Car Show season has definitely kicked into gear here in Southern California. As a hobbyist photographer, I love going out to the weekend shows and trying to capture the perfect shot of some pretty cool cars. However, I always seem to come back with too many less-than-satisfactory results - the biggest issue spoiling an otherwise perfect shot are reflections and shadows of other people in the highly reflective glass and paint. Any secrets for dealing with reflections?
P.S. Here's a recent shot of a 2019 Ford GT Heritage Edition at a neighborhood car show. Cool car with limited space to photograph and lots of drooling going on. Any suggestions to improve this?
Polarising filters can reduce some reflections, but this is why car photographers have large, featureless spaces as studios, carefully lit, while the car magazine journos can often take the cars into the countryside, or places like quarries, without visually complex environments to cause reflection mayhem, and generally distract from the cars' form.
I'd pretty much forget car shows as the photo op for more than record shots of your faves, Daniel. There are plenty of wonderful pro images of GT40s and their ilk. Just enjoy the show, and maybe take a few detail shots, is my main approach to them. Often (and perhaps here) it's impossible to get far enough to take the whole car in. And then as soon as you do, some lumbering blockhead is guaranteed to stroll in between, oblivious, and ruin your shot. Familiar feeling? ;-)
Your blacks are not very black here (see bottom right corner) which I'd fiddle with in post. It's hard to say in this image, but it could be due to flare. I'd use a lens hood, and consider carefully shading the lens with my hand as well if shooting into the sun. You want to keep direct sunlight off the glass if at all possible.
Chris, thanks for the advice. It's hard to go to a car show and see all the eye candy without whipping out the camera in search of a glory shot!
I haven't experimented with polarizing filters - it's a good idea. I do shoot in raw and did play with adjustments in Lightroom Classic, trying to create a "artistic" look with a somewhat matte finish, pushing up the shadows, contrast, adding a graduated filter to bring in a little blue into the sky, etc.
P.S. I attached the original for a before/after comparison. Thanks again for the ideas!