Thanks for the complements, guys!
Just for the photo critics on here: You can't dismiss an entire set of photos with a "too much HDR" comment. Just not doing HDR would not look better. $2-3K+ in lighting equipment might look better if carefully setup for each shot... but then less than half of the shots would have even happened (see paragraph at the end). If you take shots with very little background and you have blown out white sky and you like the way they turn out, that's fine... I just can't relate to that.
1. (HDR) Not an easy shot to edit... red car turns pink, grey car turns purple with the slightest adjustment. Even with HDR, it was hard to get the cars to balance with the buildings. Could have edited each car and the background separately and combined the 3 resulting pictures... but that would have taken over three times longer. Shot would have turned out better a little earlier in the day (see my comments at the end).
2. (HDR) Wouldn't change a thing. Looks exactly the way I wanted it. i actually drew the entire corner of the bumper back on where it had a lot of paint missing.
3. (HDR) Wouldn't change a thing. Looks exactly the way I wanted it.
4. (HDR) Crazy lighting and the exposure was a little off... most would have thrown this one out. After editing several parts of the pictures separately and recombining them, it came out okay. Only way to make it better is to retake the picture. Having 2 minutes to shoot because you are getting kicked out of your location sucks (pics 2 and 3 were taken in the same 2 minutes).
5. (HDR) Only thing I would have changed is to change the angle of the shot slightly where has a little more of the street.
6. (HDR) I think it turned out really good. The HDR added so much more depth to the paint. I wish I had changed the lens from the wide angle to the 30mm and taken the picture a little further back, but it still looks good as is.
7. (HDR) Wouldn't change a thing. Looks exactly the way I wanted it.
8. (HDR) Background looks exactly the way I wanted. I actually did a separate HDR image with different settings for the car and then pasted it in the picture (after the car turned out with really dark spots with the background settings). Car still doesn't look exactly how I wanted, but I did everything I could with what I had. If I had taken around 6-7 different exposures instead of 3, it might have done better.
9. (HDR) Car looks a little pinker than I wanted... maybe it's just me. I did make it look a lot more red than it did originally.
10. (HDR) Bad lighting... light above the grey car did some funky things to the picture. At least I know what not to do regarding parking deck lighting now.
11. (HDR) I didn't like the regular picture when I tried editing it. The car turned really purple/blue when trying to make a realistic looking HDR. So, I intentionally over did some of the settings just for the effect... can't decide if I like it or not. I just did it for fun at the last minute before posting these.
12. (not HDR - SB-700 flash) I like it, and I don't normally like the fisheye on regular shots on the outside of the car.
13. (HDR) Wouldn't change a thing. Looks exactly the way I wanted it. You wouldn't know it was HDR if I didn't tell you. I tried doing it without HDR and it just looked really flat. HDR once again added a lot more depth and improved lighting.
14. (HDR) Wouldn't change a thing. Looks exactly the way I wanted it.
15. (not HDR - SB-700 flash) Looks exactly the way I wanted it. I wish I had done a shot with the door opened, too.
16. (not HDR - SB-700 flash) The light seen through the hatch at the top annoys me... should have repositioned the car.
17. (not HDR - SB-700 flash) Wouldn't change a thing. Looks exactly the way I wanted it.
18. (not HDR - SB-700 flash) Could have played with lighting more. Love the fisheye on the overall engine bay, but I definitely wish I had switched lenses and done some more detail shots in addition.
19. (HDR) Should have repositioned the car or used the flash to improve the lighting.
20. (HDR) Wouldn't change a thing. Looks exactly the way I wanted it. You wouldn't know it was HDR if I didn't tell you. Without HDR, the picture just looks flatter and the tattoo doesn't pop as well. Love this shot.
I'm still learning both on how to use my equipment and what to do/not to do on a shoot like this. The outside shots were rushed to say the least (got started late due to a starting issue on one of the cars, first location could not be used, got kicked out of the second location, and finally got going at a third location but was losing light very fast). More lens changes and more close-up, detailed shots next time for sure. Will definitely learn how to use the flash for some fill-lighting outside (I got the SB-700 flash the week before the shoot). Some graduated and ND filters are on my list of future purchases. Definitely want to play around with stacking more than 3 images in HDR which will require me doing more than just turning on 3 exposure bracketing (HDR haters won't even know it's HDR).
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