Unpleased with my results, need some tips

Restomage · Jul 10, 2009

I think my main problem is that there is not enough separation between the subject and the background, so next time I need to underexpose the background more, but I'm a little confused on how to do this without making the subject too overexposed. The first two especially need work. I'm thinking either a polarizer or ND filter will help.All shot with aperture wide open, shutter-speeds at around 1/125 for the first three, and 1/400 for the rest.

Any tips would be appreciated, thanks.

tirediron · Jul 10, 2009

A polarizer is essential; it will get rid of all the reflection, but an ND isn't going to help much. Professional automotive shots are normally done with a LOT of lighting gear, however you can compensate for most of that by picking the right time of day and positioning your car correctly. Reflectors will help a lot as well, and these can be anything from sheets of white card stock to proper photo reflectors. Lastly, don't forget about your backgrounds; the ones you show here are for the most part, busy and distracting. Remember the shorter the focal-length of your lens, the greater the DoF. Try shooting some of these with long glass.

Restomage · Jul 10, 2009

tirediron said:
A polarizer is essential; it will get rid of all the reflection, but an ND isn't going to help much. Professional automotive shots are normally done with a LOT of lighting gear, however you can compensate for most of that by picking the right time of day and positioning your car correctly. Reflectors will help a lot as well, and these can be anything from sheets of white card stock to proper photo reflectors. Lastly, don't forget about your backgrounds; the ones you show here are for the most part, busy and distracting. Remember the shorter the focal-length of your lens, the greater the DoF. Try shooting some of these with long glass.

Thanks for the advice. In the first picture the ocean is actually in the background but since it's too overexposed you can't really tell, so are there any tricks to underexposing it but still keeping the the car properly exposed? Faster shutter maybe?

UUilliam · Jul 10, 2009

Tbh the only ones i think are a problem is # 1 and #2 the rest... i like

if you under exposed the sky, that would under expose the car too? not over expose it??
why not just take 3 - 5 bracketed shots of it and make a HDR (keeping it subtle) or take a picture of a sky and mask it in

terryc967 · Jul 10, 2009

I think the problem with the first two is the angle, the rest look good though

musicaleCA · Jul 10, 2009

The wide angle is what's bugging me, in all of the shots. What lens are you shooting with? To me, it looks like you've got some really major barrel distortion happening. >.<

Edit: D'oh. Just noticed the fish in your sig. Aesthetically, I don't find fishes very pleasing. Most of the time shots done with fisheyes are just wonky.

kundalini · Jul 10, 2009

The only one that, to my eyes, the background isn't competing with the subject is #1. You have an SB-600. Did you use it? It may have helped you light the car properly and still have the background ..... less blown. Meaning you could have used a faster shutter speed (synch speed) and stopped down apeture to fire the shot, which may have left less ambient light in the scene (blowing out the background) Just a thought.

Shame Nikon dropped the ball with discontinuing the SB-800 because it has a TTL-BL setting which would have greatly enhanced your odds.

Be aware of your backgrounds.

NJMAN · Jul 10, 2009

Each one of your pics is a whopping 2 MB each in size! That's enormous for web viewing. You might want to optimize them for web viewing before posting. I find that saving 800 px images at quality 75 or 80 gives you around 100-150 KB in size, and still looks great. Much more manageable for web viewing.

Restomage · Jul 11, 2009

kundalini said:
The only one that, to my eyes, the background isn't competing with the subject is #1. You have an SB-600. Did you use it? It may have helped you light the car properly and still have the background ..... less blown. Meaning you could have used a faster shutter speed (synch speed) and stopped down apeture to fire the shot, which may have left less ambient light in the scene (blowing out the background) Just a thought.

Shame Nikon dropped the ball with discontinuing the SB-800 because it has a TTL-BL setting which would have greatly enhanced your odds.

Be aware of your backgrounds.

You know I was seriously considering using my SB-600 and I don't know why I didn't, most likely because I took these series of shots within like a 4 min time span and I was in a rush, next time when I have some more time to work with i'll test it out.