapest lights and modifiers I'd purchase. You'll still need stands and triggers. You'll probably want several light panels. The ones big enough for a car, or almost big enough, cost about $300 - $500 each. Get three just in case. You should purchase a rig too, for rig shots of course. That's about $300 or so. A case for your lights and battery will run you about $300. That should be enough to get you started.

 

[Jeatley]

Gonna be hard to help a person that post then never comes back and answers the questions to the post! I shoot cars. Car shows, Poker runs, and many other related automotive things. I would love to have this converstation but where is the OP at?

 

[Jeatley]

Car Photography Tutorials - A CHRONOLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF ALL OUR TUTORIALS All you need to know!

I have read everything on this site. Some good stuff and some bad. I would give the page a "B" Good read. I know of a book and blog that is better!

 

[CamCracker]

Man! Seriously, give me a break! I ask a question to try and get help and I get nothing but crap. I'm gonna get crap from this message too, so go ahead.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150121776767473.282656.141384672472&type=1

 

[CamCracker]

And that website someone posted doesn't have my latest work, in fact, it has a bunch of my bad work. My facebook has my latest. I don't care, if you don't like my pictures, say it! I don't care! Man! I can't even ask a question that I am excited about with all these people swarming on this thread to give me crap!

Captivating Creations Photography | Facebook

 

[noodles]

Well, your question was contradicting... and in this world, it doesn't help for people to NOT give you the honest truth, especially if you are going to invest in a business.

I would rather someone critique by work with honest feed back than say it's OK because they don't want to hurt my feelings.

You say you are not a pro, but not an amateur, yet you don't know what body, lenses, lights, filters etc to use for car photography - take some time to read the net as it's filled with that information.

You say you've taken some great pics, yet you don't know what equipment to get.

Those two points just killed it for you.

Also, if you're starting out in business for yourself, you should consider a business case, what's your target market, audience etc etc... figure that out for yourself, then you can search the net for current prices etc and figure it out. Also, simply sticking some pictures on the net isn't going to get you business.

 

[Misfitsracing]

If you want to shoot cars, I would be less concerned about figuring how much to charge, and more concerned figuring out who's gonna buy the pictures. Most car guys I know don't want pictures of their cars since they have the real thing to look at at. They want pictures of what they were doing cars. Go out to a local track and start shooting. Network with the track owners, see if they have an official track photog, and if not, see if they want one. Where I race, the track photographer is a guy that networks with the racers, and works hard to be well liked and shoot every car. Guys buy pictures from him, not to remind them of the car, but to commemorate the experience. I'm not trying to bash you, just throwing out my opinion.

 

[Vtec44]

Man! Seriously, give me a break! I ask a question to try and get help and I get nothing but crap. I'm gonna get crap from this message too, so go ahead.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150121776767473.282656.141384672472&type=1

Well if you're saying that you've taken amazing car photographs in front of a bunch of photographers, you better back it up.

... I'm just saying...

 

[412 Burgh]

Man! Seriously, give me a break! I ask a question to try and get help and I get nothing but crap. I'm gonna get crap from this message too, so go ahead.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150121776767473.282656.141384672472&type=1

i'll give you my input.. I did click on your link and all that.. so the DOF is not good in the photos that are shooting a logo, if your logo says
"Chevrolet" you don't want everything else out of focus, except the C.. you want the WHOLE LOGO IN FOCUS, not yelling just making my point.

 

[fokker]

Car photography business idea: Target market is guys with fancy cars. Get the car, and a model from Model Mayhem who will work for free, and then get the model to do sexy poses on the car. Then sell the photos to the guy who owns the car.

 

[CamCracker]

When I asked what equipment and gear I should use, I wasn't asking as if I had no clue. I know the lenses I would mostly use would be the standard 18-55mm or a wide angle lens, or if I wanted to go on the cheap side, I'd get a screw on wide angle lens, and even occasionally a telephoto lens for different needs. And I know I need a tripod, and a floor tripod, which I have both of those. I was just asking for suggestions - a "What do you use" and "what works best" sort of thing. I know what I would use, but I was just asking for peoples opinions to give me a bigger idea. Man....

 

[tirediron]

... I know the lenses I would mostly use would be the standard 18-55mm or a wide angle lens, or if I wanted to go on the cheap side....

Ummm, sorry, but an 18-55 is "on the cheap side". To do this on a professional level, you should be able to cover at a minimum ~15 - 200mm at f2.8.

 

[Max713]

The standard 18-55 is far from what you will need for quality automotive work, that is one of Nikons most inexpensive lenses, and quite a slow one at that.
Wide angles typically aren't a good choice either, as they often times bring with them quite a bit of distortion, and can be very difficult to get much subject isolation.
Sounds to me like you need to do some more research... Have you tried looking at other pro auto photographers equipment? Here's a link to one of my favorite pro auto guys equipment page:
Equipment | Armin Ausejo Photography
I would say the majority of truly breathtaking shots were taken with a pro level ƒ2.8 lens or similar, namely the 70-200 ƒ2.8 VR.