How to properly photograph a car for sale

Unobtrusive but convincing: how to photograph a car for sale

Content

This time we’ll tell you how to take a photo of a car so that a new owner is found sooner and has no doubts about the choice. After all, a photograph is the first thing by which a car is judged in an ad.

Let's answer popular questions asked by 9 out of 10 used car sellers. There are five of them:

• Where to begin?
• Should I wash the engine compartment or not?
• Turn on the dashboard or ignition?
• Should I show the “jambs” in the photo?
• How many photos should I take?

If you are going to sell a car and have not asked any of the questions yet, now is the time to do so.

Where to begin?

Many car sellers do not consider it necessary to take the car to at least an express wash before starting a photo shoot. But in vain. This indicates the untidiness of the car owner and his attitude towards the iron horse.

Avoid taking photos at night or twilight. This will make the buyer think that you are hiding something.

Remember: the car in the frame is only the whole. The exception is close-ups with advantages or disadvantages. A “cut” body raises doubts among the buyer. For example, the thought appears that the wing, which is not visible in the photo, is littered with scratches or dents.

The car in the finished photo should not be at an angle of 90 degrees or even 180. Warming up the neck is the last thing a person wants to do when looking for a new car.

Find an adequate location for the photo shoot. This could be an open parking lot or a courtyard (just without garbage cans in the background!).

A picturesque place - please! Just don’t use retouching, even though it’s very fashionable now. You want to sell your car, not put it on the cover of a glossy magazine. You especially shouldn’t get carried away with photo effects if you have some ordinary Goetz or Polo.

It is also not necessary to shoot with a professional SLR camera. Modern smartphones allow you to take good photos.

Let there be only a car in the frame. There is no need for girls, and you too, in the background or somewhere near the car. Nothing should distract from the object of sale.

When might they think that you are a steal?

Forget about making your car shine. It’s better to make sure that the car looks its age and mileage. A neat appearance will help him look good.

Take photos of the salon. He must also be neat. If small scratches, abrasions on the armrests, doors, or gearbox get into the frame, it’s not a big deal.

Do not take photos near a car wash or service center. This is how dealerships and salons like to do things. Take a photo of the car near your home or in the garage, this will indicate that you are a private car seller.

Should I wash the engine compartment or not?

Think ten times before you do this. Nothing turns a buyer off more than a squeaky clean engine. The exception is cars aged 2-3 years.

The first thought that arises when looking at a photo with a shining engine: there were smudges. A dry, dusty motor is less attractive, but there is no doubt about its reliability.

True, you shouldn’t take photographs of an engine with pieces of dirt or oil residue covered in lint either. Wipe the engine compartment with a damp cloth. If you still decide to wash the engine compartment, then before you clean it, take a photo of what was “before” or drive the car 4-5 hundred kilometers after washing.

Turn on the dashboard or ignition?

It is better to take photographs of the illuminated dashboard with the car running. If the sensors on the dashboard are illuminated when the key is not fully turned, inexperienced drivers will not appreciate it. They'll even be scared. Although you can notice that the tachometer readings are at zero. Therefore, start the car and take a photo of the panel in operating mode.

Should I show the “jambs” in the photo?

If they are there and you didn’t hide them, that’s already a plus. But such photographs must be accompanied by a text in which you will talk about the reasons for the “jambs”.

The buyer will like you for your adequacy and honesty. In addition, finding a new car owner will be faster and easier - people will immediately see the shortcomings.

The exception is photographs that show an obvious problem, such as rotten sills or a steering wheel worn down to plastic.

How many photos should I take?

The optimal number of finished photographs is 5-6 pieces. General plan of the body, slightly in front and side, rear and side. Don't forget about the interior, seats, and also the front panel. Be sure to take a photo of the engine compartment.

Either way, don't only take 5 or 6 photos. Take more frames - about 10-15. Firstly, there will be plenty to choose from. Secondly, the images will not make the buyer bored in the third picture. If the car is tuning, add accents.

Let's briefly summarize

So, the key to a successful car sale:

• Good lighting, neutral background, clean car.
• Wash the engine before the photoset - only if there are pieces of dirt frozen under the hood.
• Photos of shortcomings with a description of their causes.
• The equipment and appearance of the car for sale must correspond to the photographs, and vice versa.
• 5-6 photos from different angles, and people will be drawn to you.

Final tips

A "stock" car should look the same as others of the same model. Take the seat belt out from behind the seat back, remove unnecessary things from the dashboard - the buyer himself will make the car unique when he buys it. Also remove the recorder, radar detector and phone holder.

The main thing: the car in the photo and when sold should look the same. If you take pictures of the tuning, do it before the photo shoot. The same goes for tires. The buyer will be pretty surprised when he sees another car when he meets you. Such emotions will reduce the chances of selling the car to zero.

Do not hide the car number in the photo. Let the buyer have the opportunity to check the car's history. When a seller hides the car number, doubts immediately arise about his honesty.

What criteria are important to you when creating a photo of a car for sale? Share your opinion in the comments to the text.

9 Rules for Photographing a Used Car for Sale

Taking pictures of a car before selling it, 9 tips

1. Take the time and you will be able to sell your car much more profitably

It's a shame when photos of the 2015 Lamborghini Huracan far from perfect.

We've all seen low-quality photos of cars for sale. But with just a little effort, you can take very good photos, and you don’t even need to be a professional.

Why bother with the quality of your used car photos? And then, in the merciless digital world, it is photographs that make the first impression. Seeing a good photo, a person will click on the ad regardless of the price tag. If the photo is not very good, then only the price can save it.

So, if you feel sorry for the time it takes to take high-quality photographs, be prepared to give the buyer a discount. Don’t forget that if you sell at a profit today, you can buy a more expensive car tomorrow.

2. Choose the right time

Direct rays and shadows from the midday sun only damage photography.

Sunlight is very beautiful, but not when photographing a car. In addition, the midday sun blurs the shine of the car itself, and the photos turn out too sharp. It is best to shoot half an hour after sunrise or an hour before sunset - the light is no longer direct, and therefore the color rendition is higher.

3. Shoot from different angles

Hyundai Sonata 2011 taken from the front at a 3/4 angle.

Try to photograph the car from all possible angles. Shoot from the front, sides and every corner. Selling a used pickup truck? Take a photo from above so the buyer can get a good look at the car's body. Need pictures of the engine? Only do them if the engine is exceptionally clean or has some unique characteristic. Otherwise, the engine is an engine, and it will be difficult to remove it in any special way.

4. Always take a test photo

The Toyota 4Runner is a good-looking car when the light hits it just right.

In the days of film cameras, designers took Polaroid snapshots to see how the frame would look. In the age of digital photography, everything has become much easier. Click, stop and take a good look at what you get. Pay attention to all the points we are talking about here. How did the shadows lie? Is the interior in order?

And one more tip: turn the wheels so that they are clearly visible. In the photo above, the wheels are in order, but the car itself is in the shadows. Let's talk about this in the next paragraph.

5. Watch the shadows

A misplaced shadow can ruin the entire photo.

Yes, this photo is not a used car. This is a new 2017 Chrysler Pacifica, photographed in a luxury hotel parking lot. A terrible shadow cuts through the car. The photo is also bad because of the cluttered foreground. Avoid such mistakes: make sure there are no unnecessary shadows in the frame.

6. Move a step (or 2) closer

When photographing a car, move a step or two closer to it. This way you will avoid unnecessary background.

Of course, the car must completely fit into the frame. But at the same time, try to make sure that all the details are visible to potential buyers. Let there be only a car in the frame and nothing extra. As a last resort, before publishing, crop the photo in some photo editor. I offer you 11 good editors for Windows OS. If you prefer a Mac, here are some free programs to choose from.

As you can see, the car looks much more attractive in the cropped photo than on the dirt road.

7. Focus on cool features

BMW Mini Clubman interior and object detection technology.

The photo shows a parking control alarm module installed in a Mini Clubman. I was so fascinated by this feature that I couldn’t ignore the flickering light that signaled an obstacle behind me. Who cares what’s behind you if there’s such beauty in front of you?

It is impossible to describe in words all the advantages of this function. Agree, one simple photo is worth a thousand words. By taking a detailed photo, you can show a potential buyer how great it is to have this feature in your car.

8. Get organized

The biggest mistake when photographing a car is a cluttered interior.

You might be surprised how many people post a car for sale but also post photos of dirty interiors. Incredible, right? I doubt that anyone will offer a decent price for this Dodge Neon. Potential buyers will probably consider the stated price tag too high. And they will be right! If the interior is in this condition, then it’s scary to think what’s wrong with the appearance and mechanics. Maybe, of course, everything is in order, but it’s unlikely.

9. Do not use the services of professionals

Mercedes-AMG S65 Cabriolet.

One of my friends is a professional car photographer and has been working in this business for decades. But having put his Mercedes up for sale online, he did not receive a single response, even despite the quite reasonable price. When his girlfriend, an experienced but far from professional photographer, got down to business, calls from potential buyers immediately began to come in.

What's the moral? Professionally taken photographs always arouse suspicion - the buyer begins to doubt whether this is the car that is actually being sold?

How to photograph a car for sale

The first thing a buyer looks at when choosing a car is, of course, the photographs. It is based on the attractiveness of the picture that the potential buyer decides whether to pay attention to the ad.

Of course, on the eve of a photo shoot, you cannot do without preliminary preparation of the interior and exterior. To make the photos as attractive as possible, you need to wash the car, tidy up the interior and trunk, remove extraneous stickers and personal items.

Photo shooting time

Photos of a car taken in low light, for example, on the street in the evening, in a dark parking lot or garage, will not attract the buyer as much as bright “daytime” photos. The color of the car and the condition of the body will be poorly visible in darkened photographs.

The best way is to photograph a car for sale during the daytime in sunny weather. A successful shot will be obtained if you position the car so that the sun is behind the photographer. But you should avoid reflections and too bright highlights: this will make it more difficult for the buyer to assess the condition of the car.

Good photos can be taken even in cloudy weather. The main thing is that there is no rain or snow at the time of shooting, and the car remains clean.

Shooting location

There are several guidelines for positioning the car in photographs. It is not advisable to take photos against the background of crowds of people, near roadsides, parking lots, places with dirty snow and puddles.

The car for sale is the main element in the frame, and nothing should prevent the buyer from examining it in detail in the photo. A neat, clean place outside the city, in the courtyard of a private house or on an empty lot is the optimal location for a photo in an ad.

Approach to creating photos

To place an attractive ad, you don’t need to look for professional photography equipment—photos taken on a modern phone are enough. If you can’t take a photo yourself, you can ask the help of friends who take good shots in everyday life.

Look at other advertisements on av.by and find those that, in your opinion, have good photos attached. Analyze which photos attract your attention and repeat these techniques in photos for your car.

Remember that vertical, full-length photos cause irritation when viewed, so you should avoid such angles.

Ad photo requirements

On av.by, you can add up to 30 photos to an advertisement for the sale of a car. This may seem like a lot, but it is not. A good car offer should include as many high-quality photographs as possible.

Moderators carefully review the contents of each advertisement and do not allow publication of those in which the photo contains third-party logos, advertising, or photographs that clearly do not belong to the author.

Optimal angles for photographs

The av.by team has compiled a list of angles for photographs that will help create a more informative ad.

Mandatory car photos

Right, left, front and back views:

General view of the engine compartment:

General view of the luggage compartment, if any:

Instrument panel with engine running:

General view of the driver's and passenger's seats at the front:

General view of the rear seats:

Additional photos:

— if the car has a transformation function, you can partially show its process or individual stages. This will make it easier for the buyer to navigate the car’s capabilities rather than simply reading the text in the ad description;

— if possible, it is worth photographing the built-in storage boxes and glove compartments;

— capture any additional equipment built in independently, which is not included in the vehicle’s configuration;

— when selling a car, it is considered good form to honestly mention in advertisements the presence of scratches and chips, as well as scuffs and other defects in the interior. Therefore, it is fair to show existing defects in photographs;

— it’s worth taking additional photos if the car has distinctive features, for example, the model has a special on-board computer or navigation control system, has original chrome wheels, or the leather in the interior is in perfect condition.

Main photo of the ad

Choose the best photo of the car and make it the main one in the ad - buyers will see it first. It would be good if this was a photo where the front part of the body with the wheel turned towards the buyer is fully visible.

How to best photograph a car for sale

Sooner or later, almost every car owner is faced with the task of selling his car, perhaps by replacing it with a new one, or simply to receive money from the sale. But the search for buyers for a used car can take a long time: the market is saturated, there are a lot of offers, and among all this abundance it is necessary to somehow stand out, in addition to the price, we don’t want to make it cheaper! In order not to delay the sales process indefinitely, several components are necessary: ​​firstly, a competitive price, secondly, pre-sale processing of the car, and thirdly, good photographs of your car for car sales sites. One way to attract the attention of potential buyers to your car in car listings is to have high-quality photos that can tell potential buyers more than long phone conversations that would waste your time and theirs.

A photo session of the car being sold will not only contain advertising, but also information that will “show the product face to face”; good photographs will give an idea of ​​the appearance of your car, design features, if it has additional equipment, as well as the technical condition of the car even before the first call. This will save you energy and eliminate unnecessary calls from buyers who do not require exactly what you offer. We have collected tips and tricks for you on how best to photograph a car for sale online on portals such as Avto.ru, Drom.ru, Avito, “From Hand to Hand”, etc.

Most often, a car seller has at best a mobile phone or an inexpensive digital point-and-shoot camera on hand. In this publication, we will look at how to make an advertising photo shoot for a car for sale, using available tools.

Preparing a car for photography for sale

Remember, you need to “present” the car, and in this case you cannot do without preparation if you want to get a selling ad in the listings of car sites. How to photograph a car for sale so that the listing conditions are met, and buyers pay attention, and so that the photographs do not leave a reason for unnecessary unnecessary questions over the phone.

The first thing you need to do is wash the car at a car wash, and wash it well. This is not the moment when you need to save money, you should get the highest quality result. The car body must be washed completely; make sure that there are no streaks of dirt on the lower edges of the sills, on the bumper aprons and on the side mirrors. After washing, you need to wipe the car and blow it thoroughly with compressed air so that no traces of water remain. Water streaks are noticeable in photographs and do not create the best impression of the car, to put it mildly. Your photographs should leave the buyer with the impression that the car is being sold by a careful and caring owner who has kept the car in ideal conditions. Every buyer hopes for exactly this, and if you support this hope with your photographs, then the chances that they will buy your car quickly increase significantly.

Don’t forget about cleaning the inside of the car, we strive to show the perfect condition of the car, and dust on the front panel or debris on the floor will immediately dispel all the charm that may have only been established from viewing photographs of the car from the outside. Don't ignore dirt on your seat and door upholstery. If you spend money on dry cleaning, your car will take on a completely different look: the kind of car that feels good and that you want to buy. By the way, car resellers use this trick and make good money from it.

When washing, it is necessary to clean the space under the hood of the car, but without fanaticism. If you wash the engine until it shines, this will only cause unnecessary suspicions that with such cleaning the owner is trying to hide flaws and defects, for example, oil drips or antifreeze splashes. Many resellers try to give the car they are selling a pristine shine in this way, and if you clean the engine to this condition, in the eyes of buyers you will look on par with resellers. We only recommend cleaning the plastic engine cover from dirt and leaving it at that.

So, the car is cleaned and laundered, all you have to do is find a suitable place for photography. The background of your photo is just as important as the appearance of the car. If you quickly take a photo of the car right at the exit from the car wash, with drops and streaks of water, then as a reaction from buyers you will only get the confidence that the car is poorly looked after, and that, since the car does not look “very good” in the photo, it means his condition will be the same, “not very good.” Many buyers bypass such offers and look for offers with more elaborate photographs.

For a good photo shoot, you don’t need anything fancy, all you need to do is not make obvious mistakes, everything should be simple and clear. The background against which you photograph a car for sale should give the impression that the car is high-end, even if it is not . In order to achieve this effect, it is enough not to photograph the car against the backdrop of green spaces, shabby old houses, notice boards, garbage cans, etc. A good background for shooting would be a simple, flat, uniform wall that is sufficiently contrasting to the color of the car. If the car is red, for example, you should not choose a red wall for the background; it will blend into the background. The car must be placed so that it does not visually “stick” to the wall, and for each new angle the car must be rearranged so that the background of each angle remains more or less the same and homogeneous.

It is also important to conduct the survey shortly before selling the car, at least in the same season. Otherwise, if it’s winter outside, and the photos are against the backdrop of summer greenery, buyers may think that your car has been sitting and not for sale for six months. Or, alternatively, that in the time that has passed since the shooting, the car could have lost all its splendor. In any case, photographs must correspond to the current season.

For any photograph, the most important factor in creating the mood of a photo is lighting. Since we are filming outdoors rather than in a studio, the lighting rules will be simple. The main thing to remember is: do not shoot in bright sun, such lighting creates glare and flare. The best lighting is natural light at dawn or an hour before sunset. If you were unable to photograph the car at this time, place the car in the shade of a building. If the weather is cloudy, this is very good, because when it is cloudy, the light is not bright, soft and does not give direct hard rays and glare. If the surface of the car reflects bright sunlight, under such lighting all the imperfections of the car's surface will appear in the form of small scratches. To camouflage them, soft reflected light in the shadows or clouds is required. The shadow from the trees is not suitable, since it is not uniform, and the same bright sunlight will fall on the car through the gaps, revealing its shortcomings.

If you're having a hard time finding a suitable backdrop for a photo shoot, consider an option like an underground parking lot - it's dry, the lighting is even, and the backdrop will be fairly neutral.

How to photograph a car for sale, will a smartphone be enough?

So, the car is washed and put into proper condition, the background for shooting has been chosen, and the lighting too. You can begin the process of photographing the car! If we shoot with a phone or a digital point-and-shoot camera, make sure that the lens lenses are clean and the camera battery has enough charge for the photo shoot, because it’s worth taking a lot of pictures, and then choosing the best ones from them.

As a general rule, you should end up with 5-10 photographs of the car from different angles: frontal, profile, three-quarter front, three-quarter rear, straight rear view, profile and three-quarter front and rear on the other side. Taking pictures from all sides will show that your car has no defects, no matter which way you approach it. The height of the camera when shooting is not so important, so you can experiment with angles. The most common shooting positions will be eye level and chest level photos. The front wheels in all photographs should be either straight forward or turned toward the viewer. That is, each photo should give maximum information, there should be an impression that you have nothing to hide, your car is open on all sides and you are ready to show off the product from all sides, without hiding any paintwork defects or a cracked bumper, if this is the case.

Why are 8-10 photos enough? Yes, because such a number of pictures will give the interested buyer a complete impression of the appearance of the car. Remember that many message boards and online portals for selling used cars limit the number of photos per ad. Do not strive for pseudo-artistic techniques; remember that the buyer is primarily interested in the information content of the photograph and the objective appearance of the car. The photo should provide information sufficient to make a purchasing decision, but nothing more.

An exception to this rule can only be a close-up of individual design elements, if the car is not standard and this element can attract those buyers for whom this will be important. However, don’t get carried away: in order to draw attention to this feature, one photo will be enough. The bulk of the photographs should still be taken from standard angles.

If you shoot on a phone, in the vast majority of cases the standard settings will be sufficient. The fact is that most phone cameras are optimized to take decent photos in standard conditions in “automatic” mode. Using manual settings, you will only waste your time, but will not bring anything fundamentally new to the level of photography. At least don't improve it. The most you can try to adjust is the brightness level. If your photos are too bright, turn down the brightness. That's all it takes. Just don’t forget about the phone screen brightness settings; they should not be reduced to a minimum.

Processing car photos after shooting

By photo post-processing we mean all the actions that are performed on a finished photograph to improve it. For example, cropping to remove unwanted objects, adjusting white balance, brightness, contrast and color balance can significantly improve the quality of a photo.

All these actions can be performed both on the phone itself (difficult and inconvenient) and on the computer (much more convenient and more options for processing photos). Using simple programs, you can correct exposure errors, equalize color balance or white balance, and, in general, bring your images to a fairly professional look. The main thing here is not to get carried away and follow a sense of proportion. Don't forget that the buyer is primarily looking for information about the condition of your car's appearance, and fantastic angles combined with trendy post-processing and photo filters will not help the buyer pay attention to the positive aspects of your car - he simply will not notice them.

The attention of a potential buyer needs to be focused on the good condition of the body, the absence of flaws, the cleanliness of the interior, in general, on the main thing that every buyer looks for in a car. When taking photographs, it is important to keep these desires and expectations of the buyer in mind and not be distracted by your own ideas about how you would like to make beautiful angles. It’s not a fact that your cool audio system, even if a lot has been invested in it, will add at least a ruble to the price of your car. Therefore, you should not photograph it in maximum detail. Buyers are looking for a car, a means of transportation, and it is the features of the car that should be demonstrated. Learn to think like your customers, and then you will understand how to better photograph a car for sale so that it is bought quickly.

Mutually beneficial picture: how to properly photograph a car for sale

Almost every car owner at least once in his life has encountered the process of buying or selling a used car - and this process was accompanied by some specific actions. One of them is creating photographs that should make a potential buyer fall in love with the car, and at the same time give him the most complete impression of its design, features, advantages and technical condition. How to “sell” a car even before a face-to-face meeting with the buyer, what mistakes should not be made, and how to take great photos when you don’t have a professional camera at hand, but only a mobile phone? We find out the nuances in a conversation with a professional photographer - and this master class will be relevant as long as the secondary car market exists.

Getting ready for shooting

Do you remember how we prepared for professional studio filming of a car ? Then, bathed in the rays of light on a snow-white cyclorama, it was as if under a microscope, and it was impossible to miss the slightest nuance. Of course, preparing a car for shooting for sale will not be so painstaking, but the main principle will remain the same: proper preparation for shooting is half the success.

Of course, the first and most obvious step when preparing a car is washing it. You should not skimp on this procedure. First, you need to thoroughly wash the outside of the car, leaving no dirt on the bumper aprons, in the arches and on the lower edges of the sills and side mirrors. Secondly, you must definitely blow with compressed air and wipe down the car: water streaks in the photographs create the impression of “careless preparation in a hurry,” which characterizes you in the eyes of a potential buyer as a not very zealous owner - and you’re not like that at all, right?

Thirdly, high-quality cleaning of the interior should also be included in this range of work: dirty carpets, small debris on the floor and seats and dust on the front panel immediately leave an extremely untidy impression. If the seats and door trims are dirty or dirty from time to time, you can also take care of dry cleaning: do not forget that car resellers earn the lion's share of their profits only from these procedures, giving the car pristine freshness at low cost.

The next step towards a successful sale is choosing the right location for shooting. Many people often neglect this factor, removing a wet car dripping with water right at the exit of a car wash, or quickly “snapping” it before parking it at home or in their own garage at the nearest cooperative. In fact, this leads to the same consequences as described above: the potential buyer rightly believes that the owner is as superficial in the maintenance, repair and maintenance of the car as in the photograph, and is looking for more “well-groomed” options. In addition, the photo against the backdrop of a garage is also frightening due to its hidden meaning: one gets the impression that the car “lives” in the garage and does not drive, which means it has technical problems or requires investment in maintenance after a long period of parking.

In fact, the background recipe for a successful photo of a car for sale is quite simple - you just need to avoid making serious mistakes. There is no need to photograph the car against the backdrop of garages, shabby Khrushchev buildings plastered with advertisements, or, what’s more, garbage cans. But it’s also not at all necessary to look for the most picturesque landscape: it’s enough to find a flat, attractive, contrasting and uniformly colored wall, “tear” the car away from it and don’t be too lazy to rearrange it three or four times in order to shoot all the necessary angles in the same conditions.

Our current “selling” Rapid is red, which in combination with glossy black elements indicates that it belongs to the special Monte Carlo version. Accordingly, for shooting you need a non-red wall so that the car does not merge with the surface, and all elements of its design are favorably outlined against a contrasting background. We chose a white wall - it gives an “airiness” to the frame and does not make the pictures too gloomy, and the red car looks like an “urban cyclorama”.

A logical and obvious, but important note: the car should be photographed shortly before it is sold. Even beautiful photographs of the car against the backdrop of snowdrifts will not make the right impression in July - the car will either be considered “worthwhile”, or they will think that since the shooting it has lost its luster, as a result of which the owner decided to abandon the current picture. Another remark stems from what was said above: if your car is rare or specific and has not been sold for a long time, do not be lazy to update the photo “seasonally”: this will definitely increase its chances of becoming a new acquaintance.

Light in our case, of course, is not as critically important as in the case of professional outdoor photography , but the same principles apply here. For shooting you need soft light - you shouldn’t shoot in the sun, where everyone will be blinded by reflected rays, or at dusk, not to mention shooting at night. However, if you have already prepared the car, and there is not a cloud in the sky, you can simply look for a suitable site in the shadow of a large building.

It is better to use cloudy weather for shooting, since in this case there will be no bright direct light and harsh glare that sits on the car body. In addition, in bright sunlight, the paint surface of a used car will reveal all its tiny imperfections in the form of micro-scratches that appear during use and washing. Only a new car can show itself worthily in such conditions - for example, our “model” Rapid has no such defects. Well, even after the first year of marriage, the car should be photographed differently - in cloudy weather or even after rain. I don’t recommend shooting under trees either: direct light passing through the crown will give unnecessary glare and flare and affect the final image.

At the end of the conversation about preparing the car, we will mention such a controversial item as washing the engine and engine compartment. Many people believe that, having tidied up the body, the interior of the car, and the luggage compartment, it is also worth thoroughly washing everything that is hidden under the hood. The same technique is used by the resellers mentioned above - but this is a separate conversation, since they often mask technical defects with washing, removing oil drips or splashes of current antifreeze. However, precisely because of this, you should not be as diligent in preparing the engine compartment: a thoroughly washed engine can cause unnecessary suspicion, and sometimes even become a reason for a potential buyer to refuse to view it. Therefore, the maximum that can be done is to wipe off dirt from the plastic casing covering the engine, but do not try to turn your car into a showpiece, shining with the pristine cleanliness of the engine compartment.

Let's start shooting

Car photography itself, provided proper preparation, turns into an easy and quick process. Available technical resources in the form of a smartphone or an inexpensive digital point-and-shoot camera are always ready for shooting - you just need to make sure that the optics are clean and there is sufficient battery charge so that the photo set is not torn into two parts due to the sudden discharge of the camera. All that remains is to position the car correctly and, holding the smartphone firmly in non-shaking hands, shoot the coveted shots.

If technical conditions allow, ideally there should be eight photographs of the exterior of the car when selling: full face, three-quarter front, profile, three-quarter rear and straight rear view - as well as symmetrical photographs from the other side to convince the buyer that there are no defects on any from the sides. The height of the camera position is not critical: the “interested” car owner himself knows best from what point of view his car looks best, and if there is no such understanding, then shooting “from the chest” or “from the face” will be completely sufficient. Well, one more nuance that can be adopted from studio shooting is the position of the front wheels: they either need to be set straight or rotated so that the disk is always facing the viewer.