Photo weekly tip – Selling your car online

So it’s time to sell your car online and you need to get some quick shots up ready. But how is the best way to do this? Now before you leap in let’s have a think about this. Put your self in the customers shoes. It’s a week night and there’s not much on tv so your customer decides to browse “Carsales.com.” There are just so many vehicles in the search, and the ones that grab your attention are the ones with the best photos, Right?  So doesn’t it make sense to get some awesome pics and pocket the profit. You see you have one advantage here and that is  most people lack confidence in Photographing their car.  They even use their smart phones to make the pics and the result is usually pretty dam average. Average pics = average sales result. You can earn another $500 – $1000 just from investing a bit of time and effort. Not bad eh?

So then to some tips:

1/ location

Take the car down to a nice non cluttered spot. It might be the beach, a quite road or a park. Avoid photographing on a sunny day but rather go for an overcast day. As this will help provide a more even fall of light. Look at the whole scene. Are there lamp posts or bins or other cars in the back ground that make the shot too busy.

2/ Lenses

If you can use a lens that has a nice long zoom on it. Set the camera to around and fstop of 2.8 and slightly above. Let the Shutter do its thing. So put the camera on “Aperture” priority. Yes select “A” on the camera. You want the longest possible zoom, which will blur out the background. If you have a tripod use it, and get down really low so the car has a nice powerful angry look.

3/ Car angle

For the front shot give the car a slight turn, giving it a bit of gusto. You want good impact and this will achieve it. Do the same for the back shot just as you see in these images.

4/ Polarizing Filter

If you have one use it. This will help reduce window reflection.

5/ Interior shot

Use your widest possible lens and bounce the flash. There are some faults in my shot. Can you pick them? Yes there is a car as a distraction in the window and the hideous car key showing.

Follow these tips to help sell your car and achieve the best possible  price. If its all too hard contact me on and I can photograph it for you. We also run some great hands on photography workshops to help you out.