Pro Tips for Photographing Cars

Text and Photos by Joe Farace, June, 2004

Cars make great photographic subjects. Whether listening to the raspy roar of a Ferrari Formula One car blasting off the banking at Indianapolis, or enjoying the quiet elegance of a vintage Packard Sport Phaeton parked on the manicured grass of the 18th Hole at Pebble Beach, cars and photography are a natural combination. And all the excitement that surrounds digital imaging can be found in the be-winged, be-skirted sport compact cars that use the latest automotive technology to extract 500 horsepower from a four-cylinder Honda engine. So get out your camera and let’s make some pictures of these cars! The Dodge Viper is a car that looks like it’s going 100 mph even when it is parked. This is one of three shots made of this car, each with a slightly different composition and camera position. Choosing the Right Gear I prefer using 35mm or digital SLRs so I have access to a variety of lenses. Since I do most of my professional automotive photography on speculation these days, I do most of my shooting digitally so I can shoot lots of images economically. However, I occasionally shoot with film for a variety of reasons, the foremost being that it’s the only way for me to get the maximum coverage out of my wide-angle lenses. (Yeah, I could solve this concern with a full-frame digital SLR like the Kodak 14n or the Canon EOS-1Ds, but right now these pricey cameras are beyond the budget of many of us.) My favorite film for photographing cars is Kodak’s Elite Chrome Extra Color because its vibrant colors make cars look like they are jumping out of the slide mount. When shooting slide film I bracket exposures slightly. With my Canon EOS-1n, I make 1¼3-stop bracketed exposures on either side of the aperture-priority controlled “correct” exposure. One or more of these three shots is always usable. A horizontal framing captures a patched- up Ferrari chasing two Porsche 911’s around the winding Laguna Seca track. The original image was cropped to help simplify the composition and emphasize the cars. You can also experiment with black-and-white film to create a vintage look with your images. Digital cameras offer many built-in options for controlling color, saturation, exposure and other effects. Wide-angle lenses let you move in close and fill your frame with a portion of your subject (or even the entire car) while eliminating background distractions. While wide-angle zooms let you get close during crowded car shows, in an actual race event, you’ll need a more powerful telephoto zoom lens if you want to bring the cars in tight without getting dangerously close to a car screaming around the track at over 100 mph. This image of a Suburu concept car was made at a car show on “Dealer Day” when there are fewer spectators. The Motion Blur filter in Photoshop CS (Filter>Blur>Motion Blur) was applied to a second, duplicate layer to clean up a cluttered background and add some motion to the image. While the people at car shows tend to be some of the most polite you’ll find anywhere, the large crowds often make it impossible to use a tripod. This means that for most indoor car shows I typically shoot at high ISO settings which can produce grain or induce digital noise. Whether shooting film or digital, proper exposure is the first step in minimizing grain and noise. Since underexposure accentuates these problems, bracketing is always a good idea. I also use an on-camera flash, often with a diffuser, to fill in shadows at both indoor and outdoor cars shows. Outdoors or at the races I use slower ISO speeds—preferring ISO 200 because I don’t see much difference between ISO 100 and 200. At the track I consider my monopod to be an essential tool, both as a steady platform for low-light shooting and as a support for my long zoom lenses.