light painting for cars

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farry1988

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hey guys, been on here for a while, and after seeing some of the car pictures i was amazed, the lighting is perfect and no matter how hard i try i cant seem to result in anything of the quality ive seen! I know its alot to ask but if somebody could post sample pictures explaining how the lighting was done i would be much appreciated!


many thanks in advance!
 
I've not done much of it but I'll stick up some examples later.

Sometimes it's about lighting the car with multiple lights/flashes and a little trial and error to get the lighting right. Othertimes you light individual parts and stick it all together in photoshop.

Got any examples of ones you've tried?
 
Hey thanks for that reply I'm afraid I don't have any examples at the minute (using my iPhone) I tried taking serveral pictures lighting the car at different points with my sb800 and then putting them together in PS but that didn't work out too well as I found there was points on the car I missed and my white balance was wayyyy off haha I'll try and get some pictures up asap
 
Don't think you need big lighting rigs.

This was taken with a two camcorder battery powered light on lightstands, one each side, outside my house with a 5s exposure.
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Note the yellow light overspill on the ground bottom right. It's light from a street lamp that ruined the previous two nights attempts, so I climbed the lampost and put black bin bags over it to kill it.

This is just a test shot, but is a flashgun in each footwell
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I need to combine it with some others and correct the power between the two guns, but you get the idea.

Lastly, think about time of day. This was top floor of a local carpark, at dusk, with two flashguns to the left on the floor providing a little fill in light, but most was from available light
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Just try stuff. See what works, what doesn't then make it work.

Also check out the transport threads on Potn. There's one on there about lighting cars and setups.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=119
 
Wow fantastic information there thanks for taking the time to post that it will be very useful! I guess experimenting is the best way to learn with a few pointers for you guys :) thanks again buddy
 
Have a look at my automotive Gallery:

http://www.lightflow.co.uk/gallery_202753.html

The Bentley GT is lit with a single speedlight on a lightstand. The speedlight was wirelessly triggered with Skyports.

I placed my camera on a tripod and took multiple shots, moving the light around the car, making sure to keep a constant distance of the light from the car, so that the illuminating power is roughly the same. The images were then blended into one image using layers in photoshop.

This was made possible because the car was placed in the shade of the building and the speedlight is just powerful enough to have some effect over the ambient level (which I have controlled using manual settings on the camera). I couldn't use any modifiers to soften the light because that would cause too much loss of power.

The MG K3 Magnette has the same technique, one speedlight, but this time as it was indoors I was able to use a shoot through umbrella, because it was darker and there was only a relatively low ambient light level.

With this technique you must obvisouly ensure that your camera does not move between shots. So you need a sturdy tripod and a cable release.

You need to watch out for reflections of your light source in the paintwork and you may or may not want those. The best thing is to take lots of images from many angles and then you have lots of frames to take areas from to blend together.

With a bit of patience and precision you can get great results with a simple setup.

Ash
 
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Superb work there Ash :thumbs: The best recipe seems to be - a fabulous car, great location, and good natural light. For starters! :D

Here's a quick test shot I did recently that turned out better than expected, real easy. I used the missus car (wish I'd washed it now!) as mine is black and that is always a difficult colour. Straight out of the camera.

Find a very very dark place, set the flash on 1/8th power for fast recycling, shutter on B and say f/8 ISO400, then zap it with about ten flashes per side. Total exposure time here was 45 secs. Orange inside is just the interior light. In post processing, I'd probably bring out the red in the sky (light polution) and clean up the reflections of the flash on the bodywork and the ones that look like fairy lights in the backgound, but actually I quite like them ;)

Edit: if I did it again, I'd put the headlights for just a few seconds, and maybe indicators too.

IMG_3441.jpg
 
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Some nice work Ash, and you're local. So where's the yellow garage door? :D
 
Byker - it was in Kembrey Park industrial estate. There was a unit to let which had been renovated and the door was brand new. Unfortunately they have placed a fence around the front of the unit now. Probably trying to stop photographers randomly photographing Porsches on their premises :-)
 
aborder1 said:
Byker - it was in Kembrey Park industrial estate. There was a unit to let which had been renovated and the door was brand new. Unfortunately they have placed a fence around the front of the unit now. Probably trying to stop photographers randomly photographing Porsches on their premises :-)
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Cheers. As always it's hard to find good locations.
 
Really guys thanks a million this stuff is really useful and just makes me want to go out and keep trying! Altho I do need to wait for the weather to get better so I can wash my car as it's black! I'm heading upto Newcastle tomorrow so I might route about for a nice location and get experimenting!
 
Farry - a word of caution on a black car. They are very tricky to light. Quite often with black cars they remain just that - 'black'. The black gloss paint will act as a mirror and will not diffuse the reflected light very much. Your best bet is to use your light source to highlight wheels and chrome work and so on, and let the ambient light reflected from the sky act as a large softbox.

Especially with high gloss black it is best to try and light what the car reflects in it's paintwork. See my Porsche and Skoda examples. The Skoda has no light on it, other than the ambient from the sky. The Porsche on the hillside only has its wheels lit with speedlights...

And remember - get the car really clean!!

Ash
 
Light painting is an incorrect term for the use of flashes. I used two portable flash units to light these cars.

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Yea the car will be clean I think I'm more into detailing then photographing haha I usually have the problem of street lights when taking pictures of my car (Clio sport/black gold) I find a nice location but the reflections just ruin every shot, and as you pointed out direct flash to any paint work just looks terrible!
 
only the side on golf was not direct flash to the paintwork in my shots above.

farry1988 said:
Yea the car will be clean I think I'm more into detailing then photographing haha I usually have the problem of street lights when taking pictures of my car (Clio sport/black gold) I find a nice location but the reflections just ruin every shot, and as you pointed out direct flash to any paint work just looks terrible!
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Yea sorry just heard so many techniques ect of how to light cars from several flashes to long exposures and torches just wanted to see what was the best way to do this
 
farry1988 said:
Really guys thanks a million this stuff is really useful and just makes me want to go out and keep trying! Altho I do need to wait for the weather to get better so I can wash my car as it's black! I'm heading upto Newcastle tomorrow so I might route about for a nice location and get experimenting!
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The thing with black items and cars is to light the outlines/ edges. Don't try to light the surfaces
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You'll never light the surfaces, you'll just get lots of reflections, so look for the edges and lines and light those.
I had the advantage these were taken in a large studio and we were bouncing lots of big fixed studio lights off the large infinity wall, but the theory is the same with other lighting. I've used it in product shoots..
 
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farry1988 said:
Yea sorry just heard so many techniques ect of how to light cars from several flashes to long exposures and torches just wanted to see what was the best way to do this
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There really is no best way..as with all photography it's depends on the subject, location, lighting, lots of variables really..
Take this shot
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I was given 2 mins to photograph Rubans car after he finished third in the British gp at silverstone in 2008. This was taken in a room with a red and green strobe light firing every few secs so I had to time my shot to these lights. Shots with an off camera flash set to one side and incidental lighting from the coloured strives..
 
some really great photos you have there, and the "rubans car" shot for the time frame you had is excellent! Well not the best way.....more pointers? Im not looking for a dead set technique to use every time i try and shoot cars i enjoy experimenting and is going to be alot more fun with the help from you guys!
 
How you shoot it depends on the style you want to go for.

Have you every read light science and magic ? Basically think of it as a big reflective surface and shoot it in a similar way keeping an eye on your family of angles.


You could ask 10 different photographers and get 10 different answers, it's best to go and experiment
 
ahhhh im sorry this is coming out sounding wrong i was simply asking for pointer, hints, tips ect not exact settings, flash positions and so on
 
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