How to photograph a pearl paint job?

[Claire]

I've tried photographing my car in a variety of lighting conditions- diffused sunlight through trees, sunset and artificial flourescent light (parking garage)

In every photo, my car looks like it's flat yellow. But in real life, it's got a gorgeous 3-stage paint job. Sun yellow / pearl overcoat / clear topcoat.

I'd love to be able to capture the glow that it has in real life in at least one photo. Any suggestions? I'm using a good-quality cannon digital camera. I have not tried a 35mm yet.

Here's the bug... see what I mean? The top photo is the closest I've come so far, taken on a mountain summit just after sunset. The lower is diffused afternoon sunlight.

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[TimGud]

I would use a polarizer filter.

[inthecurl]

I just finished a pearl paint job and it was hard to see the pearl except in direct sunlight. I found that like at 9 am or 4 pm when the sun was coming from and angle on the car, that's when the pearl jumped out at you..... may work for photos????

[angelchild]

you sort of need 2 photo's of each angle - one underexposed enough to show the 'pearl' sparkle...and one with a more correct lighter exposure to see the actual color better.
Direct sunlight from a lower angle is better (early or late in the day) ...Also, walk around the car (high & low) looking for the best angles to see the sparkle of the pearl.
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64 Cal-Look Beetle

[angelchild]

...that top photo would have worked better just before sunset (but exposed as it is...slightly under)...you need direct light on it to see the pearl reflecting the light.
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64 Cal-Look Beetle

[Spezialist]

what about star filter?
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[Claire]

Thanks for the tips, I'll try the different lighting first, then see what I can do with the filters.
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[luis]

If your using a canon digital rebel go out and buy yourself an 18% gray card at any camera shop, these run 3-5 bucks. Take a picture of it and then reading the directions in the manual of the camera adjust for the correct white balance of the card for your camera and ISO. Remember to use the same ISO for the card shot and car shot. Gray cards are used to determine the correct exposure. The back of most gray cards also have instructions. Stop using the automatic features of that camera, they suck, especially the automatic white balancing which is causing your car to look yellow rather than pearl.

Once you have adjusted for the correct white balance with the gray card, then shoot the car. You can shoot at one f stop above and below what the meter is reading in Manual mode. Or if you use the P mode (automatic), look at your first shot and get the f stop infor and shutter speed. Go to manual mode and maintain the same shutter speed and set the f stop one level above and below what it was in P mode. Of course you should do this only after setting the correct white color balance with the gray card. If you are using the pop up flash it sucks, you really need a flash gun fitted with a diffuser, I use an omni bounce flash diffuser that is like a little soft box on my flash. For flash I use a Sigma ef-500 DG Supra.

I doubt filters will do anything for you. You need to command the light to get the effect of the pearl in the final shot. Perhaps a haze filter dabed with some vasaline might work, but light and exposure are key. Also take into account what angelchild wrote. The angles of sun or light that hit the pearl is what will make it jump out on a photo. Keep using your Rebel, no need to wast money on film.

Make sure you shoot early in the morning with limited sun, under shade, and never in direct sunlight. Other tricks to try is to have someone hold a reflector to the car while you shoot, remember angelchild
said this also. These can be easyily made the chepo way. One is to use foam art board or a $6.99 silver windshield sun reflector from walgreens. Have an assistant hold the reflector to cath sun onto the car while you shoot, preferalbly with fill flash. If you have other questions shoot me an email. Yeah this is non VW stuff, but the results you can get go something like this (yeah I got a thing for bikini models and my car:

[luis]

Here are some links on gray cards:

http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/The_Grey_Card.html

http://www.apogeephoto.com/mag2-6/mag2-9st_1.shtml

http://www.goshen.edu/~marvinpb/graycd.html

This should allow you some more knowlege to use a gray card in order to get the correct exposure to show the pearl.

[Claire]

I'm hoping to be able to do this with a digital camera. It's a Cannon PowerShot A60, so there are no F-stops, no light meter, no bells n' whistles.

If I can't do it with the dig, then I'll dig out my old 35mm and will play with that. But I'd MUCH rather do this digitally if possible than devoting a lot of time and energy to this. I'm not planning to hang the photo on the wall, I'd just really like to get a decent photo that does the pearl paint justice for web stuff.
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[luis]

Yes even your Canon Power Shot can do this. I went to dpreview.com
to get the specs of your camera:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a60.asp

The camera will alllow you to go into manual mode where you can correct the white balance with a gray card. In manual mode your camera has control over the f stops and apperature. Try it, it could be a good learning experience! Never trust the automatic settings of any digital camera, they simply suck in the kind of shot you are attempting.

[Claire]

OK I'll check it out! Thanks!
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[angelchild]

Luis wrote

[The Fix]

[luis]

The fix,

Thanks for the compliment, hope this makes you happy:

[oicdn]

I would just use a flash, regardless of conditions. And it brought out the pearl. Found by dumb luck as I'm no photog, I just found that worked for me...

Or maybe I just got lucky with every shot in the sun...dunno...
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[Claire]

I haven't had much chance to experiment with the camera, but I've been toting it around and tried snapping photos in different light. Here are two...

It looks like the indoor lighting, close to the car might be the best to bring out the pearl- this one shows it the most:

Here is one out in the bright sunlight. Results weren't quite as good:

I guess I'll have to go back to that garage and try some diffent angles to see what I get! I can always darken the background with Photoshop, so I'm not too concerned about the background. But the close-up lighting did give it kind of a neat, sparkly show-room effect that might yield some nice results.
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[Claire]

I just Photoshop'd the indoor lighting garage photo above. Here it is with the background removed darkened and the bug enhanced a bit. This is a little more like what I'm after!

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[oicdn]

I had a picture in direct sunlight, much like the conditions you had and when teh flash was on, the pearl showed. I have no idea why, but it just did.

Awesome paintjob BTW.....
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[CALI47]

i noticed when i took a pic of my old vw w/ pearl the best pic was when it was dusk and the street light hit it just right. i used a 4.99 wally world cam and it came out great. i think it was the street light which made it possible. you could see it esp around the curves