Photographing a $2,500,000 Car with a $50,000 Camera

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXyBiDKXBXw?rel=0&showinfo=0&iv_load_policy=3]

How would you go about photographing a $2.5 million car? That’s the challenge photographer Richard Thompson faced last year when he was tasked with shooting the Pagani Huayra BC on the streets of New York. For this car, of which only 100 were produced, Thompson decided to use a Phase One XF 100MP medium format camera kit that costs over $50,000. …

For a straight-on photo, Thompson used a Schneider Kreuznach 240mm LS f/4.5 IF lens with a 2x converter, giving him a focal length of 480mm.

“It really appeals to me to shoot it through a longer lens,” Thompson says in the video. “The focal compression makes the car look a lot more serious, even bigger than it is.”

The shoot was mostly done with available light, but Thompson did use a set of Profoto B1 strobes, often in setups that mimicked the natural sunlight hitting the car.

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