Step 1: Recondition & Stage Your Vehicle

• Curb appeal matters for car shoppers. The appropriate time investment to thoroughly recondition every vehicle ahead of a photoshoot is a necessary precondition. Ensure you have removed all personal items from the vehicle, covering storage compartments, footwells and seats. Give the seating, carpets, dashboard, centre console, steering wheel, door cards, driver controls, window glass and the trunk or pick-up bed sufficient attention. This should be accompanied by an extensive exterior cleaning, ensuring the entire vehicle is washed from front to back and top to bottom, covering all panels, wheels, tires, door, hood, and trunk jambs, and degreasing of the engine bay. What you’re aiming to achieve is as close to new of an appearance as possible – a vehicle you would be proud to display in your showroom.
• Park the vehicle against an uncluttered backdrop, preferably in front of dealership signage or your store’s facade. Using the same backdrop for all vehicles, and positioning them the same way, provides consistency across all of your listings. Make sure to remove any items in the background, such as garbage bins or delivery vehicles, that could cause visual noise.
• Straighten the steering wheel and set the screen to navigation, (if equipped), to a home screen or a radio station.

Step 2: Capturing the Exterior

• Avoid standing too close to the vehicle, as this approach can result in introducing distortion to the photograph. Rather, stand well back and use the zoom feature on your phone or camera, more specifically, the optical zoom, (avoid digital zoom to make certain your photos are of the highest possible quality, when the camera allows for it).
• Your photo set for each vehicle should include three-quarter shots from all four corners; straight-on from the front and rear; complete driver and passenger side view; a front wheel; and on a pick-up truck, the bed with the tailgate down, as well as the rear bumper and trailer hitch.

• Logo overlays, automatically layered into photos at time of upload to your 1-SOURCE Inventory Management Console, (available with AutoTrader.ca Used Vehicle Listings – Complete and Superior packages), occupy the upper or lower one fifth of the frame. Consider the framing of the vehicle to provide sufficient blank space ensuring the logo won’t cover or obstruct any aspect captured across each individual photograph.

• Having the sun behind you will limit the amount of glare in photos, however, make sure your shadow isn’t visible in photos. If necessary, stand farther back and make use of the optical zoom feature. If you can’t avoid glare from the sun, use your hand to provide sufficient shade to the camera lens.
• The recommended aperture when using a camera is around F8 to keep the vehicle in focus. Avoid apertures larger than F6, particularly when zooming in at focal lengths longer than 100mm, to avoid any possibility of the vehicle being out of focus.

• Capture the vehicle from midway height, behind slightly at the knees. Don’t tower over the car and avoid shooting from a low stance. Both approaches will result in an odd and unnatural looking visual.
• If photographing on a phone, enable the gridline feature to ensure photos are straight and centered in the fame, both vertically and horizontally.

Step 3: Quality Interior Shots

• When possible, capture the interior of every vehicle in a lightly shaded area to avoid sun glare, even if you must move the car.
• Positioning yourself in the middle of the backseat, photograph the entire dash and steering wheel at a focal length of 18mm or wider.
• While standing outside of the vehicle, open the front and rear doors to their maximal extent, and capture the first- and second-row seats straight on. Be sure to include some of the doorframe to demonstrate ease of entry and exit. Consider lowering the driver and passenger side window glass to shoot the front seats directly through the window frame.
• For a three-row vehicle, move the second-row seats forward to their entry position and photograph the rear seats, visually demonstrating the entry space.
• When shooting the instrument cluster, close all doors and hatch to avoid warning messages. Ensure the odometer reading is displayed within the cluster. Avoid displaying the fuel consumption read-out on a configurable instrument cluster, which may erroneously show an elevated figure if the vehicle was recently fuelled and only driven a short distance.
• Take isolated shots of the climate controls, centre console, centre screen, steering wheel, steering wheel controls, and, if applicable, all-wheel or four-wheel-drive controls.
• Take shots of special features you intend to promote, such as seat stitching, controls for heated or ventilated seats, power-folding rear seats, controls for safety as well as driver safety assist technologies, and more.