Photographing the New Tesla Roadster Diecast

I'd love to shoot the new Tesla Roadster, but being that it's going to cost a quarter-million and it's not even for sale yet, that wasn't a possibility. I got the next best thing, the official Tesla Roadster diecast model. 

It would be impossible to explain each step of my process, but you can watch the hour-long video tutorial above to see how I shot this car on a cookie sheet and then edited three different versions of the car in Photoshop.

This video is sponsored by Fujifilm, Manfrotto, Profoto, and Exposure software, and I used gear from each of these companies to produce this shot.  

Tesla Roadster diecast

Fujifilm X-T3

Fujifilm 50-140mm f/2.8

Manfrotto X Pro 4 tripod

Manfrotto XPro Ball Head

Manfrotto 420B light stand

Profoto B10

Profoto RFi 3.0 x 4.0' Softbox

Nonstick cookie sheet

Exposure X5

Here is the first shot that has very little work done to it. I simply cleaned up the dust, made the background pure white, extended the cookie sheet, and illuminated the head and tail lights. 

For the second shot, I added motion blur to the wheels and "road." I also added smoke, tire tracks, and a blurred "wall" in the background. 

For the final shot, I placed the car on a blurred background and then used Exposure X5 software to add a global effect to the image as well as a light burn and lens flare. 

Check out the video above to see how I accomplished everything.

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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7 Comments

Wow it really is autopilot! 😬

Obviously, On the final picture, with the wheels turned this way, it will go off road in the next second! (or it's a drift test)

Hey Dude, so focussed doing an awesome job with the lighting etc, forgot to add a driver!

Its driverless

This all demonstrates attempting something like this is really non trivial, and just how subtle human perception is. I can kinda see it's not a real scene, but really hard to pick why.

not bad!