Portable lights open up new possibilities: Advantages of flash strobes in automotive photography

 

 

Automotive photography is its own special kind of photography that comes with unique challenges. Unlike a person, it isn't easy to have a car just move around or change its pose. Instead you're often forced to reposition yourself and your lights when you want to change the shot. This is where smaller lights, such as accessory flash strobes, come in.

Australian photographer Ben Hosking recently shot a Holden Commodore for Street Commodores magazine and shared a behind the scenes video of his work. He used three Godox flashes (two of them V860 models and one V850) in addition to Canon camera equipment including a Canon 7D DSLR, 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 and EF 24-70mm lenses.

In the behind the scenes video below, Ben shares his settings for each shot. You also can see him using a few neat tricks for lighting. His flashes are being shot through white umbrellas and he is having an assistant hold up white gator board to act as a reflector. You don't need to get fancy to get great results! For an engine bay shot, Ben even placed a light down inside and it was triggered remotely. An advantage of smaller strobes, besides being light enough to move around at will, is that you can tuck them away in places big lights wouldn't fit.

Aspiring automotive photographers can see some cool angles to shoot their next car in the video above as well. To see the images from the video, see this post over at Fstoppers. For more from Ben Hosking, visit Hosking Industries. 

(Seen via Fstoppers)