How To Start in Car Photography

Recently I decided to start creating and exploring more of my photography. Although I have worked on different projects in the past, I wanted to retry some older ideas with new ideas, new gear and a fresh perspective.

I’ll go over some of the settings I used to get these photos, outreach, and finding other information on the car and the locations. Hopefully this article helps inspire you in your next car photoshoot.

When I started educating myself more on car photography, something that I have done on occasions I tried finding the sweet spot of lenses. This included looking at previous images I have taken during shoots. This was very helpful in determining which lens to put in my bag for the shoot and which ones not.

My gear list: Canon EOS RP Read more here
Canon 24-105mm Vision 4
Sigma 150-600mm
Canon R Adapter
I wanted to make sure to have the background in detail as opposed to just focusing on the details of the car. This was possible with a small aperture.

What Focal length for car photography?

The range may change depending on the scene and what look you are trying to get. With car photography it also depends on the fashion of the car. When I did this shoot I brought a pretty large range from 24mm to 600mm. I would say that I used the full range available to me as well.

If you are thinking of getting close wide angle shots of the car you would want to think about using a wide angle anything from 6mm to 24mm. There are some great lenses for cameras in that range that will give you great results.

Why the 150-600 Sigma? When I chose this lens I was looking for compressions and distance. This can be handled well with a telephoto lens.

Is that my car? Next:Outreach.

How do I get these cars you might ask? Are you getting paid for this? This is an occasional question and I thought I would address it. Previous shoots may be a combination of street car photographs, friend relationships and asking people to shoot their cars or being asked to take car photos.

Street car photographs usually come about when shooting another scene. They happen to be in the environment. Oftentimes the owner is nearby and you can ask them politely to take photos of their car. Most often they are fine with it.

Other shoots in the past have been more spontaneous or someones’ projects. These ones involve multiple people to come together and create an entire project, location, times and getting the cars together to take amazing photos. These are my favorite because they work with others and there is a set plan.

Asking and being asked to car photos may be for personal or portfolio/ test shoots. This particular shoot was a test shoot and for the portfolio here.

How to edit Car Photography?

How do you go about editing car photos? Well for this entire shoot I removed the license plat off each one. Now it probably would have taken and saved more time to remove it prior shooting if we had not done this.

There are a few editing apps and software that you can use to help you in the editing process. My favorites include Lightroom, Photoshop and snapseed. These can help you color correct the photos.

How Much Do I Get paid?

Most photographers charge by the hour. This includes gear involved, editing, time, and other project expenses. I get paid depending on what the project requires and the time. This can range from $100-300 an hour including images*

What does a car photographer make?

This is a bit different from what I set myself at. Most likely these photographers will have access to more resources. I have met several photographers who exclusively shoot at car races. Oftentimes photographers have a fixed hourly rate and charge per photo.

When they charge by the photo this may give you usage rights of where you can post the image. These individual photo rates range from $50-200 an image.

There are some online websites like talent.com and Ziprecruiter that have some paid salaries for car photographers, however, these are simply not correct. Much of the time people are doing other jobs than solely car photography. The rate given there is $17.50 and this may be in house photographers paid on a salary.

How Do You Find Locations?

When looking for locations I look for great backgrounds and lighting. The locations that were chosen for these two photos I saw great backgrounds and great lighting.

Best Locations in Los Angeles
Best Locations in New York City

I determined the lighting using Photographer's Ephemeris to find the exact light direction. This helped me position the cars ahead of even getting to the shoot.

How can I get started in car Photography?

Although I myself am just getting into car photography there are some great forums online to help you out. Try and find local car photographers, join local car photography Facebook groups.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this article was helpful to explain the rundown of a car photography photoshoot. This shoot in particular was using the white Jeep Grand Cherokee. A special thanks to Izaiah and World for setting up and working with me on this shoot!

Go out there and start shooting!