Shooting niche topics can sometimes feel pointless, especially if you're a seasoned photographer without much personal connection to your subject matter. For instance, as someone who doesn't have a sister, networking with fellow photographers might feel limited. But hey, there's plenty of inspiration out there, whether it's the big names in photography or the lesser-known yet talented ones. Some of them are like gods in their craft, while others are just trying to make a name for themselves.
This particular article is just a humble attempt at bringing together a few ideas. Think of it as a lightweight synthesis of thoughts—like choosing between different cars (F0 or Da Ben), or deciding whether to shoot against a luxurious villa backdrop or a more urban setting. It’s all about what resonates with you.
Interestingly enough, this came about after writing another piece titled "On Self-Cultivation of the Shopping Cart – Dongfeng Peugeot New 308 Experience." PSA Group brands may not have the same appeal as some domestic brands like Harvard or Great Wall Motors, let alone giants like Volkswagen or Ford. In 2016, among the top ten selling car models in China, PSA had four entries including the Citroën C5 and C6, the DS series, and the Peugeot 308s, along with a Dongfeng Renault model. While the Law brand might lack appeal, it certainly exudes a certain French arrogance, much like someone wearing a casual shirt and sandals—Ruslan would agree.
A friend suggested I write something about photographing shopping carts. After procrastinating for half a year, I finally decided to sit down and finish this piece. There are definitely some broken elements, but the pre-production process involves a lot of small details. Shooting the shopping cart requires attention to lighting, camera settings, tripods, masks for post-synthesis, and single-lamp lighting, each step requiring time. Basic Photoshop skills and shooting techniques can help achieve great results.
When professional studios shoot cars, they often use massive sheds filled with countless lights and soft lighting equipment. Sometimes, the roof needs to be cut to get the right shot. As amateurs, we obviously can’t replicate that setup. However, with a tripod and post-composition, we can still manage to create our own unique car shots.
The principle is straightforward: fix the camera position, use a single flash with a softbox to highlight different parts of the vehicle, and then synthesize everything in post-production. Does that sound familiar?
Suspended lighting works similarly, except instead of using lights, you use props and pose assistance, followed by post-synthesis to remove the props.
For equipment, you’ll need a DSLR, a flash with a softbox umbrella, a flash trigger, and a tripod. Check out my earlier article, “Taking Pictures of Those Things 5: How to Shoot High-Quality Photos at Low Cost?†for a detailed guide on affordable soft lighting setups.
Speaking of digressions, there are quite a few worthwhile online purchases for electrical products, though they often go unnoticed. Unfortunately, my timing wasn’t great either. I was renovating my house, buying appliances, even changing laptops. What can I save you from, my dear readers? Auntie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has plenty of advice, and many ordinary users aim to write content worthy of viral status—Ruslan would approve.
The key props in this article are umbrella hot shoe softboxes. Avoid regular soft umbrellas.
Next, choose the background. This was the most challenging part of writing this piece. Initially, I was searching for industrial ruins, but settled for a small garage with a few cars—a decent spot for shooting a Blu-ray car. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ideal.
Industrial ruins allow you to ignore messy backgrounds and focus solely on lighting. Outdoors, it’s about finding a location with fewer people and a suitable environment for the car.
Finally, I settled on a broken road. Overall, it wasn’t ideal, but it was the best option for now. This is just a preliminary tutorial, after all. With only one light source, I was too lazy to go home, and adding more lights would at least double the workload.
Here’s the lighting map:
Black represents the sole light source, while gray indicates random fill lights that can move around to illuminate specific areas. I also raised the light a few times during shooting, imitating the direction of top light flashes. For example, if you want to add light to the hood, regular angles won’t work, but raising the light and finding the right angle solves the issue. At the rear of the car, I added a light to illuminate the interior.
From the initial shooting to the final stages, the first motion picture is taken. Red cars can be tricky to shoot due to color overflow, so early and late shots require extra attention.
You can see that I took over a dozen photos in RAW format from various angles. Ensuring the tripod is stable, the head is locked, and shooting from multiple angles reduces the risk of uneven lighting and makes post-synthesis easier.
RAW format doesn’t require excessive concern about color temperature. During post-synthesis, consider the background lighting environment. I set the car body color temperature to 5500K and the ambient light to around 3000K. These can be adjusted later in post-production.
Import the photos into Lightroom in batches, make simple batch adjustments focusing on color temperature and exposure, and correct any issues.
Normal flash color temperature is 5800K, but due to the soft light cloth output, the color temperature changed slightly. I adjusted the body color temperature of the photos to 5000K and unified the exposure of underexposed images. Ambient light color temperature was adjusted to match the body as closely as possible.
After processing, name different parts of the photos to avoid specific layers being discernible in the later synthesis.
Before each composition, lower the photo opacity, manually fine-tune the image, and align the lower layer.
Once aligned, change the opacity to 100% and add a mask.
In essence, a mask adds an editable interface to the layer. The masked world has only three colors: black, white, and gray. Black means no changes, white means full transparency, and gray is in between. A black mask means the layer remains unchanged at 100%, while a white mask means the layer is fully transparent.
So, each layer gets a black mask, and a white brush is used to paint the illuminated parts softly. White smears indicate where you want the layer to appear.
When the brush isn’t perfect enough, assist with the pen tool, like selecting raised lines, creating new selections, and using brush tools.
This situation arose because the angle of the light wasn’t adjusted correctly. In other words, the softbox was too far from the subject, and some corners weren’t well lit.
In the end, I probably used half the number of photos compared to the Peugeot 308 shots.
Now, for post-processing, introduce the NIK plugin: Efex Pro, which is free and great for landscape retouching. I used it to enhance textures.
It’s mainly used to extract filters and tone contrast in detail. Focus on the ground and exclude other parts to avoid muddying the body. Control the intensity atmosphere, but it’s optional.
Open the Camera RAW filter and start simple color adjustments.
Back to the main PS interface, I made further color adjustments.
The final product looks like this.
With a single light, you can achieve decent results. Finding a suitable background and angle, like industrial ruins, will yield even better results. In the future, there should be a proper shooting plan involving multiple lights and advanced post-synthesis techniques.
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