Advice on lighting a person and car shot outdoors

[mikeyw]

Hi,

A friend has a car business and I've offered as a favour to take a pic for him in front of one of his cars with his business logo in the background.

This is a completely new area for me as was hoping for some advice of good technique in terms of lighting and composition. I'll be using a D7100 / SB800 probably with a 35mm F1.8 and shooting raw

I was going to try off camera flash with a small softbox or umbrella with the light source quite low to the ground firing up towards the subject from about 45degrees. I was thinking of having the car parked at 10minutes to 4 (on a clockface) and the person sitting on the corner with logo on wall behind over his right shoulder, or maybe behind an open door (is this a bit cheesy?). Probably start at F5.6 to see if it gives enough separation without losing his logo.

I'll be taking the pic around midday so might depending on weather may be able to work with a reflector for most if not all the fill in light for the person.

Although it's a favour i'd like to try and get a good result here that i can hopefully offer others in this industry.

This is the sort of image i had in mind although i'm sure they used a very impressive light rig here. I'd shoot a couple of foot higher up rather than from the floor level.

Thanks in advance,
Mike.

 

[juggler]

The sample image you've posted is a bit odd. I wonder whether it's a composite?

I've never lit a car but.. The shadow under the car suggests direct overhead light. The flare says the sun is at a low angle while the eaves of the building seems suggest that the light is highish and from the front. The large diffuse highlights also suggest large overhead softboxes - but I could easily be wrong.

Anyway.. I reckon one speedlite in a small softbox won't do much to light a car at midday, but using it to light your friend from below would be just enough to create horror lighting. If you're restricted to midday then I'd use the softbox or reflector to light your friend and try not to create any extra highlights on the car.

 

[mikeyw]

Thanks - i'll concentrate on getting a good exposure on the subject with the softbox. Will up ISO as needed for the background.

Going to position him on the corner of the car leaning against it

 

[Garry Edwards]

I don't know whether this helps or not, but @Michael Sewell does a lot of car photography for a local dealership. As this is his commercial work he obviously can't publish his shots but he has written about another car shot in the Lencarta Learning Centre.
And he's a helpful guy, so it may be worth contacting him for tips.

 

[sk66]

If the car is important to the shot, you probably don't want to position him so as to block distinctive/important features (rim/headlight/grill). I wouldn't expect to use the speedlight for anything but some fill.

Being that it is a wide shot and you are lighting limited, don't forget about the possibility of compositing the final image... maybe you'll need a second image using your speedlight to light the sign in the BG or something.

 

[Phil V]

Firstly, you need to understand how a speedlight compares to the midday sun. It'll just about be powerful enough for fill, unless you put it in a softbox, then it won't even be that.

At this time of year though, it might stand a small chance on an overcast day. If I were you, I'd drop all notion of the speedlight and look at the light you have, and what needs adding. You've jumped at a solution without considering what if anything the problem is.

Where's the light, what's it doing, what's it not doing, can I change the position of the subject to improve it, what do I need to add. Is a brief description of the thought process.

 

[Tysonator]

Most dealerships use an on line advertising photo service.
Up load the photos of the cars and the company cut the car from the original back ground and paste on to some stately gravel drive back drop.

If you do the whole concept then the back drop is important as it needs to complement the type of car in question.

I work in the auto sector and we hardly ever use flash when photographing cars.

 

[kman]

I happen to shoot a lot of cars, whether I'm using flash or not depends on the look you want, time of day and weather conditions. First thing to know is what colour the car is? Do you have a set background then is it a bright (high key) background or dark? Shooting at midday a little speedlight isn't going to do a whole lot of good for you in terms of balancing with the sun let alone overpowering it to shoot something as large as a car. Its also going to be an extremely hard light.

Most of my strobe shots are composite lighting.

I wouldn't try composites as suggested above as another can of worms in terms of factors are opened up e.g. matching the lighting, perspective, colour tones etc.

Strobed shots:

Audi R8 V10 Portrait Shoot

Trimax Mower, John Deere Tractor

BMW E46 M3 Techno Violet

Porsche 991 GT3

Porsche 935 Racecar

Natural light:

Porsche 912 by

[url=https://flic.kr/p/piWnNi]Ferrari 599GTO[/url]

 

[kman]

And it is fine to shoot people with cars in natural light too, but you need to assess quality and direction of light - something which will be difficult in the open at midday so again all depends on the location.

Chevrolet Corvette C3 London

 

[Michael Sewell]

Basically, it sounds like you're creating an advertising image,rather than a product image. So an overall advertising image for his business, rather than trying to sell the specific car within the image.

The above was created to highlight the launch of the new Mini Cooper around 12 months ago. Basically a mix of Atoms, speedlights and Safaris. Softboxes tend to induce more work in post to remove unwanted highlighting, although some highlights are always necessary to emphasise gloss etc. The angle of incidence becomes your closest friend here!
The full walkthrough for the above image, and another from the same shoot, can be found on the Lencarta site here.



Another promotional image with a different target use. A lack of highlights was quite important here, as it had a satin finish to the paintwork.