Lightpainting a black car

[cw318is]

Hi all, my other half is due to take delivery of her new car next week and wants some photos of it. Its nothing too exciting, just a Mokka but its black with gunmetal wheels. I've found the location - a nice bit of grass in front of some massive rocks facing west so thats all good, but I have never tried lightpainting anything and its black. I have at my disposal a few flashes, maglites and LED torches but the little test I did last night the maglites give too much scattered light and the LED torches gave too much hard light. I've seen some great shots on here of dark cars with really nice crisp flowing highlights and just wondered what gets used. I've seen references to foam light boxes but don't quite understand.

Thanks!

 

[sbowler579]

Never having done any lightpainting I cannot give much advice :shrug: but if I were you I would search Youtube there is sure to be plenty of tips there.

 

[MWHCVT]

Check out Andrews guide to automotive light painting here it gives you lots of ideas on light painting cars, as I understand it black cars are a little harder than other colours to light paint but he has some cracking examples of black cars that he has done

 

[Simmy]

i always shoot in complete darkness so there is no stupid whitebalance etc to sort out . Ive done two black cars so far... you just need to make sure your light source is bright enough and use a decent diffuser

 

[Sko77y]

Since location if one of the toughest parts, you're already half way there just watch out for street lights/stray light sources.

I've tried flash guns for light painting and its a pain, you end up with hots spots all over the paintwork that are a pain to remove. Best bet is to build your own diffuser, for one of the led torches, the bigger the better.

Only bit of advice I would give is for each composition try multiple passes with the torch/multiple shots. Nothing worse than going home to find you've not lit a part of the car.

Also experiment with feathering the light as well as direct light.

Best of luck, look forward to seeing the end results.

Cheers
Scott