Lee Morris does a fashion shoot all on an iPhone (3GS) - doesn't tell anyone and gets critiques

[FreeState]

Fascinating - it goes to prove it does not matter what camera you have, its your vision and talent that shine through.

http://fstoppers.com/iphone/

A few weeks ago I did a full fashion photo shoot with my iPhone 3gs. I posted a few of the images and asked people to critique them (never exposing that they were shot on my cell phone). I couldn’t help but laugh when a few of our readers claimed that these were “the best images I had ever taken.” Nobody ever claimed that they were too grainy, too soft, or lacked detail.

...snip....

So a few months ago I called Olivia Price; “Hey Olivia, would you be willing to let me do a full photoshoot with you but I’m only going to use my iPhone camera.” I had worked with Olivia before, and I must have gained her trust because even though she was very busy she agreed to model for me. Luckily, we set up the shoot right before she was scheduled to move to LA to continue her acting career.

Next I called the local high end hair salon in town, Stella Nova. Madison LeCroy and Tiffany Starnes agreed to donate their time and talent to be a part of this shoot.

I then contacted Pratik Naik of Soltice Retouch. Pratiks portfolio is mind blowing and I was thrilled when he agreed to do the skin retouching for the video.

Travis Harris, a photographer from Miami was in town for the week and he agreed to help Patrick Hall film the whole day.

I now had a full team of extremely talented people and I had yet to even test the phone’s camera capability in the studio. At this point I was scared that I may be in over my head. What if the iPhone wasn’t capable of creating good quality images? A few days before the shoot I called Patrick Hall over to my house to help me test out the camera. I set up a standard square beauty lighting scheme and got Patrick to stand in. I took this shot:

[alfredo]

1. It's not the tool, it's the man that wields them. Lovely images.

[NV Whino]

2. What he doesn't tell you

is you can never use these for print production unless you use them verrrry small. The iPhone doesn't have enough pixels to produce 300 dpi photos at any sort of decent size. I don't disagree with his point in general, but come on – the lights cost as much as a decent camera. And using a retoucher is really cheating.

[FreeState]

3. Actually they would not be teeny - not poster size but large enough to print

Im a graphic designer, most magazines we ready art for are 150 dpi. The iPhone takes large enough pictures to do a full page ad.

iPhone 3GS takes photos at 2,048px x 1,536px (21.33 inches x 28.44 inches)

printing at 150 = 13 inches x 10.24 inches
printing at 300 = 6.82 inchesx 5.12 inches


He touches on the retouching in the article (he has two the one he paid for was for the video not the images, the images, like all images used in fashion prints are retouched - he uses photoshop.)

That being said I dont see anyone switching to an iPhone for production photography outside of showing what its capable of:)

[NV Whino]

6. dpi vs ppi

For clarification for those who haven't been involved in print production:
For 150 d(dots)pi (lithographic magazine reproduction) you need 300 p(pixels)pi (out of the camera).

All that being said in your post, he is still cheating. The lights and the retouching make those photos. I think he defeated the purpose of his experiment saying that high priced equipment doesn't make the photo. He's right, of course, but he set about proving it the wrong way.

[Schema Thing]

8. One could make the same photo with lights and light modifiers purchased at home depot

and using an i-phone as the camera.

[Stevenmarc]

4. I liked the video of the shoot

You get to see what the retoucher did with the photos and all the lighting that was used to get that result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOoGjtSy7xY

[priller]

5. It's not the camera, it's the lighting

And having a beautiful model doesn't hurt either.

But he kind of undermines his own point of saying "you don't need expensive equipment" yet still using banks of lighting and a computer with Photoshop for the finished product.

[NV Whino]

7. Ooops

Should have read your post before I posted above. But we do agree.

[BrightKnight]

9. They look like the Polaroids used to check lighting.

The images are grainy and washed out, and a bit flat. It might be useful if you were going for that look and you did not need high resolution for reproduction.

The 35 mm still camera was invented to test lighting.

I cary a little point and shoot camera to places that I could never take my DSLR. I understand its limitations and I would not have a problem with showing the images to anyone. Photography is about images.

[comrade snarky]

10. I'd like to see what he could do

If the light kit was small enough to fit in his other pocket.