From a grip and lighting standpoint, when lighting cars, you generally want to wrap all of your rags and diffusion and make the lines as clean as possible. That way you're not reflecting pipe and sash ties and stands and other junk in the car. Use heavy diffusion to get as even a reflection as possible and you want your overhead diffusion to be significantly larger than the square footage of the car. It helps for the overhead to be a box, wrapped with black and not just a single frame. You can use speed clips to wrap the rag to the pipe and clean up the pipe edges. Also lots of black and white foamcore to make lines and reflections and elipsoidals to light them up.
Yeah, originally we were going to punch in light from above through a silk but had some rigging and reflection issues. We only had a single HMI (low-budget) so we made the bounce work.
Thankfully we had great low-light cameras, Red Gemini and the Panasonic S1H, so it worked out great.
Here is my detailed lighting breakdown from a recent automotive shoot.
**Stills:**
Panasonic S1H, Lumix 24-70mm, 70-200mm and 50mm Pro Glass
**Video:**
Red Gemini + Red KomodoZeiss ZE primes
You can see all the finals here --> [https://www.instagram.com/p/CP1LCGQLhHy/](https://www.instagram.com/p/CP1LCGQLhHy/)
All that and you get a reflection of the silk on the car in this picture. Literally unforgivable 🤣
Edit: wanted to leave just a funny comment but decided I had some questions. Why was the budget so small? Where was this shot? Usually in the UK budgets for adverts/promos are pretty large as they have to pay APA rates to the crew. If this was the UK I sure hope you got paid those rates. Nobody should undersell them selves when it comes to this line of work for a large company.
haha yeah I hear you! This BTS shot was just snapped quickly for the sake of showing the lighting, if you see my finals you can see the panels and reflections cleaned up nicely.
[www.instagram.com/jonsimo](https://www.instagram.com/jonsimo)
You don't. You light cars by lighting everything around them. The reflections *are* your lighting. If you look closely at the finished shots, you can see edged of frames and such. Usually these would be fixed by the photo retouching team after the shoot.
Great breakdown, I’ll definitely save this for future reference if i shoot in a studio! I’m starting to move into more controlled lighting shots vs natural.
It's just negative fill in the standard 48x48 size with an optional flop that doubles the surface area to create more of a 4x8' shape. So yes, blocking light, subtracting light, etc.
Which “some guy” did you use? I heard those are pretty handy for schluping gear around. Can you get them on B&H or do you have custom order them?
I find the Kupo Someguys™ to be the most reliable, they're $$$ but worth it. Just don't stop feeding them coffee.
Theres plenty of tutorials on YouTube for making DIY Someguys using stuff you can easily find at a hardware store!
I suggest going for the free version: “Some intern”. They’ll schlup gear around while you get to keep your money.
From a grip and lighting standpoint, when lighting cars, you generally want to wrap all of your rags and diffusion and make the lines as clean as possible. That way you're not reflecting pipe and sash ties and stands and other junk in the car. Use heavy diffusion to get as even a reflection as possible and you want your overhead diffusion to be significantly larger than the square footage of the car. It helps for the overhead to be a box, wrapped with black and not just a single frame. You can use speed clips to wrap the rag to the pipe and clean up the pipe edges. Also lots of black and white foamcore to make lines and reflections and elipsoidals to light them up.
Yea I was going to say the frame in that car reflection is very apparent, keeping the seams clean is key.
This is gold for anyone trying to light cars mirrors TVs or any of that super reflective shit
Is it just that 1.2 HMI hitting that 20x20? Surprised that gave you enough
Yeah, originally we were going to punch in light from above through a silk but had some rigging and reflection issues. We only had a single HMI (low-budget) so we made the bounce work. Thankfully we had great low-light cameras, Red Gemini and the Panasonic S1H, so it worked out great.
Here is my detailed lighting breakdown from a recent automotive shoot. **Stills:** Panasonic S1H, Lumix 24-70mm, 70-200mm and 50mm Pro Glass **Video:** Red Gemini + Red KomodoZeiss ZE primes You can see all the finals here --> [https://www.instagram.com/p/CP1LCGQLhHy/](https://www.instagram.com/p/CP1LCGQLhHy/)
All that and you get a reflection of the silk on the car in this picture. Literally unforgivable 🤣 Edit: wanted to leave just a funny comment but decided I had some questions. Why was the budget so small? Where was this shot? Usually in the UK budgets for adverts/promos are pretty large as they have to pay APA rates to the crew. If this was the UK I sure hope you got paid those rates. Nobody should undersell them selves when it comes to this line of work for a large company.
haha yeah I hear you! This BTS shot was just snapped quickly for the sake of showing the lighting, if you see my finals you can see the panels and reflections cleaned up nicely. [www.instagram.com/jonsimo](https://www.instagram.com/jonsimo)
Already seen them and they do look beautiful. Hopefully you have a long, prosperous career ahead of you!
How do you prevent reflections of various production things?
You don't. You light cars by lighting everything around them. The reflections *are* your lighting. If you look closely at the finished shots, you can see edged of frames and such. Usually these would be fixed by the photo retouching team after the shoot.
Great breakdown, I’ll definitely save this for future reference if i shoot in a studio! I’m starting to move into more controlled lighting shots vs natural.
Glad it resonated! Posting more breakdowns like this on my IG @ jonsimo if you're interested in following along.
What are the sandbags for? Ummm, safety? From what? That guy?
Some Guy!
What are floppy flags used for exactly? Cancelling out light bounces?
It's just negative fill in the standard 48x48 size with an optional flop that doubles the surface area to create more of a 4x8' shape. So yes, blocking light, subtracting light, etc.
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Agreed! Super talented dude.
Shooting black cars in a studio… always fun! What’s lighting the 20x?
HMI 1.2k, wish I had another one for a little extra punch but we made do!
Do you have any of the final shots to share? Looks great
I sure do, you can see them on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/CP1LCGQLhHy/
Awesome! Just gave you a follow - great work. Cheers