Spanky

Haven't taken any photos of my car in years. Please critique these photos and let me know what you honestly think. Thanks!

My 10 1/2 year old baby:

1.


2.

zzziippyyy

Your car looks good, but on the other hand you need to work on your lighting. How did you light the first shot i see some interesting shadow zones. Looks like you bounced your on body flash off the roof of the parking garage in this case it did not work. You need more spread of your light. If you can get the flash off body and closer to the car for better spill if your going to bounce it. You have a nice white wall in the back that you could be using as a spill reflector. What do you have for a lighting setup?

The second pic??? What happened there you have a mixture of color temperatures. Is there artificial lighting coming from the parking garage falling onto your frame? It is giving you nice light for your interior but the flare and unbalanced color is ruining the rest you need to match color temp either thru pp or by the use of a gel. This shot would be great with a 2 or 3 light setup with one of those lights bounced straight off the roof of the parking garage in either the rear or out of sight on the side of the car.

I do like your car though its

Spanky

Much appreciated zzziippyyy.

No flash was used in both photos although I was considering bouncing a flash upwards behind the car or would bouncing off the wall be better? (maybe I'll try that next time). Only lighting was what was available in the garage which I believe where fluorescent lights directly overhead the car and some spread out behind me. I tried adjusting the white balance on both since they originally came out too cold. Any suggestions on how to control the W/B on the flare in the 2nd pic? How's the overall composition?

zzziippyyy

Ok that explains it, yes bouncing a flash behind and over the car would make a world of difference in this shot. As far as white balance color temp this can be adjusted in PP. What software do you have? This pic really cries out for proper lighting.

Here I played with it for a couple of minutes. Just to give you an idea of some lighting,cropping and color changes that could be done. Notice the light added to the wheels you can see the detail of the rotors now and the color temp and lighting has been evened out a bit along with a crop of the bottom of the frame to balance your composition. The reflections could use some additional work along with some more light added to the dark panels on the car. Im short on time "watching celtics-lakers" but you get the idea


^ Double click for the larger version with more detail.

your original below



P.S. what mirrors are those my car is also a berlina AP1 and I the look of those. The wheels are also Looks Great!

AssassinJN

Look like APR Cf mirrors.

Another quick note, I'm guessing there was something at the bottom you clones out, just make sure when you clone something you don't get a duplication. If you look at the bottom, you have the crack and other features duplicated a couple times, very distracting.

zzziippyyy

No cloning by me, I just cropped off the bottom. Adjusting the WB there does create some issues.

Spanky

Haha, thanks. Those are the Craftsquare Mirrors.

I was going for more a low-key type of shot since black cars are IMO difficult to shoot. Getting the balance of the exposure to not wash out the background or lighting is something I have to keep trying at. Maybe I should have shot this a few steps brighter but at the time I was thinking darker and contrast. I like where the quick edit is going but now I feel the lighting looks a little too harsh (Maybe I'm just used to seeing it as a darker photo). Do you think this is something that would have benefited from a light HDR edit? And does a centered composition work better? I was thinking that there's too much empty space on the bottom and wasn't sure.

I didn't even noticed the clone. Thanks for pointing that out.

VisualEchos

These type of backgrounds are best changed to B&W, as they tend to look dirty in most lighting. Adding some micro-contrast to the walls/floor, as well as some vignetting will do wonders for it as well.

Example:

zzziippyyy

You can have dark and contrast and still have good light, keep practicing