Tips for taking car photos that look AMAZING!

Learn how to take great car photos with these 5 tips!

Taking photos of moving objects like cars can be tough, but these tips will help you know how to take car photos!

In this tutorial, Chris Hau shows the behind the scenes of his car photoshoot for Toyota Canada and shares his tips for getting the best car photography!

Techniques to take amazing car photos 

Gear being used in this tutorial:

• LUMIX S5 50mm f1.4 lens with a ND polarizer filter
• DGI Mavik 3 drone
• 70-200mm lens, here’s a few options:
  • Canon 70-200mm lens 
  • Sigma 70-200mm lens
  • Sony 70-200mm Lens
  • Nikon 70-200mm Lens
  • Tamron 70-200mm lens

How to take Car Photos Tip #1: Use a Neutral Density Polarizer lens filter

Neutral Density polarizer filters 8s and 16s, to help with the bright light from the overcast natural light so that you can up the shutter speed. 

Neutral density polarizer filters on your lens adjusts the light coming in to the lens.

This allows you to adjust the shutter speed and aperture settings to get the photos you want without too much light.

How to take Car Photos Tip #2: Adjust your Shutter Speed for fast chase shots

*Please be careful if you’re taking photos in a fast moving vehicle!

Shutter speed is how long it takes your camera to take a photo. This is denoted in a fraction of seconds, usually a fraction of one second.

Meaning that with a shutter speed of 1/150, the camera takes 150th of a second to take the photo after you click the shutter.

Whatever speed the car is going that you are chasing, you want to match the shutter speed to it. This will result in sharper photos of the moving car.

For example, if the car you are shooting is moving at 50 miles per hour, you will set your shutter speed to 1/50. You can adjust the shutter speed withing that range, more or less to get the look you want.

How to take Car Photos Tip #3: Use a drone for epic action shots

Using the drone to get top-down action shots makes the cars look amazing. This also takes amazing video footage as well if you are wanting to capture that kind of content.

While not required for great car photos, you can capture some interesting and beautiful road scenery alongside the cars with the drone shots.

How to take Car Photos Tip #4: Add motion blur in post production

If you have clear, sharp photos of the car, either chase or drone shots, you can add elements like motion blur when you edit to make them really pop.

Adding the motion blur in editing will make the car look super sharp and clear in the photo, while making the ground look as if the car is going insanely fast.

This adds a great movement element to the car shots, like in this before and after adding fake motion blur:

How to take Car Photos Tip #5: Use a long lens for shots from the ground

Using a super long telephoto lens with the neutral density lens again will help you to take long range panoramic shots from the ground.

The long lens allows you to follow the car as it speeds by with a slow shutter speed (like 1/60-1/125) to get amazing motion blur that happens as you take the photo as opposed to adding it in editing. 

In this case with the long lens and slow shutter speed, you can turn your aperture up to f-16 or f-20 to maintain that sharp focus.

This image below was taken using the 70-200mm long lens:

Taking photos of cars takes some technique that you can master with these tips!

Try taking some car motion photos this week and try out these tips!

Want to improve your photography overall? Check out this comprehensive photography skills guide!

Next, learn how to edit your car photos like a pro!

Which of these amazing car photo tips will you try THIS WEEK?

Comment below!