How to photograph a car for sale: a practical guide for dealers
A step-by-step guide to photographing used cars for online listings. Prep, light, background, angles and the mistakes that cost you calls, for dealers shooting on a phone or a basic camera.
Start with the car, not the camera
Most bad car photos are bad before the camera comes out. A dirty car looks neglected in a photo even when it was serviced last week, and a camera is far less forgiving than your eye. Wash it, dry it, and give the wheels and the glass a proper clean. Wipe the door shuts and the sills, because they show in nearly every angle.
Then deal with the small things a buyer will notice and you have stopped seeing. Straighten the steering wheel, remove air fresheners and parking permits, and take the sat nav suction mount off the screen. A clean car with nothing hanging off it looks like a car someone has looked after.
Pick the light before you pick the spot
Light does more for a car photo than any piece of kit. Hard midday sun puts bright hot spots on the bonnet and roof and deep black shadows under the car. Rain and low grey cloud flatten everything and turn the paint dull.
The best conditions for outdoor photos are soft and even: an overcast but bright day, or the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset when the sun is low and warm. If you are stuck with harsh sun, park the car in open shade, not under a tree, because leaves throw spotty shadows and green light onto the paint.
Choose a background that does nothing
The background should not be interesting. A buyer is looking for the car, and every bin, van, sign and passer-by in the frame competes with it. A plain wall, an empty corner of the lot or an open stretch of tarmac all work. Cars parked behind yours are the most common problem, because they make the whole lot look crowded.
Be careful with glossy paint. It acts like a mirror, so whatever is behind the camera ends up in the doors and bonnet. A tree line, a building or a bright sky will all be painted across the panels. Which brings us to the second part of the problem, covered in detail in our piece on reflections.
Shoot from the right height and distance
Hold the camera at about headlight height, roughly the middle of the car. Shooting from standing eye level looks down on the bonnet and makes the car seem small and squat. Shooting from the ground exaggerates the front end and can look aggressive.
Stand back and zoom in a little rather than stepping up close with a wide lens. A wide phone lens held near the car stretches the nearest corner and shrinks the far end, so the car looks distorted. Aim for a distance where the whole car fits with a small margin around it. If you are using a phone, use the main camera, not the ultra-wide one.
The shots every listing needs
A buyer wants to walk around the car without being there. That means a front three-quarter, a straight side profile, a rear three-quarter, the full front and the full rear. Then the details that decide the sale: wheels and tyres, the dashboard from the driver's seat, the front and back seats, the boot with the floor visible, the engine bay, and the odometer.
See our full shot list of the angles every listing needs for the order we suggest. The front three-quarter goes first, because it is the picture that appears on search results and decides whether anyone clicks.
Photograph the flaws as well
It feels wrong to point the camera at a scratch. It is also the cheapest way to avoid wasted viewings. A buyer who has already seen the chipped alloy and the scuffed bumper arrives expecting them. A buyer who finds them in person feels misled, and a misled buyer negotiates hard or leaves.
Take one clear, well-lit close-up of each mark worth mentioning and say so in the listing. This is the principle behind honest car photos: the photo can be beautiful and still be truthful.
Be consistent from car to car
One car photographed well is a good listing. Fifty cars photographed the same way is a good business. Pick one spot, one set of angles and one routine, and use them on every car. Buyers scrolling your stock list should see a lot that looks like it belongs to one company.
In practice this is the hardest part, because weather, staff and time of day all change. It is the main reason dealers turn to a studio booth, whether a physical one or a software one like Carzbooth, which stands every car in the same booth whatever the photo looked like when it was taken.
A simple checklist to pin to the wall
Clean car, clear screen, steering wheel straight. Soft light, no hard shadows. Plain background, nothing behind the car. Camera at headlight height, from a sensible distance. Same set of angles every time. Close-ups of any flaws. Landscape for the listing, portrait for social posts.
If your photos already tick most of those boxes, the next gains come from the finish: a consistent background and no reflections. That is the part a booth does for you.