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no matter what you do in estimating, having the pictures that support what you
write
having a picture that support what you show your customers is critical
in a lot of that is about photography in just having a few simple tricks up your
sleeve
is going to get you the best pictures. Larry let's talk about
the type of camera or the types of cameras that repair centers and even
adjuster should be looking at for their photography
well you don't want something a low range, 50, 60 dollar camera
you don't really need a five six thousand dollar
Nikon or Canon professional camera for
you know weddings or action shot your your your
subject is not moving it standing still you want to get something that has
you know has fairly decent battery life has probably an SD card
in this there so you can store a lot of photos on there and you probably want you know
some good flash with it and that's really about it
you wanna make sure also most the point shoots I like this one here so a bigger
than a point shoot versus the candy bar size
a has a macro lens on it or macro abilities such and get some close ups
and stuff like that
and you want to get one of the name-brand once the it stays for a while if there's
any problems with it is always support
usually something online on how to use that particular camera to give you some
tips
right now what we are talking about when we mention macro so we hear that a lot of
people look at me know and say is that the little flower setting on the camera
and answers yeah and that's generally what rules out most to your cell phones
are your iPad or whatever your photography tool
because they don't have that feature now there is on the iPhone some external
clips you can buy
that add lenses and give you those features but still getting the focus is hard to
do
and what it does is it just affects your focal length so if you have a macro
application on camera gonna be able to get within an inch or so
of damage part you're trying to show which is really great when you're in those
tight engine compartments
trying to throw something on the suspension or very small damage to a
part. etc
now if you don't have that feature about the closest you're gonna be able to get
is nine to 12 inches and a lot of times it makes it *** certain cars to show
damage even show scratches or show the mechanical damage that is there
shops don't need to spend a thousand dollars on a camera
between a hundred and and maybe 250 tops
you know especially if the guys drop the cameras a lot you know you wanna
and you can buy sometimes in bulk, i got one shop that i console for and
every tech has a camera and they go on to grab the cards and take
you know for each R.O. so that comes in handy now we were talking about
documenting the damage there's a couple things that I like doing in a photo routine
you and i talked about it earlier about documenting the vehicle itself
so before you can start to document the damage from an estimate, I'm going to take some
pictures to document the car
what are some of those photos that the estimator needs to be taking
each state has sometimes different rules regulations why you have to take photos
so check with your own state law but basically
for your own protection you follow a general rule, you want the license
plate you want to take the public VIN which is the one in the windshield
you wanna then check that also to the sticker or
the VIN sticker on the B pillar the door in the glove box
wherever it might be on the car want to get a picture of the mileage you might also want
to start the car if it's
okay to start the car meaning that the oils inside the car wasn't a rollover
you don't want to cause hydraulic lock up
Let's say a normal collision the nothing's leaking out of the car, you start the car
let it run for a minute
you can see in the picture the RPM's are about 1500 2000 but then you'll see
lights on the dash board
if there's a malfunction indicator A lamp that's present because there is something wrong
with the engine may be a check engine light maybe it's an airbag lamp
on so least then you have a process of seen that
you want to get the mileage obviously and then I
are you might want to take a picture the model meaning the
the Benz that we have here is pretty easy to GLK 350
but let's say you have somebody GM's or the Toyotas
What's a LS? What's a Lt? what's a GXC What's a SC? so
that sometimes can change the parameters of what standard on the car and not
every database
estimating system will decode the car totally will still ask you sometimes an
option model
now as we start to document the damage and I'm I'm going around the car I found my
damage and I'm going to start
taking my photos too match what I'm estimating what are tips to photographing
damage, you got your standard four corner pictures everyone knows that some
states like New York state requires lease for corner pictures
my suggestion is take four corners at bare minimum if you can get the full
front
the full rear, full left and right side you can take those. if you can only get two
of three, take those
the more pictures you have the better off you are. Once you're done
with the overall pictures
you want to start attacking your damage now, so if we have a
a vehicle like this and it has some damage to bumper cover the headlight
the fender and goes on to the door I would start like I would write my
estimates with the bumper cover
the big issue that I see a lot of people take is still take a picture of the
bumper cover which is down low here
and I'll take you from this position with the camera kinda angled
mostly like this, its on an angle so it's going down
you're not getting a full view of it. the best thing to do is to either bend down
like into a catcher's position
or hold the camera low. obviously some older people or some people with bad
knees may not be able to do that
you can still see through the viewfinder in the back you can still take the photo
you wanna have the camera looking level like your eyes would so you can tell the
story
and I wouldn't take the close up of the damage I take a little further back
maybe come in a little bit and then if I have some scratches or some sort of disformity
that I need to really take close-up picture
I can go to macro drill into about on 12 inches
and keep in that area take my photo after I'm done with that just like you
write your estimate I go to the headlight
get photos that I'd open the hood and take photos of the back side of the head
light while it's still attached
then once it's off you repeat the process and that's the idea behind
following in telling the story
you mentioned a little earlier some tips about how do we get the deformity and
whether its graph paper
or some people pick rulers or whatever what are some tools are some things that
a shop can make or have on hand that will help them show damage in pictures when
the color of the car makes it hard
well the in I i believe it's ASA I think as a free printable
lined paper data are they put out to their members
you can just get graph paper at any, you know, staples or anything like that
any office supply place
you can lay out your own piece of plastic
you can have and you can just lay tape lines on their the idea is to give some
sort of contrasting
are area so when you do reflection of the car you can see where now the line
is straight then all the sudden it goes wobbly
you know that there's a dent there something you could also use a car
or in this case later on we're gonna see the frame machine
is reflective on the side of this black car and its straight going through
so I know that is really no deformity to the door if I wound up seeing an area
kinda waved around
we would see a deformity or know that there is a deformity in there
my notes will reflect that were kinda damages there that we talked a little bit about
you know
Kinda some of the tips and tricks to the pictures so let's talk a little bit about my pet
peeves for you and I both have spent over our course of our careers a lot of time
in courtrooms having pictures blown out more things I can't stand it when I have
a picture that as the person taking the picture in the picture
for supports it's always the picture that you actually needed
and the blocking it yeah exactly so how do have where know you take
the pictures from the reflectiveness
with some other colors in the cars and stay out of the picture when it goes
in your file
a lot of times I think it's the mistake of not knowing you camera
realize that you do have a fairly decent size back into this that you can see a
lot of area
you can send off to the side sometimes just angling the camera to the subject
can also help. once again, at eye level but angling left or right
will take you are the photo but also still give you a good shot of what
damage you're trying to interpret in the photo
Because what you're doing is trying to interpret something that somebody else is going to have
to look at
afterwards so you need to tell the story through the pictures
so it's important to look at your viewfinder not always look
like you're looking through your eye and like gonna take it from here cause this is
what I can see right now
and a lot of times people don't realize you have to get at eye level
now one of my other pet peeves is over exposing a picture
so the shop seem to set the camera on that automatic mode where they don't
feel like they're making any adjustments
and I get a lot over flash overexposed
and can't see anything well what are the effects when you over expose a picture
it's a crappy picture it's always once again just like the person being in
the picture their finger
a lot of times being in the picture the camera will focus on your finger
and miss the back shot
of the damage actually wanted see want to put a blurry back picture I got a
beautiful picture the finger
usually not manicured so the big thing is don't have your finger in the
picture
use some sort point to write on this subject of where you wanna shoot
not in front of it because the cameras gonna pick up on that
don't have a self-reflective and then obviously with the
with the over flashing you gotta take a look at the picture
sometimes the flash is needed sometimes it's not, and you also gotta realize
through once again experience
shutting the flash off while it's on auto, and taking the photo sometimes might
look dark in this little small 2, 3 inch screen
but then when you get on the laptop or a desktop computer
the picture looks fine you can always lighten or darken a picture later
it's not for core purposes it's really just to prove that you have damage there
so you can lighten or darken the picture. one of the things to keep in mind we
talk about light is a lot of times the flash is
always going to overexpose your picture and that rarely happens when I see shops
trying to take pictures that are within the engine compartment
or around the suspension are in the undercarriage the car we feel like it's
so dark in there already the flash turns on and I guess get this bright burst of
into the car
and the camera kinda forgets what it's suppose to be taking a picture of. having a
hand-held light or secondary light source into the car with you take those
pictures
even if you're outside in the Sun light can make a big difference in the
pictures that were taken and the overall quality
even if you have the Flash on auto with that light bouncing off whatever its
bouncing off the car
will some times shut of the metering in the in the camera so even though it's on auto
although we may not fire the
flash now because you have this extra light source and the LED's public view
of the most a model I which really common assistance
if you trying to backlight something more trying over flood the area with some
light
so the camera to take the picture clearly for your represent what you are looking
for
we talked a little bit about some tools to have there's a couple of tools
that I see use frequently they are really helpful in pictures
and those are rulers and gap gauges. what benefit do they have to repair
the while the gap gauge gives you a quick assessment of
the distance between panels obviously a bits three to six millimeters depending
on the manufacturer
some manufactures actually produce exact tolerances of gaps
but you follow that normal 3 to 6 millimeters
in areas I mean the left side versus the right side should be relatively the same
if I have two millimeters on one side have eight on the other side
when i'm looking at a fender to door gap obviously the nose is probably shifted over
more than likely. BMW puts out a really cool step
type of hard plastic gap gauge its the same numbers on both sides so its left
side and right side
which is handy and then any type rules really comes in handy to give you
height measurements and also you can use it to do some quick measurements
underneath the hood
or even wheel position but I like it
for shops to actually take a photo of the car together with a ruler in front
of it
so we kinda know where the height damage is on the car
in case later on as a sub gation case it actually helps out the insurance company
or
sometimes like what I have to do through line technical
I have to do investigation sometimes in that would really help out a lot those
extra photos of a ruler in there now i dont have to
get an example vehicle to try and do the same type measurement
now when we're talking about proof in what you're doing, one of the things that is often
missed in photography in a shop
is proof of replacement when it's compared to the damaged part we always
get maybe an after repair
picture but we always forget the side by side, and that's real important to you
it's tremendously important. I have a pet peeve about
shops leaving labels
on replacement parts but in essence a lot of times it proves they replaced the
part
i mean it looks sloppy it's not good you take a bumper cover off and there are labels
on everything
but it proves the shop changed it well how can you do that well you should
really take off the labels of suspension parts and stuff like that sometimes gets
forgotten or overlooked
but you want to have two pictures of the new part installed and the old part
what also comes in handy as if the adjuster
and/or estimated damage assessor in the shop actually took a picture of the
damage suspension part
and now we have an undamaged suspension part, well obviously you had to change it
so even if the tech misses a you still have the new one in there but somebody
took a picture the damage part beforehand once again it's all about proof
documentation proving that I did do something to this car
just like when it's on the frame machine you wanna have your measurements there
before during and after the same type of thing
always have proof for documentation if you've been in this business very long
at all that at some point your career you've had an argument over a repair or
replace issue on a car something that's already been done and delivered and now
that after the fact you're having a discussion what should be paid
usually always comes into photography or if you've been audited recently under
the RP program usually your photography is the wings that's there, your estimate was
dead on but if you couldn't prove it with what you had in the file
it tends to make that auditor a little cranky so take time to learn to get
better with your photography
familiarize yourself with your camera in the options that it has invest in a few
additional items to make your pictures better
remember the simple thing of all is just review them before you finish in upload
them
and ask yourself if I didn't have the estimate I was only looking at the
pictures
what I be able to pay the amount but I'm requesting and if that's the case
we're probably gonna get paid for everything that you got on that line
right
like i've always said, the people, put yourself in the insurance company shoes
if you hit somebody's car, and you had to pay out of your pocket and they came to you with this
proof that you're shown insurance company
would you pay them so if I got a picture of it
you better pay me if i don't have a picture, more like an argument that
you now maybe I didn't take care of it or maybe I didn't do it there could be
some doubts so you always want to have a photo to back it up
if you have any questions about cameras go online, we have a couple
of videos about cameras selections and things for videos
and camera selections for photography tips and tricks are some things that are
there
and a little checklist to go along with your photography some things to think about
and it will sample the tools that we mention in the video
you may want to consider having your shop thanks!