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Why the 3GS fashion shoot is misleading

By Joshua Schnell Wed, Jul 7, 2010 @ 6:18 PM

Sure, the iPhone can take photos, and sure, someone could use it to do a top-end fashion shoot, but there’s a little bit of a problem with Lee Morris’s claim that he was capable of doing a photoshoot with an iPhone. Don’t get us wrong; the photos he has taken are stunning, and really show off the full capabilities of a camera phone, but we’d really like to see how these images hold up beside some other camera phones on the market before we get all frothy at the mouth looking at them.

Why are we such a downer? Well, there’s a lot that’s going on to make these photos look as good as they do. Here’s some points to consider while watching the video (below).

Lighting, lighting, lighting

westcott monte Why the 3GS fashion shoot is misleading

You can get amazing photos out of any piece-of-crap camera if you spend a ton of cash on lighting your subjects. My crappy Cybershot point and shoot camera takes exquisite photos outside, but once we move inside, it’s game over. At 3:18 of the video below, Lee Morris, explains his lighting setup for the photo shoot. Cost of the lighting used: approximately $4,000.

Here’s some prices we’ve put together, in an educated guestimate of the lighting rig he shows off at 3:18 in the video.

Chimera Pro II Bank Medium Strip x 2— $439.90
Westcott Monte Window Light Complete Studio Kit — $3479.00
Studio Light Stands x 2 — $79.90

Total: $3,998.80 Canadian, or $3,817.78 USD approximately.

That’s not including the lights for the Chimera Pro II Bank Strips, or the overhead barebulb hair light system he has set up, which can also be quite the expense.

Then there’s the price of the giant softbox (~$830.00), and other softbox and stands he uses for the “fashion” type photos.

Not exactly something an everyday iPhone user would have kicking around their apartment, is it?

How much time to postprocess?

post processing Why the 3GS fashion shoot is misleading

Right off the start Morris says he’s going to send the best photos off to an editor who’s going to do everything he can to make the photos looks as professional as he can. How much time was spent in touching up the photos in Photoshop, LightRoom, or Aperture? You can make the world’s worst photo look stunning if you spend enough time in one of these applications.

How much money went into the process? We’ll never know.

Final Point

Photography is about lighting and managing your light in the best possible way. If you have your lighting down, you can make the world’s worst camera look amazing. So sure, if you can spend over $5,000 on lights to make your iPhone photos pop you’ll get amazing photos, but don’t expect to get these photos from your iPhone unless you’re willing to pony up the cash.

Mad Props

We do have to hand it to him to think about using the iPhone 3GS for a photoshoot, and for proving that quality has very little to do with the camera in your hand, and everything to do with your skillset and ability to control light.

Video in Question

Article Via Twitter

  • http://islandinthenet.com/about-island-in-the-net/ Khürt L Williams

    I do not see the 3GS fashion shoot as misleading. Fashion photography involves all the lighting equipment and makeup and retouching that was used in the 3GS fashion shoot. I don’t know any professional photographers that don’t use this equipment.

    Besides the intent was not to show that the iPhone 3GS camera was superior to some other smartphone camera, it was meant to illustrate a point about something every good photographer knows – It’s not the equipment that makes the photo, it’s the photographer.

  • http://islandinthenet.com/about-island-in-the-net/ Khürt L Williams

    I’m sure my comment will be ignored and people will insists it’s the equipment. Great. I’m sure that you think a pair of expensive clubs will make you play like Michael Jordan or that a titanium bicycle frame will make you competitive with Lance Armstrong.

    • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

      It’s a good comment, but I think the equivalent would be Tiger Woods playing golf with a no-name golf club, hitting the ball a mile, and then being like… these clubs still hit the ball 400+ yards.

      My point was that these photos are taken by a professional, in a professional studio. It doesn’t mean the 3GS phone will take excellent photos for the average person.

      He proved his point well, the camera doesn’t make the photo.

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  • http://Fstoppers.com Lee morris

    I would like to write a full response to this. Let me know of you are interested

    • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

      I’d love it if you did. We can run the article here if you’d like. :)

  • http://fstoppers.com Patrick Hall

    Hey man, thanks for sharing our video. Send me an email and I’ll give you my phone number and explain why our shoot could have cost $400 or less. Those strobes you reference weren’t needed because we didn’t use strobes. And photoshop is pretty cheap and easy if you take some time to learn how to do it. Glad you posted the three images side by side, look at the difference between 1 and 2…it’s very very small. Probably took 10 mins max to do that job and the final shot is a single push of a button with a program Lee has. Anyways, sorry it was misleading. We weren’t trying to prove the iphone was better than another camera phone but rather that our audience (pro and semi pro photographer) are always complaining that because they have a generation or two old camera they can’t create compelling images. We wanted to prove them wrong with changing that camera to the worst camera ever!

    • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

      Prove them wrong you did. :) It was a great video to be honest. Lee’s offered to do a response, and I’m looking forward to reading it. :)

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  • http://fstoppers.com Lee Morris
  • http://refl3x.blogspot.com Alex No Logo

    “You can make the world’s worst photo look stunning if you spend enough time in one of these applications.”

    May be, and that’s true, but if you’re a photographer you don’t need to do that, you create images strong enough to avoid spending hours working in a low quality picture to look stunning. And you can do a raw stunning picture with an Iphone, an old soviet film camera or the last and expensive’s Hasselblad camera. That’s the point of the whole thing, I think :)

    • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

      Certainly, and he did an excellent job of illustrating that the quality of the photo has everything to do with the person wielding the camera, and not the camera itself. My point was that these photos are taken by a professional, and in a professional setting. The typical iPhone user is not going to be able to reproduce these photos very easily using a 3GS.

      My beef was with the hype on Twitter about how “amazing” the 3GS camera is out of the box.

  • Amy Pinney

    You have completely missed the point of that video altogether. It had nothing to do with the lights, or how much he paid for retouching (which, by the way, i should point out that your statement about making ” the world’s worst photo look stunning if you spend enough time in one of these applications” is completely erroneous.) but it has everything to do with pointing out that your camera doesn’t take great pictures, you do. He wasn’t trying to take a great picture with ONLY a 3Gs, he was simply showing that he could conduct a fashion shoot exactly as he normally would, only replacing the camera with a different, “worse” one. He never claimed to conduct the shoot with only the iPhone as you suggest in your first statements that he has….and I’m fairly certain you might be the only one who took it that way.

    • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

      I’m pretty sure I got the point, “We do have to hand it to him to think about using the iPhone 3GS for a photoshoot, and for proving that quality has very little to do with the camera in your hand, and everything to do with your skillset and ability to control light.”

      My point: You take away the lighting setup in this video, and you’re not going to get the stunning photos that he walked away with. The iPhone 3GS doesn’t take awesome photos for the average person, but if you know what you’re doing, you’ll be able to take some stunning photos.

      Also. Photoshop retouching absolutely does amazing things to photos. While Lee points out in his rebuttal that he didn’t use much of it, it can certainly turn a mediocre looking subject into a supermodel pretty quickly. Post-processing is a huge part of the industry.

      • http://fstoppers.com Lee Morris

        Joshua,

        Your article was very fair and well written. That is the only reason that I even commented on it. I think we are in total agreement. Without the lighting the iPhone couldn’t have taken impressive looking images but I would also say that NO camera can take a good picture without good lighting. Thanks for inspiring me to write my post. It took a while but I think at least some people will appreciate it. You have made a Macgasm fan out of me.

        Lee

  • Ryan

    I think the point of this article, on the surface, is even more misleading than the photo shoot itself. This entire shoot can be done for under $100 with some standard lightbulbs and bed sheets. The guy was just lucky to have high end equipment already. His equipment is expensive coz it’s made for strobe lighting. The modeling lights on those things are no different than a common lightbulb found in home depot.

    What is originally meant to inspire people to keep shooting with their dated equipment is now 2nd guessed because people like you failed to see the big picture. It’s not about proving that the 3gs is an amazing camera phone, it’s about going out there and shooting with what you already have regardless of the spec.

    The world is now full of pixel-peepers and tech whores who take all of this to the extreme and try to make us believe that the latest and greatest is the only way to take good pictures.

    I’m sorry but this article is counter productive for the photography community.

  • Matt

    Sure this video has evoked a huge response form the online community…but let me say that I’ve seen the video, read your article and his rebuttal and I don’t really feel he should have had to really write it…

    among a myriad of comments that show you didn’t take the time to fully listen and watch the video…this comment “You can make the world’s worst photo look stunning if you spend enough time in one of these applications.” is simply not true!

    Garbage in Garbage out…

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