Best Camera for Online Photos
- Thread starter Blake Arbogast
- Start date
- Jan 7, 2010
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- Chip
Alex, awesome photos!
I dabble a bit in photography as well and the best advice I can give is to concentrate on composition and lighting.
Composition
Is there something distracting in the background?
Did you cut off the rear quarter of the car?
Are there service mats or dust rags visible?
Lighting
Since most dealers take photos outside, whenever possible position the car so when you're taking the front shots, the sun is behind you.
Don't use a flash in the sun. Most cameras are limited in shutter speed when using a flash. Limit a shutter speed too much and you end up with blown out highlights when the lens can't stop down the aperture enough.
As someone mentioned before, cloudy days cast an almost perfectly even light over your car and typically with no shadow. Bump up the exposure about half a stop and you'll have great, saturated colors and no hotspots.
One of the greatest advantages of professional cameras (DSLRs) is their dynamic range - how bright something in the scene can be without it over affecting the dark parts. Cars are one of the hardest things to photograph - they're shiney, they tend to have really dark parts (rims/tires) and really bright parts (paint, glass, reflectors, lights...). A good camera with a lot of dynamic range will let you capture all of that.
Downside to DSLRs, they are bigger, heavier and more expensive depending on the lense - but maybe a small price to pay for the added quality.
Chip-
I dabble a bit in photography as well and the best advice I can give is to concentrate on composition and lighting.
Composition
Is there something distracting in the background?
Did you cut off the rear quarter of the car?
Are there service mats or dust rags visible?
Lighting
Since most dealers take photos outside, whenever possible position the car so when you're taking the front shots, the sun is behind you.
Don't use a flash in the sun. Most cameras are limited in shutter speed when using a flash. Limit a shutter speed too much and you end up with blown out highlights when the lens can't stop down the aperture enough.
As someone mentioned before, cloudy days cast an almost perfectly even light over your car and typically with no shadow. Bump up the exposure about half a stop and you'll have great, saturated colors and no hotspots.
One of the greatest advantages of professional cameras (DSLRs) is their dynamic range - how bright something in the scene can be without it over affecting the dark parts. Cars are one of the hardest things to photograph - they're shiney, they tend to have really dark parts (rims/tires) and really bright parts (paint, glass, reflectors, lights...). A good camera with a lot of dynamic range will let you capture all of that.
Downside to DSLRs, they are bigger, heavier and more expensive depending on the lense - but maybe a small price to pay for the added quality.
Chip-
- May 1, 2005
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- Jeff
From my own experience, enter CDMData at your own risk. Now it has been a few years since I have used it..so it's possible they have made some changes but WOW was that a bad set up. That camera was a rock and not worth a penny.
Anyone remember http://www.carspot.com. They had a decent solution. AutoTrader bought it and shelved it after a few months.
Sorry to go off topic...
Back to Best Camera for Online Photos..
For most cases, I'm inclined to agree. There were a few reasons we went up to the D60:
-Manual flash control (power levels in particular, not just on/off)
-Quick exposure adjustments with the thumbwheel
-RAW shooting to let us fudge the exposure a stop either way (less taking an extra shot to be sure), and the resolution lets us use it for just about any practical purpose (because not everything in life calls for a 640x480 JPEG).
-It's the camera I learned to shoot on in USC's media arts department, and (last I heard) remains the still camera they loan out most commonly. (They also loan out some older Nikon DSLRs.) If every camera guy at the dealership vanished, there would be a fair-sized pool of folks who would be familiar enough to get to speed quickly.
If it were a bay-or-camera debate, I'd start with the bay--but with that already out of the way for us, stepping up the camera was a logical next step.
- May 1, 2006
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- Alex
Sounds like you guys are doing a lot of post processing. Between adding a watermark and Billfred - shooting in RAW! I'm not criticizing; I'm jealous! There isn't enough time in the day to keep up with all the revolving inventory for us, so if it ain't happening in the camera or within our inventory tool, it ain't happening.
Maybe the real question is what is your inventory size to photo-taking-employee ratio?
Maybe the real question is what is your inventory size to photo-taking-employee ratio?
We generally have kept 200-250 cars on the ground while I've been around, Cash for Clunkers and the Pontiac closeout notwithstanding. I've been shooting solo for all of that, generally about six to eight cars soup to nuts (shot, feature collection, processed, watermarked, uploaded, rearranged, pushed live) per day barring any diversions.
Post processing (downloading the NEFs, splitting into events, tweaking, exporting from iPhoto, watermarking in FastStone Photo Resizer, zipping up for eBiz) is 30-45 minutes total, most of which is made up in not having to obsess over every single detail in the camera. (Or not having to reshoot the Denali with ebony seats we did today, where my trainee went the Spinal Tap route--none more black--with the interior shots.)
- Dec 18, 2009
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- Mark
I would say this is a good point against the "in house is quicker and cheaper" 6-8 cars in a day, which they are paying a full time employee. A professional vendor can do 6-8 cars an hour easily, which takes care of the "faster" issue.
A Dealer paying an employee for a days work for 6-8 cars or paying a service $108 to $140 for the same results does not make sense to me either.
The math is not adding up to me, if you have 200- 250 on the ground but can only shoot 160 a month (8 a day, 5 days a week) how many do you have online with no photos?
A Dealer paying an employee for a days work for 6-8 cars or paying a service $108 to $140 for the same results does not make sense to me either.
The math is not adding up to me, if you have 200- 250 on the ground but can only shoot 160 a month (8 a day, 5 days a week) how many do you have online with no photos?
You're right, it wouldn't make sense for the same results. With someone on the payroll, you've got a known quantity and more control over them. Want more photos of options? Done. Want the cars shot a certain way every time? Easy, just train 'em. Want the cars that are ready Tuesday up that week (where a vendor will invariably only show up Mondays it's not raining)? Say the word. Want your guy to handle some other little inventory thing? No sweat.
The term my realtor used for this ease of access and quick resolution of concerns was chokeability. What value you place upon it is up to you.
I just had a whole post typed and my login timed out. Great.
We've burned through two photo companies for the following reasons:
Time: They were taking 2-3 days to come down and shoot our new additions. Thats 2-3 less selling days and delayed the car going in for service. We are a mainly used car store and we sell the majority of our cars out of our local market. If our car isn't shot and on our website, we don't have it.
Quality: The photos guys were barely photo guys. And they definitely weren't sales people. So aside from general quality issues with the photos they were taking, they were missing shots of what made my cars special and different than my competitors. So now I had cars on eBay and my website that were priced differently than my competitor and my photos were not building value to justify the higher price. We all know how many people actually take the time to read through the description.
Money: We were paying $30 a car for 20+ photos. We were losing selling days, loss in productivity by sending a sales person out to reshoot poor quality shots and take photos of special features. I would venture to guess that the inability of our photos to build value in our products probably cost us a deal here and there and most likely a little gross on the deals we made.
As they say, you can't have all three. We decided time and quality were worth paying a little more for.
We've burned through two photo companies for the following reasons:
Time: They were taking 2-3 days to come down and shoot our new additions. Thats 2-3 less selling days and delayed the car going in for service. We are a mainly used car store and we sell the majority of our cars out of our local market. If our car isn't shot and on our website, we don't have it.
Quality: The photos guys were barely photo guys. And they definitely weren't sales people. So aside from general quality issues with the photos they were taking, they were missing shots of what made my cars special and different than my competitors. So now I had cars on eBay and my website that were priced differently than my competitor and my photos were not building value to justify the higher price. We all know how many people actually take the time to read through the description.
Money: We were paying $30 a car for 20+ photos. We were losing selling days, loss in productivity by sending a sales person out to reshoot poor quality shots and take photos of special features. I would venture to guess that the inability of our photos to build value in our products probably cost us a deal here and there and most likely a little gross on the deals we made.
As they say, you can't have all three. We decided time and quality were worth paying a little more for.
- Apr 7, 2009
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- Joe
Ya'll, here are the facts.
Dealer Refresh audience is a unique bunch.
WE ARE THE EXCEPTION, NOT THE RULE. What we consider as "simple" is voodoo to your competitors down the street.
In my view of the business world, everything trickles down from the top, and, if the management at the top is still longing for the good ol' days, they ain't gonna get it... ever.
SUMMARY:
For those stores that DIY... YOU WANT 3rd PARTY PHOTO/DATA COMPANIES TO CONTINUE TO SERVE YOUR COMPETITORS.!!
Dealer Refresh audience is a unique bunch.
WE ARE THE EXCEPTION, NOT THE RULE. What we consider as "simple" is voodoo to your competitors down the street.
In my view of the business world, everything trickles down from the top, and, if the management at the top is still longing for the good ol' days, they ain't gonna get it... ever.
SUMMARY:
For those stores that DIY... YOU WANT 3rd PARTY PHOTO/DATA COMPANIES TO CONTINUE TO SERVE YOUR COMPETITORS.!!