This is a guide full of tips and tricks about car spotting. Here you will find the best locations, camera settings, photo editing and much more to become a professional car spotter.
Just remember that you can sell your car photography here.
1-Best camera for exotic Car Spotting
2-Phone vs DSLR Camera for car photography
3-Best locations for Car Spotting
4-Best cities for Car Spotting
Best camera for exotic Car Spotting
This is the first doubt that beginner car spotters have.
“Which camera should I buy for car photography?” is a good question, but it doesn’t have an easy answer.
First of all you have to keep in mind that the camera does not make the photographer good or bad. It can help but it is not the determining factor.
With this in mind we can start looking at what requirements we need from a camera for street car photography.
These are the aspects of the camera to consider.
Low weight: usually taking photos of cars in the street is an activity that takes many hours, so we need a camera that is not too heavy.
Lens: it depends on the type of photos you take. If you like to take pictures from close up you will need a wide angle lens and if you like to take your spots from far away (highway) you will need a telephoto lens.
We recommend zoom lenses for more versatility.
Manual settings: a camera with manual settings will give you more possibilities when taking your photos. This way you will be able to focus on aspects such as shutter speed or exposure to get the photo you have imagined.
FPS: if you take pictures of fast moving cars you will need your camera to shoot in continuous mode, this means taking several pictures per second, otherwise you are likely to lose focus or framing and miss an opportunity for a unique spot.
We recommend at least 3FPS (frames per second).
Fast autofocus: just like FPS if you are going to capture moving cars you will need a fast autofocus to keep the vehicle in focus and sharp.
These are the aspects you will have to take into account in a camera to take your car photos.
The camera you choose depends on what you are willing to spend but again, an expensive camera will not make you a better photographer.
Phone vs DSLR Camera for car photography
“Can I take pictures of supercars with my cell phone?”. Of course you can. There are many spotters who take great pictures with their cell phones.
The cell phone has some advantages and some disadvantages.
Pros: it is smaller and lighter and we can directly edit the photos and upload them to the internet.
Cons: for long distance shots with zoom or fast moving cars it is difficult to get a good result.
Our advice is not to buy a camera if you are just starting and you already have a cell phone to make the spots. If you start to grow as a photographer you will have time to buy a good camera.
Best locations for car spotting
Location is a very important part of your vehicle photography. To photograph vehicles on the street it makes sense to look for places where exotic cars can be found frequently.
Once we have located the area where we are going to see interesting vehicles, the next step is to look for the optimal place for our photo.
This depends a lot on each spotter and his style but, in general, there are several elements to avoid.
People appearing in the photo can be a problem for our composition, especially if they are other spotters.
On other occasions we can take advantage of those people and integrate them in our photo creating a nice composition, as we can see in the following example:
If the vehicle we want to capture is parked then other cars parked nearby can ruin our photo. So preferably we will try to look for places where supercars are not parked together.
Another interesting tip is to look for a background for our photo, it can be an interesting building, some skyscrapers or simply a colored wall. Choose a good background and wait for an interesting car to pass by and capture it.
The last tip for choosing your location is the light. There is no rule but you must take into account how you want the light in your photo to be. If you want a soft light you should choose a place where the sun does not shine directly and if on the contrary you want a harder light you will have to look for a sunny place.
It is generally recommended that the sun is not right behind the photographer because this way you will lose depth and the car will be too flat.
If you are facing the sun it will cause much more interesting shadows and relief. This, as always, depends on your personal taste and style.
Top best cities for car spotting
There are places in the world that are a true paradise for vehicle “hunters”.
Here we are going to list the best cities in the world for photographing vehicles on the street.
London, Monaco, Paris, Dubai, Milan, Geneva, Tokyo, Los Angeles, or Huston are some examples of the cities most frequented by exotic vehicles.
