Critique the Community

Automotive Images

Submit your best automotive photograph for your chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial.
  • Submission Deadline: Sat, 11 Aug 18 03:45:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

We want to see your best automotive images for our next Critique the Community. Whether you have pictures of cars, trucks, or lawn mowers, as long as it has an engine and runs on the ground, it's eligible subject matter. 

We invite you to submit up to three of your best automotive photos between now and Friday, August 10th. From the submissions, the Fstoppers team will select 20 images to provide critique to. In addition to receiving feedback, you will also be eligible to win one of two Fstoppers original tutorials. The first winner will be selected based on the highest rated image by the Fstoppers community. The second winner will be randomly chosen. 

Whether you choose to participate in the contest or are simply browsing through the submissions of other community members, we invite you to take the time to rate the images and offer critique to everyone who has entered. Please keep your comments positive and constructive and give your rating fairly based on the Fstoppers rating guide provided below. 

  • Submission Deadline: Sat, 11 Aug 18 03:45:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • 529 people have cast a total of 35,560 votes on 681 submissions from 340 contestants.
  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

39 Comments

I'm so pissed off that I missed this contest! I had no idea this was the topic. They're are some amazing car photos in here. Once again, there is some horrible rating going on, but that's to be expected in these contests. Not to mention a lot of people don't know how to rate automotive photography. I'm definitely scratching my head over some of the results.

Cant believe i missed this too. Of all subjects.

You are right about people's rating... it's funny the same photo in content rates a 3 star, and in the regular gallery rated 4.9

Yeah everything here is rated a 2.7-3. The only photos I rated I thought were 4's or 5's and then it shows you the results and it has an average of 2.something. Nothing like a bit of competition to make everyone look after their own interests :/

My issue would be that I don't think people are using the scale properly. They don't seem to be using the same scale they use in the critiques... A 1 is a snap shot... My submissions got under a 2 even though you can clearly see that there was thought to the composition...

People voted tactically rather then honestly...and honestly I think they are scum for it. I don't care that my own shot became a 2, but some of the shots I voted on were easily 3's or 4's on any given Sunday and those also became 2's...
Mine probably was a 2 but I wish people let me know how to improve on it as I am still learning car photography.

I'm also surprised at a lot of the ratings. A lot of awesome entries.

The contest ratings are ALWAYS lower than what the photo gets when it's not in the contest. That's because people are being extra critical hoping their entry will win and they can get the prize. However, as an automotive photographer, I know automotive photography in underappreciated. Most people are not interested in the genre. You really only have car people and car photographers that are interested. An amazing car photo doesn't provide the same "Wow Factor" as an amazing landscape photo does. Not because it's not as good, but because the person just isn't interested in the subject. That's not a bad thing, it just is what it is. It's a smaller audience.

also there is an insane difference between the photos that customers want, and the ones that "REAL PHOTOGRAPHERS" would appreciate.

Agreed 100%!

What is a real photographer? Someone who shoots portraits may not know much about shooting cars and vice versa.

When he says "REAL PHOTOGRAPHERS", he's speaking to certain photographers who don't think automotive photographers are real photographers. They don't like what we do because we use Photoshop and stylize our photos. He's not talking about all photographers just the ones who think if you process your photo in any way other than straight out of the camera, you didn't take a good photo. Our customers want the processed photo, not the straight out of the camera photo. Does that make sense?

Like the purists fanboys you are refering to doesen't shoot raw? :) Yeah right! The second they import their fantastic landscapes into lightroom, they are digitally enhancing the crap out of it and thereby falls into the same unpure box as us fake photographers. :)

Here's a perfect example of people not knowing anything about Automotive Photography... Someone rated this a 2 star. It may not be a 5, but it sure as hell isn't a 2.

https://fstoppers.com/photo/278986

I would probably vote is a 2 based on the terrible photoshopping going on. Are people really still using the lens flare filter?

To be honest I think a 2 is right. Looks like a regular snapshot and somebody trying out some effects in photoshop to make it look cool. Looks incredibly fake.

And the blur on the pavement doesn't fade back into the horizon like it should which makes it a bit uneasy on the eyes. I agree that this is a 2. Your other static work is very impressive though.

I appreciate the feedback, I really do. I'll take a look at the motion blur and see what i can come up with. I like the lens flare... I still respectfully disagree with it being a 2 because in my mind, a 2 pretty much sucks, but we all have our opinions right. Maybe my perception of the scale is wrong.

I think this is an example of car photography not falling in line with traditional photography standards. It seems the opinions here are a little mixed based on the comments and the ratings, however, outside of this community, this photo had been received very well. Especially among people who are clients or would be clients.

Well 2 is "needs work before it hits your portfolio" and given the "fakeness" of the blur, flare (there is no sun coming from the top right corner of this image, especially given the shadow of the car), smoke around the rear tires, color tone matching between the car and background and empty space with the composition, I wouldn't put this in your portfolio. I know what you are saying about clients liking something like this but it is also our responsibility to give them something good, not just shiny (ie look at all the feature instagram accounts that just contain badly processed images of sunsets with the clarity pumped up. Easy for a like but actually very horrible aesthetically and artistically). My honest opinion is that you've just tried to do too much with this image (and the other motion blur one in your portfolio which has some skewy blur on the road). Less is more which is shown in your great static images that although are still heavily processed, have more realism to them.

yeah this is a 2 for me too, and barely, not a fan of this image. Looks too fake.

car photography is boring if you don't like cars. look at instagrams car photography and what they do, a car lit with natural light in a nice scenery. most of the time in the center of the shot with a bit post production. no staged 15 shot composite infront of a crazy backdrop like fstoppers did on their channel with that red cabrio.

I think the same can be said about any genera of photography.

I agree. There's something about going on the streets and capturing cars in the 'wild'. Cars belong on the streets and I think its really hard to get interesting shots while shooting cars in a studio or something.

If done correctly, cars shot in a studio end up being the same approach as product photography. They're just bigger products.

Example here http://seanklingelhoefer.com/project/findnewroads

Yeah I really like those shots. I'm not saying it's useless to use a studio but It usually just ends up pretty standard. The product photography side is of course also quite interesting and necessary. In the end cars are also products that need to be sold. It gives a fantastic overview of the lines and how the car looks. You do get really clean results. But it's also a totally different side of car photography.

Please don't get mad, but that photo needs some more work, the post-processing doesn't feel organic and some effects are not on point.

No worries. I'm not mad at all. I'm already revamping it a little now.

I agree with you 100%.
Maybe when you have posted a contest contribution, you can not vote for the competition. Only those who have nothing to win or lose can vote. Then maybe the voting would be impartial and more fair?
FStoppers should have a rewarding system based on how much you give feedback and rate pictures, so that more people get involved both in contests and overall.

and also should limit 1vote per IP for voting

I am more surprise how little people comment on photos they rate. Like if the community wants to rate they should also critique, say what you think needs to be in improved, not just rate it bad and say nothing.

I'll be the first to admit I'm guilty of this. I need to comment more. I think it's especially important if you rate something poorly, that way they know how to improve.

when does the video go live ?

i a million years probably

We plan on posting the video later today.

I think it would be easier if they only allowed one submission per account. Most people don't have time to give 700 images a fair shake with any constructive criticism. I'm new here so maybe this many submissions (for this and the previous Water contest) is unusual?

This many entries was definitely not anticipated. We usually limit entries to 1 or 2 images but thought there would be less interest than the community expressed in this genre. People really showed up!

Maybe I missed it. But how are the entries chosen? Top rated and then 9 random ones?

Fstoppers Editorial Team thanks for the contest. It drew out a lot of very good photos and some new inspirations for me.

I'm with Eric Burke: The rating did leave me baffled. Mine ended up with needs work. I'm most curious as to what exactly people thought needs work.

On the other hand, as a contestant myself, I find it hard to offer comments on other contestants entries. Especially if I find something they could improve on. If I left a comment as a contestant, I would like it to be visible only after the contest is closed and the results are announced.

So what I decided for myself was to give the entries I voted on a once over after the contest is over and comment on them, where appropriate.

Think that might be a good idea!

The funny thing was that one of my entries is about a fully unrestored unique one of a kind car. As you might expect it came no further than "needs work" (think that s where "lol" is totaly in place).
At the other hand the series was published twice and recently aquired by Toyota Japan for theis museum so I think it does not need any work as all is done and paid for ;)

Besides this the thing is in my humble opinion that it is not always about the subject on a photo but more to what the photographer did with it. Being a bystander and making a pic hoping for the ideal situation is not realy intresting professional wise as there will always be a bystander on a better spot pressing the button and choosing from the burst afterwards just a bit better ..photography could be more intresting than that.. Meaning thinking of how to handle a specific subject photo wise, it could be from a nude to a glass of beer or a landscape but please try to make it your own..
When you want to make a living out of photography add your creativity and pro qualities to it, much more intresting to look at such efforts and it pays of better..

Last but not least, the more unintresting the subject, the more it should be rewarded when it comes to an intresting image..so babies/sunrises/animals and people in general should be forbidden to come up with ;)

Well, just some thoughts, and by the way, great platform Fstoppers, also good to read what people think on a topic and pretty well thought thrue in conversation most of the time, great !

Contest Submissions

Click on the thumbnails below to comment and vote on each image.

Click here to learn about the Fstoppers rating system and what each star value means.