take a picture of his motorcycle
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Wireframe, lighting, background, retouching ...
5 tips to excel in your shots to get your motorcycle up for sale
Have you decided to list your motorcycle for sale and need to decorate your ad with a photo? Do you just want to immortalize your two-wheeled car to make all your friends jealous?
Successful photography cannot be invented, but it is also not reserved for approved experts. To make it easier for you, Le Repaire des Motards gives you some basic tips to succeed in your motorcycle photography.
We will not go back to the choice of the camera here. Of course, you will get more beautiful shots with a DSLR than with a smartphone, even if the latest iPhone 7 models are better than many compact or bridge devices. But if the technique is perfect, the image will remain successful.
1 - make it transformable
Unless you are driving off-road and do not want to have a special buoy la gadoue session, you will need to clean your bike. When it was cool photo day, you were all pretty, striped on the side and musty shirt. Here's the same thing. As we immortalize the motorcycle, we can also show it under its best profile. This point is all the more true when the photograph is intended to illustrate a classified ad: a clean motorcycle is a motorcycle (not) unknowingly supported by the buyer.
2 - Choosing the right spot
The coverage is just as important as the object. There is no question of photographing in the back of the garage or next to the trash can. The location is all important, as it gives the subject of the photo and makes the car stand out. Therefore, you should pay special attention to this place, taking care of the choice of the background: avoid a color that is too close to the color of the motorcycle, too many details that attract attention ...
If you want the bike to be sharp and the background blurred to get the pro's famous bokeh effect, you should be able to choose the depth of field. All DSLRs offer it, as well as bridges and some Nikon J1-5 compact cameras. A shallow depth of field is called a large aperture: the number should be as low as 1,4, 2, 2,8 if possible, depending on the lens aperture. Note that zoom offers a shallower depth of field than wide angle. In this case, feel free to physically move away from the bike to zoom in and crop as accurately as possible.
As part of the sale, care must also be taken not to photograph in an area where the motorcycle is regularly parked in order to avoid detection in preparation for flight.
3 - The importance of rear lighting
Unless you have high quality equipment, you should avoid using flash as much as possible. The latter will tend to add unwanted reflections and more chrome than the car. Therefore, it is better to find a place where there is enough natural light or lighting. Therefore, we will prioritize clichés in fine weather over grayish skies that smooth out the colors. Therefore, we prefer the light of the early or late afternoon over the harsh light of noon.
Then you have to position your car according to the lighting so that the light source is behind the photographer and not behind the motorcycle (which will create the illumination). We will reserve this famous lighting for effects and sunsets to keep a personal memory of your motorcycle (but to avoid the sale photo).
4 - Frame
Naturally, the photos are usually taken from above, while diving. However, this angle of engagement is far from the most useful for a two-wheeled vehicle. On the contrary, it is better to bend over to reach the height of the bike while grabbing.
Ignoring (vertical) portrait shots. Except for written or photographic publications, no medium is intended for this format. The screen prefers a horizontal format (landscape).
Now that you have everything set up, you can start photographing your motorcycle from several angles: front, three-quarters front and back, profile ...
Also, if you want a more aesthetic photography, consider the third party rule. If you split the image into 3 parts both horizontally and vertically, your motorcycle should instead be on one of the dividing lines.
5 - Retouching
Once your pictures are taken and recorded, there is nothing stopping you from improving them a little: the magic of digital technology. On this side, we are not talking about interfering with the image, like Photoshop Pro, but simply in correcting some defects or emphasizing a certain point, for example, by increasing the saturation of the image or applying a slight blur to the background to bring out the bike (if you did not have the necessary equipment for a shallow depth of field when shooting).
There are many free software for this, ranging from the most automated and therefore easy to access, to those that allow all manual configuration. This applies to computers as well as smartphones and tablets.
