I would like to take the photos of our inventory whenever our 3rd party inventory service is running behind. I would like some tips on how to photograph vehicles in the sun. Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Jason -
My first job in the industry was working for one of the more prominent inventory service providers and later, training people to do that job, so hopefully these tips help:
1. Turn the vehicle into the sun so that your first shot has the front end of the car and the driver or passenger side (depending on what your preference is for the first shot) in direct sunlight. This goes hand in hand with keeping the sun behind you to reduce glare.
2. If you have the time, turn the car as needed so that all of your exterior shots are in direct sunlight.
3. Backseat shots are often easiest when the car is facing the same direction as in step 1. Having the backseat in full shadow will decrease bright spots that happen when some of the seat is well lit and the rest is in shadow.
4. All interior shots involving the front seat are easiest when you turn the car a bit to the left from where it's facing in step one to put all of the front interior into shadow.
5. You can capture the entire front dash when taking the picture from the backseat.
6. Adjusting camera settings on up-close shots like the odometer and stereo to the flower or whatever the close-up symbol is on your camera tends to significantly reduce blurriness for those shots.
In general, I see a lot of pictures that make these mistakes:
1. The first photo is heavily shadowed. This is bad because it makes the color and details of the vehicle harder to discern and the image will not "pop" when lined up against better photos of the same make/model that you're competing with on classified sites.
2. The shot is not squared up properly. Part of the vehicle (front, back, or worse, top) is cut off, which looks very unprofessional, or the car appears smaller than necessary in the image because too much space exists to the left and right of the vehicle in the shot. There is definitely a happy medium there - leave a little bit of space for the front and back, not too little and not too much.
3. Photos are not taken at consistent angles, vehicle after vehicle. This takes some practice, but you can see the difference by looking at a random selection of search results on dealer websites. Dealers with good photos will have all of the first photos of their vehicles taken at the exact same angle - and when I say same angle, I don't just mean front quarter view of the front of the vehicle and the driver's side, I mean nearly the exact same angle of the front of the vehicle and the driver's side for every car. Sometimes, things have to slide for this rule - there's not enough space on the lot to get the right shot, for example, but it always bugs me when I look at a dealer's website and see every vehicle at a slightly different angle. On the other hand, although it looks sloppy to me, I have no supporting evidence to say that it will hurt or help your sales, so take that rant with a grain of salt. I just know it knocked the socks off my accounts when they looked at their website after I'd held a new account long enough for all the prior service company's inventory to turn over.
4. Watch out for balloons. They almost always turn into a colorful blur in your shots as they drift in the breeze.
5. If you put paper floormats in your vehicles, move them to the backseat when taking front interior shots and vice versa.
Some dealers, based on personal preference, will also take issue with other vehicles being in the background or customers being in the background (in the distance, not up close). I never really understood that - consumers know you sell lots of cars to lots of people and seeing the occasional line of cars or handful of customers in a shot just reinforces that, but if it bothers you, seek to minimize it.
Last but not least, if you think your service provider is doing a good job other than occasionally being a little bit late, ask him or her what tips they have (while also telling them you're not looking to take the account away from them - you just want to make sure everything is online ASAP when they can't make it on schedule). Also, work with them to see if there are any steps your store can take to make their life easier, whether it's having all the keys in the system and available for fresh units, having a porter on hand to track down errant keys, or having pricing (if they price your inventory) available for all new units available first thing in the morning on their scheduled days so they don't need to wait on it. Those are the little things that will help make that service visit faster and more efficient, allowing them to get more of your inventory online, faster.
Hope this helps!
