DC Metro FCP UG

So before I say anything else let me start by saying; I created this video to simply show that you should not be limited by your camera. Obviously there was a lot that went into this shoot including a professional model, hair and makeup, a studio, lighting, and a retoucher. We may create another video in the future where we shoot with only natural light but this video is simply about the camera. There are so many photographers who are obsessed with noise, sharpness, color, dynamic range, megapixels, chromatic aberration, moire, distortion, etc. So many photographers get wrapped up in the technical side that they forget how to take compelling images. This video is for them.

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:

We were both shocked by the quality of the image. Once we uploaded the picture to the web, you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t shot on a DSLR. I now had the confidence I needed for the upcoming shoot.

The day of the shoot went very well. I tried to be as informative as possible in the video so I won’t go into great detail here about how the images were shot. After the shoot I sent the files over to Pratik for initial retouching. Once I got the files back I gave each of the images a “look” using different photoshop techniques and filters. In the video you can see the original image, Pratik’s retouching, and then my final editing.

People may claim that the original images don’t look that great but I was shooting with the intent of using Photoshop afterwards. If the backdrop paper didn’t fill the frame I knew I could easily fix it afterwards. With today’s market being what it is I see Photoshop as a necessary tool for every image I make. I am in the business of making money and my clients do not care if I got it perfect in the camera or made it perfect in post, they simply want a perfect image. It’s the same process with music. A band could record and entire album in 1 take, but what successful artist does that? Today, everyone records track by track one at a time and use software to combine them all together into a perfect mix.

A quality camera and lens is a fantastic tool to begin with but even the most expensive camera in the world is capable of taking bad pictures. When your clients view your work they aren’t thinking, “Wow I don’t see any chromatic aberration in this image!” They are simply thinking, “Wow, I can’t put my finger on it, but this looks great!” Olivia has one of these images as her profile picture, and it already has a ton of comments like: “G-L-A-M-O-R-OUS”, “LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”, you are so beautiful!!”… These are your clients; these are the people that will pay you to take an image and they are not pixel peepers. And many of you, who are photographers, even still said these are some of the best pictures I have ever taken. I can’t say that I agree with that but I will say they are pretty damn good for a cell phone.

You can view all of the edited images below both as high res raw and edited images here.

UPDATE: A lot of people have asked us what sort of budget equipment we could have used to create these photos. Here is a list of a few items that would make this possible on a budget:

Interfit Photographic 36? Octobox: Large enough for soft light; good on the wallet.

Pro Studio Solutions EZ Pro Strip Box softbox 12?x56? soft box with SpeedringGreat little strip box; this one is for Alien Bees but can be used with constant lights

Cowboystudio 24? x 36? softbox soft box for Alienbees Alien beesLarger softbox for beauty style lighting. Again, Alien Bee version

Cooper/Regent TQS1000 Twin Work Light 1000-Watt and StandThese would work so much better than our studio strobes. Just be careful with 1000 watts in a 1000 watt softbox, don’t let it run too long.

For more photography by Patrick Hall and Lee Morris, check out www.patrickhallphotography.com and www.rlmorris.com

The app is organized into 5 sections: RedEye, RedAngle, Lens2Lens, 4KStore, and RedSetGo:

“RedEye“ is a calculator that works out Depth of field (DoF)”

This section is a depth of field calculator – you punch in data for the lens (in mm), f stop, distance, feet or meters, and 16/35/Red sensor size, and it’ll tell you the following:
-hyper focal distance
-far focus limit
-far working distance
-focal distance
-near working distance
-near focus distance

A “More Info” option lets you input lens magnification factor or custom circle of confusion, if you want’em.

“RedAngle” is a calculator that works out Dimensional and Angular Field of View (FoV)”

You punch in the lens (in mm) and distance (in feet or meters), and iSee4K will tell you what the scene coverage will be – how tall and how wide, and what angles for the field of view for tall, wide and diagonal. Cool.

The More Info button allows for 2:1 or 16:9 aspect ratio, lens magnification factor, and the ability to crank in a custom sensor size – for those of you with other cameras.

“Lens2Lens“ is a Lens Equivalence Calculator”

You can crank in the lens (in mm) and f stop (what about t stops?) and 35mm/Red2K/3K/4K, then pick 35mm/Red2K/3K/4K for the 2nd camera, and it’ll give you the equivalent lens (in mm) and f stop for the other lens – handy.

Clicking More Settings lets you control aspect ratio (2:1 or 16:9), lens magnification factor, and custom sensor size – you can set all of those for either lens.

“4KStore“ is a storage calculator for REDâ„¢ footage”

This is one of my favorites, since it is such a hassle to figure out otherwise without a custom Excel sheet. Crank in the duration in minutes, punch in 2K, 3K, or 4K; 2:1 or 16:9 aspect ratio; Redcode 28 or Redcode 36; and framerate and it’ll tell you how many GB of storage it’ll take up. I’d love to see them add an option to run it the other way – crank in a capacity, and have it tell you how much time that’ll take up – which is a more practical limit on set I find – how much footage fits on a 8GB card, a 16GB card, or a Red Drive?

Hitting More Info lets you enable Variable Framerate, high detail scene (high datarate implied), and the custom frame rate if enabled.

Finally, you have my favorite -

“RedSetGo“ is a frame rate and timbase settings calculator for the RED ONEâ„¢ digital cinema camera ” – or as I’d frame it, the max frame rate calculator.

Crank in resolution, recording media (8/16GB CF or Red Drive), aspect ratio, Redcode 28 or 36, and it’ll tell you the maximum frame rate – otherwise you need to carry around a chart.

So there you go – this is a great little app that just needs a few little tweaks to be spot on. I’d also love to see the lesser text be not so dark – it is hard to read on screen. That and a bit more labelling to make things absolutely clear and it’d be perfect for my needs (oh, and the reverse storage/time calculator – see VideoSpace for a perfect model).

So if you if you’re going to be using a Red One for a shoot, EVER, and you or somebody on set has an iPhone or iPod Touch, this is a MUST have utility – go to iSee4K.com. There are very detailed explanations of the 5 tools on the site, and clicking the big icon in the middle takes you to the iTunes Store for the FREE download.

Regards,

DCFCPUG staff

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