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Shooting Hero Shots During A Technical Angle Study

Alright guys, we are in the field, now. This is my environment. I'm pretty stoked to share with you guys what we're shooting today. We're gonna be doing like, a walk around, shooting static images and doing all the angle studies that we talked about, previously, and we're gonna get to it. (upbeat music) Alright, so, we are gonna go and talk about why it is good and very important to shoot every angle that a brand wants of their vehicle. The main establishing shot would be a 3/4ths front and a 7/8ths front. A 3/4ths front is more almost profile, but not, it's still, you know, angled 45 degrees. 7/8ths front is more leaning towards the front, almost a head on, but not quite head on. And brands like that, they like to have a variety of angles, just to show, almost like, almost just how long the car is and kind of just have different variations. And they're usually happy with more. So, we're gonna get into it and I'll go through why and what is best for this particular vehicle with the dif...

ferent angles. And yeah, let's get to it. (mellow music) So, I set up the vehicle, right here in this position, back lit. I tend, more times than not, to shoot anything back lit, just because, having like a dead on shot, like, having anything front lit looks terrible, in everyone's opinion. So, anything back lit, and I know the sun's high right now, but it's still back lit and I wanted to park it in some sort of environment that looks good. And it-, that's interesting. So I have the mountain in the background. We have some brush on the sides and if anything looks busy, post wise, I mean, I can clean up anything here. So, that is why I chose this location, just because it's interesting. And it's not just a plain flat surface. So I'm shooting on a tripod because I'm gonna be bracketing the photos. And what bracketing is, is I'm using what we have. Like, what I was talking about earlier with the filters I'm gonna be shooting with the filter. And so with the filter, you can, it has two to five stops on this one. It's the ND filter. And you can play around with all the panels throughout the entire car and make everything consistent. And I'll take about five different captures of just this image of the 3/4ths front and that way, post process, I can combine all those bracketing images and do that in Lightroom, and it does it for you, which is really nice. And it will combine it and make everything thr- the car, throughout the whole car consistent. And that's basically what a brand is gonna be wanting to see. And that way you're not gonna be getting like, dark spots, random dark spots, or random like, harsh lit spots on like, random part of the cars, it's better to have everything consistent. (upbeat music) The best lens, preferred for this, is anything over a 35 millimeter. You're not gonna want the truck. Anything under a 35 tends to get like, pretty distorted and brands do not like that. I will say that over and over again. You're gonna want something fairly tight, between 35 and 50. I will usually have my aperture set over six, because you're not gonna want to have, so you're not gonna want a lot of depth to field with shooting these types of things, because having a a larger aperture is gonna get everything in focus, not just one thing. So if you're shooting, like, at a 2.8 on the front, the front of the car is gonna be in focus and then you're gonna lose information on the rear. They're gonna wanna see full detail on the entire car. So you're gonna wanna be over at least six, I would say. And then I'm shooting, shutter is like 1/25 of a second. So, it's pretty slow. But the main thing I am doing, on here, is I'm gonna set it to a two second, a two second timer, and you can see here, I'm not shooting anything vertical. I'm gonna shoot everything horizontal. And why I do that is because, in my opinion, I'm not gonna do anything vertically. I'm not gonna use that image ever. I mean, a lot of people shoot vertically for Instagram and I can just crop this, and usually we'll shoot wide for brands, because they'll wanna put copy on different parts of the image later. So, shooting horizontal always is the best thing, in my opinion. And brands will say the same thing. Unless they tell you otherwise, if it's strictly for social, they'll tell you to shoot vertically, but me, always shoot horizontally. I am shooting at 35 millimeters, right now. And what I'm gonna do is, I set it to the two second timer. It's fully, it's fully like, I have right here is, it's pretty overexposed. But what I'm gonna do is I'll take three to five, three to five shots, and then I'll stop down each time. And then that way I'll get a full consistent light through the entire vehicle. (beeping) (camera clicks) And the reason I'm doing two second timer is so I don't move the camera, at all, while I'm touching the shutter. Cause when you're bracketing, you don't want anything to be off and you don't want the lines to be off, cause then, at the end of the day, it's gonna be a blurry image. Another key thing to do, that I've learned throughout and I've learned the hard way is, when I-, when you're shooting on a tripod, you're gonna wanna obviously, get something in focus. And when you do get something in focus you're gonna wanna put it to manual. That way it's gonna stay in the same position. You're never gonna have to move it, cause when you're doing this two second timer, when it gets underexposed, it could, you know, the focus could lead to like, anything lit on the ground. And then, if you don't check that you're gonna be, you're gonna be bummed in the end. So, that is why you wanna keep it on manual after you get it in focus. Alright, so I'm gonna keep tripod camera here in the same spot and I'm just gonna move the truck so it's, you know, in the same environment. And we'll move to a 7/8ths front and that will be more focused on the front of the car. So, I have this obviously, it's, right now it's the 3/4ths front, and why I put it facing me, passenger side, is because, I mean, it will change with vehicles, but the gas cap is on the driver's side. And most of the times, companies, brands will not want anything like that. I mean, it's good, obviously that they, like, you obviously have a gas cap if it's, you know, a gas vehicle, but they don't wanna see that, in most cases. So, that's why I have it on, yeah, on the passenger side, facing me. Last thing, before we move the vehicle, I'm gonna go straight into a rear 3/4ths and I'm gonna mark the tires where it's at right now. That way it's gonna be in the same angle, but a full 180, and that way, when they're pulling up for catalogs or web and they want to show a 7/8ths or a 3/4ths rear and a 3/4ths front, it's gonna be in like, a same, it's gonna be very consistent and brands will love that. So, let's get to that and let's switch the vehicle up. (mellow music) Alright so, I have, I have it on manual now and now I'm gonna start bracketing this photo. And let's take four to five shots and we should be good, if all the panels look great throughout this entire spot. So, let's see how this one works and (beeping) kind of test it out. I'm just stopping down on the filter. I'm not doing anything with my shutter. (beeping) This will just, again, make all the panels on the truck, a consistent feel, and you're not gonna have those blown out panels or dark panels. It's all gonna stay consistent. And the easiest thing to do when you're shooting backlit, like this, you can find anywhere that's lit, focus on that. As long as your F-Stop is above six, should be pretty solid, in focus throughout the entire car. We can move on to, let's do this and let's move on to a 7/8ths rear. And then we'll be focusing more on the back. We'll have the nose pointing further away from me, this time. And, just so we can give client a more diverse option for what they're gonna want to use these establishing shots for. Another thing I would suggest, too, cause it seems centered, but you're gonna want to like, center the vehicle and the shadow. So, basically you want that whole, the shadow and the vehicle, as one, and center that whole thing. So, you're gonna measure from that top part of the the truck, of the shadow and then the right side of the rear. And that's just a hole in one. You're not focusing just on the truck. (upbeat music) (camera clicking) This is, this is kind of a difficult shot. Just because you are gonna want it as symmetrical as possible. But, most of the times, it's not going to be unless you're-. So the actual key thing to do, when you're shooting a dead on shot, front or rear, is look at, you can come down lower and look at the tires from the rear to the back, or sorry, from the rear, so you wanna like, look down here, look from the rear to the front and see if there's any gaps or see if there's any at all, like, you basically just want it to be symmetrical. So, if you even come this way a tiny bit, you're gonna see a gap in that left side. You're gonna- and you're gonna be shooting more this way, but, so you're gonna want to come down lower and then see everything is symmetrical underneath with the tires. And then yeah, you can go from there. (camera clicking) (upbeat music) Height does matter. And usually client will tell you otherwise, if they want something else, but, you're gonna wanna see at least part of the rear view mirrors. So, I'm gonna actually take this up a little bit, just so we can see a little bit of the mirrors, once we're starting to take those photos. And let's see here, right there, I can see mirrors. And even if it's just a little bit, that's all that's gonna matter. Just so, the consumer knows it has mirrors, but, client, you'll, you'll figure out in the end, client's picky about everything. So, you're gonna wanna do it all. (beeping) And I want to, reiterate this again, I shoot very wide. So, client can go with this photo and crop in, wherever they want. It's awesome to have a camera that has a ton of information. 45 megapixels on this one. And they can crop in as far as they want, and they're gonna still get all the information they need. And then, if they want to use the entire width of the entire photo, then they can put copy, wherever they want. So, it could say like, Ford, up in the left or Ford up in the right. And a lot of times, too, I'll do, like a a brand study on where they put most of their copy and just sort of, be aware of that. Cause a lot of brands will stick to the left side for copy or they'll stick to the right side. Or sometimes they'll just overlay copy in the middle of the photo. So, you're gonna wanna do your homework on what brands do with their branding. (camera clicking) (mellow music) So, a lot of the times, shooting a front head on, companies like more of an aggressive look and that's usually lower, a lower angle. And I prefer that as well, which is nice. So, you kind of want to just find, just feel it out and see what you like best, and again, do your homework on what you've seen with the brand and what they like. It's easy, just, you know, you can Google whatever car manufacturer you're gonna be shooting. Google their brand and then see what they have on their catalogs, their website, et cetera. And then this, I'm gonna shoot of more of an aggressive angle, pretty low. It just makes the truck a little more, makes it look a tiny bit, like, a little bit bigger. And it's just a better angle, in my opinion, for these types of, types of vehicles. Again, you're gonna wanna make sure that all tires are aligned and there's no gaps in between the profile of the truck. So you're, you're gonna be able to see any gaps. You wanna be able to close it in. So, tires are perfectly symmetrical and then you should be safe, throughout the entire vehicle. Once again, turn your gyroscope on to make sure the horizons level and/or make sure the car is level. So, you're never gonna want to have the vehicle at an angle. You're gonna want it, the suspension to stay consistent throughout the entire thing. And I have been consistent, staying at a 35 millimeter, throughout all of these photos. (upbeat music) (camera clicking) What I think I'm gonna do on this direct profile, this low, you can see like, through the windshield. So, you can see through this, the passenger window through the windshield, and I don't want that. If it's, if it's like a little bit higher, you're gonna get like a, like a pretty consistent line of the truck. And you're not gonna want to have like, five different windows you're seeing. So, you don't wanna see all window panels. So, if you come up a little bit, almost like eye level with the truck, is where you're gonna want to be. What I always do is go through what you've already shot. Make sure you've got everything. Check off everything off the checklist. And, once you do that, you can move on to the next steps. (camera clicking) (upbeat music) The key things to remember, bracketing your exposure, shoot wide horizontal, for brands, copy and branding and trying to get as symmetrical, as possible. And, always use the two second timer cause it's gonna help in the long run. And that way nothing's gonna be shaky. If it's windy, use sandbags on your tripod. That's another key. And luckily, there's no wind here today, so, we didn't need to use those. And that's basically it. So, there you have it, for the angle study. That's a full walk around to the car and brand's gonna love it. Let's move on. (camera clicking) (upbeat music ending)