Best camera settings for car photography

The best camera settings for car photography do three things: keep the whole car sharp, keep bright paint and chrome from blowing out to pure white, and keep the color the same from one car to the next. Start with these and adjust for your light.

A recent phone takes excellent listing photos once you stop it from guessing. Set these up once, then check them before each car.

With a dedicated camera, aperture priority does most of the work: you set the aperture and ISO, the camera picks the shutter speed, and you check the result.

• Aperture: f/8. At normal shooting distances, it keeps the car sharp from the near bumper to the far one. Open up to f/2.8 to f/5.6 for details where a soft background helps.
• ISO: as low as the light allows, 100 to 400 outdoors. If the shutter speed gets slower than one over twice your focal length (1/100 s at 50mm), raise the ISO or use a tripod.
• Exposure: evaluative or matrix metering, then check the histogram and turn on the highlight warning. Paint and chrome that clip to pure white can't be fully recovered, even from RAW.
• Focus: single-point autofocus about a third of the way into the car, which is near the front wheel on a three-quarter shot.
• White balance: pick a preset and keep it. Auto white balance shifts with every background, so the same silver car can come out blue on one listing and yellow on the next.
• RAW: shoot RAW so you can correct white balance and exposure for a whole batch at once.
• Tripod: set it to the same height for every car and mark the leg with tape. Your angles and exposure stay consistent across the lot.

About 50mm on a full-frame camera, or the 2x lens on a phone. It's close to how your eye sees the car, and it doesn't need a huge lot.

Focal length doesn't distort a car by itself. Distance does. A wide lens tempts you to stand close, and up close the nearest part of the car looks too big: a swollen nose and a shrunken tail. Step back and use a longer lens, and the car looks the way it does in person.

• 24mm and wider: interiors only.
• 35mm: works on a tight lot; watch the corners for stretch.
• 50mm: the default for every exterior angle.
• 70 to 85mm: flattering, and it compresses the background, but a full side profile needs 40 to 50 feet of room.
• 100mm and longer: details and marketing shots.

If you're buying one lens for car photography, a 24 to 70mm zoom covers interiors, exteriors and most details. Where to stand for each shot is in the car photography angles guide.

Soft, even light: an overcast day or open shade. A big, soft light source lays one smooth reflection across the paint, so the car's shape shows and the color stays true. Hard sun does the opposite, with hot spots on the hood, black shadows under the car, and a glaring sky in every window.

How to work with the car photography lighting you have:

• Overcast or open shade: the default for listing photos, at any time of day.
• Clear and sunny: shoot when the sun is low, or move the car into the shade of a building rather than a tree, which throws spotty shadows. Keep the sun behind you and off to one side.
• Golden hour: warm and dramatic, so save it for social posts and ads. It makes paint look warmer than it is, which can mislead on a listing.
• Showroom or indoors: switch off lights that don't match, since warm bulbs next to cool LEDs leave color casts, and set a custom white balance. Long ceiling panels reflect as stripes on the hood and roof, so move until they run along the car's lines instead of across them.
• Night: for marketing only. Use a tripod, ISO 100 to 400 and exposures of several seconds, and light the car with a large soft light or an LED wand moved along the body.

Where to park, and how to keep yourself out of the reflections, is in our car photography tips.

Paint color changes how the camera meters, so check every car instead of trusting the meter:

• White and silver: these clip first. Expose so the paint is as bright as it can be without the highlight warning blinking on the body.
• Black and dark colors: the meter tends to brighten dark paint until it looks gray, and every reflection shows. Lower the exposure until black looks black, and shoot in the softest light you can find.
• Bright red: saturated reds can clip the red channel before the others and lose their detail. Watch the RGB histogram, or pull the exposure down a third of a stop.
• Metallic and pearl: soft light shows the flake; hard sun turns it into glare.

On a phone, the same rule applies: drag the exposure control down until the brightest panel holds its detail.

Yes, on a dedicated camera. A circular polarizer is the one filter worth owning for cars. Turn its ring while you watch the windshield: the reflection fades and the interior shows through. On paint, it tames the sky's reflection and deepens the color.

• Adjust it again for each angle. The effect changes with your angle to the sun.
• It costs about 1 to 2 stops of light, so check your shutter speed.
• Don't remove every reflection. Paint with no shine looks flat and fake.
• Clip-on polarizers exist for phones. Test one on a car before you buy them for your whole team.

Yes, because the car in the finished photo is the car you shot. Settings decide whether it's sharp, true to color and free of glare. What settings can't fix is what's behind the car.

That's the part CarShots handles for dealers who shoot on a phone. Each photo comes back on a clean studio, showroom, outdoor or scenic backdrop in about 20 seconds, so a cluttered lot behind the car never reaches your listing. If one comes back a touch dark, ask for a change in plain words, like "make it a little brighter". See how the background changer works, or browse before and after examples.