Customer Reviews

How to Photograph Cars

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great book. I've always been interested in cars, and for a while I earned a living writing about cars for a magazine. My shots were OK but not as good as they should have been. How I wish I could have read this book back then!

James Mann's book gives you information on equipment, basic techniques, tips on preparing the car (detail first, and be sure to remove all stickers!), advanced techniques (check out the cover photo ... want to know how to do that?), motorsports events, groups, people, studio techniques and finally tips on doing a magazine feature.

Every person who is involved in a job which even remotely involves photographing cars (Media people, Advertising, Marketing, etc.) should read this book!

This really is a great book, I've bought it when I was just starting to learn about photographing cars and it really teaches you how to approach this niche in photography.

The only problem is that it doesn't cover digital slr's, the author uses film and there is nothing wrong with that, but these days only a handful of people are still using film, most of us have switched to digital with great success I might add.

The basics are the same, so you can still learn a lot from this book, but don't expect to learn about digital post processing or something like that, this book is about photographing cars in general, and his tips surely help to establish that.

This is a nice coverage of the subject. I am a novice at photography and will be using a digital SLR camera. In my particular case I could have used more information on camera settings and lense selection, but the author probably assumes a bit more knowledge than I have.

This is a very interesting and comprehensive guide for the car photographer. Mann writes about many aspects of car photography, and explains how to use common techniques in action and still photography. This very concrete paperback is more of a step-by-step guide rather than an abstract aesthetic book. By that, I mean that the book explains tested and trailed techniques rather than encouraging to think creatively.

Mann's pictures are gorgeous and very inspiring. I was very unsure whether to rate this book 4 or 5 stars. I have read more impressive photographic books, but not on cars. I believe that is about as good as it gets within that narrow topic.

A down-to-earth book that does exactly what it says on the cover: it shows you how to take pictures of cars. Good ones. It assumes you know some photographic technique and shows how to apply it to cars.

It covers all the bases, in just the right amount of detail. Static shots? Check. Action shots? Check. Detail shots? Check. Group shots? Check. Gadget shots? Check. People shots? Check. All the little secrets, all the cool tricks? Check.

Cool cars? Check. :-)

The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is indifferent proofreading.

I was back forth on this book as I read the first chapters. I then realized I was looking for some grand revelation. I started over and found that there was a lot of cleaver and less obvious information. What I found of most value was advise on composition, "cars look lousy on grass, so aviod it", use unclucluttered and uninterrupted surfaces and back grounds for example. The use of thirds in combination with the above advice is shown well with pictures on page 30 and 42. Overall I would recommend this for anyone who wants great looking pictures of there own automotive love to hang on their walls.

If you're new to photographing cars or even if you are a little experienced this book has a lot of information to help you create a better picture. It reminds you about the smaller details that will aid your picture-taking (i.e. shoot a sedans with windows up/coupes with windows down) The book includes a lot of pictures to back up the examples to go along with the text - good and bad results of the pretty much same picture. It was very helpful in my opinion and gave me a lot of new ideas. I would recommend it.

Extremely basic and horribly outdated. I understand that some professionals may still use film, but I doubt many amateurs do. This book dedicates less than 200 words to Digital SLRs, and absolutely no mention at all of post-processing. Do yourself a favor and purchase the Jason Siu/Josh Mackey book instead: How to Digitally Photograph Cars

I thought I would learn "anything" about car photography when i bought this book, but actually it was zero added value to me. Only two ore three pages for Studio Car photography, with no much explanation. Elaborating more and more Car Outdoor Photography, but yet still with not much great information or professional details.

It is only a basic introduction of what is Car Photography.

Well thought out, excellent chapters, actual picture by picture explanations of techniques. Definitely worth the money.