Red Fashion Photography Dead?

[Josh Wilkinson]

Been forever since anything has been posted here. Had a fun shoot for a local model last week I thought I'd share.


HQ Gallery:
jwilkinsonstudios.com/liz

Shot on Scarlet Dragon

 

[Paul Jameson]

I would say that fashion photography in general is dead. It's there and still visible, so perhaps thats hard to come to grips with, but from someone who has been successfully shooting it for 20 years - i consider it over. I think fashion was a 50 year era and fascination that it is no longer relevant.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I would say that fashion photography in general is dead. It's there and still visible, so perhaps thats hard to come to grips with, but from someone who has been successfully shooting it for 20 years - i consider it over. I think fashion was a 50 year era and fascination that it is no longer relevant.

There's still fashion photography going on. Otherwise we wouldn't have clothes-ads. I just think that it's moved over to moving images more than stills. There are more and more moving posters popping up everywhere and print will soon die. Why print thousands of copies when you can buy time on screens and get the same or even better exposure? Here in Sweden we did a moving poster for the subways, where a girls hair was blown in the wind whenever the train rolled into the station. That kind of interactive or environmentally interactive marketing might become more popular. If you connect to the people actually viewing the ads it will have an extremely better effect in affecting consumers choice.

I would say that fashion photography has moved over to moving images, print is the thing that's dead or dying.

 

[Samir Patel]

Here in Sweden we did a moving poster for the subways, where a girls hair was blown in the wind whenever the train rolled into the station. That kind of interactive or environmentally interactive marketing might become more popular..

I remember seeing that somewhere online. It was very cool.

 

[Cameron McKinlay]

Fashion photography isn't dead, Fashion photography using a RED camera is dead. No legit photographer in their right mind would use a RED for a photoshoot. Too many complications to make it work right. And at the price of a RED, for photography, I would just buy a Phase One instead.

 

[BRANDON JAMESON]

Fashion photography isn't dead, Fashion photography using a RED camera is dead. No legit photographer in their right mind would use a RED for a photoshoot. Too many complications to make it work right. And at the price of a RED, for photography, I would just buy a Phase One instead.

+1...AGREED 110%

 

[Alberto Guglielmi]

I actually just did the opposite. Sold my 32+ MP camera to get a RED Epic....

 

[Rakesh Malik]

There are successful fashion and glamour photographers using 12 megapixel cameras. The scarlet-w is in that range, but with wider dynamic range and color, not to mention 16-bit color.

 

[Josh Wilkinson]

Fashion photography isn't dead, Fashion photography using a RED camera is dead. No legit photographer in their right mind would use a RED for a photoshoot. Too many complications to make it work right. And at the price of a RED, for photography, I would just buy a Phase One instead.

That's a fair enough point. It's still one of the best sensors on the market though.

 

[Zeb B]

Oh there's still plenty of fashion photography going on. If RED ever activated that Sync port or worked with ProFoto to incorporate their Air wireless in order to trigger strobes . . . they might have been taken seriously in the stills shooting arena. Add to that a lack of snappy AF and you have a movie camera that is a poor choice to shoot high resolution fashion other than to say you did. Stills was never a real priority so it never happened. Weapon is a very capable feature film camera. Leave the 99% of Pro stills work to Phase, Hassy, Canon and Nikon with Sony in the wings.

Take a Canon 1DxII, add a Bron Scoro and you're shooting 14fps RAW frames, with strobes, with AF updated between frames.

 

[Mark Andersen]

I'm going to be shooting fashion all next week on the Weapon in 6K, we want fashion video first and will pull stills for a web site secondly. We will also be doing a studio catalog shoot on Weapon, shooting vertically so the models can be moving on the catalog web site, but we will also, again, pull stills for other needs where online moving images (Amazon) isnt practical. I've pulled alot of misc. stills from the Weapon camera and I have every confidence that this scheme will work.

 

[Josh Wilkinson]

I'm going to be shooting fashion all next week on the Weapon in 6K, we want fashion video first and will pull stills for a web site secondly. We will also be doing a studio catalog shoot on Weapon, shooting vertically so the models can be moving on the catalog web site, but we will also, again, pull stills for other needs where online moving images (Amazon) isnt practical. I've pulled alot of misc. stills from the Weapon camera and I have every confidence that this scheme will work.

This is how I work and my Clients love it. But to them the video is the priority and I save them the hassle of hiring a photographer to come out and shoot.

Obviously were stills are the priority agencies are going to hire a "real" photographer to come shoot most of the time

 

[Cameron McKinlay]

Whats your lighting setup for these types of shoots? Camera settings? How do you deal with motion blur?

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Fashion photography isn't dead, Fashion photography using a RED camera is dead. No legit photographer in their right mind would use a RED for a photoshoot. Too many complications to make it work right. And at the price of a RED, for photography, I would just buy a Phase One instead.

You better tell that to Variety and all the big photographers who work with expensive shoots. :tongue_smilie:

But I agree in some regard, not due to the Red system itself, but because getting a video stream to have the same lighting quality as high end flashes would require extreme light setups. You don't get the same clarity without flash lights and you are unable to do fast gigs on locations without a big team. If you aren't shooting for Variety or have the entourage for such a shoot it's better to do medium format flash photography.

 

[Michael MacDonald]

I thought you could sync the flash with the profoto lights???

 

[Ulf Krentz]

You better tell that to Variety and all the big photographers who work with expensive shoots. :tongue_smilie:

But I agree in some regard, not due to the Red system itself, but because getting a video stream to have the same lighting quality as high end flashes would require extreme light setups. You don't get the same clarity without flash lights and you are unable to do fast gigs on locations without a big team. If you aren't shooting for Variety or have the entourage for such a shoot it's better to do medium format flash photography.

We use both (RED and MF Digital back) and it clearly boils down to what you´re producing. RED is in no way replacing a MF Stills camera but just another tool in the box that simply adds opportunities your MF system can´t deliver. Also I see no problem in getting "the same clarity" from HMIs in continuous lighting in comparison to high end flash used for stills or even with a RED.
@ Michael, yes you can trigger a strobe via the old side handle on DSMC, not sure about Weapon though.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

We use both (RED and MF Digital back) and it clearly boils down to what you´re producing. RED is in no way replacing a MF Stills camera but just another tool in the box that simply adds opportunities your MF system can´t deliver. Also I see no problem in getting "the same clarity" from HMIs in continuous lighting in comparison to high end flash used for stills or even with a RED.
@ Michael, yes you can trigger a strobe via the old side handle on DSMC, not sure about Weapon though.

Yes, of course there's room for Red in photography, the whole point of it is to be able to continuously shoot frames to have a lot more options in "development". But taking a still with a medium format camera with flashes is something else entirely. Even using a 5D is different and also gives you more resolution. The main thing about flashes is that they produce a different result compared to HMIs, not in the light quality but in the way you work with the subject/model. HMIs are hot, it's not very pleasant for the models to be under them for long stretches, the heat affects things like makeup or materials. There's also the thing about the irises. If you shoot with flashes you get much better irises on the model, if you have bright lights shining all around them the pupils will be small all the time. Flashes can keep the pupils larger and at the time of exposure get you much more "soul" in those eyes. Yes, if you want super small pupils on the model you will need more light, but with flashes you have more control and it keeps the studio in a nice cool work environment.

 

[Ulf Krentz]

Yes, of course there's room for Red in photography, the whole point of it is to be able to continuously shoot frames to have a lot more options in "development". But taking a still with a medium format camera with flashes is something else entirely. Even using a 5D is different and also gives you more resolution. The main thing about flashes is that they produce a different result compared to HMIs, not in the light quality but in the way you work with the subject/model. HMIs are hot, it's not very pleasant for the models to be under them for long stretches, the heat affects things like makeup or materials. There's also the thing about the irises. If you shoot with flashes you get much better irises on the model, if you have bright lights shining all around them the pupils will be small all the time. Flashes can keep the pupils larger and at the time of exposure get you much more "soul" in those eyes. Yes, if you want super small pupils on the model you will need more light, but with flashes you have more control and it keeps the studio in a nice cool work environment.

Once again, specific tasks call for appropriate tools. I don´t really see your point. I am very picky about catchlights and how eyes are lit, there is no need to grill a model with continuous lighting and regarding heat a professional strobe system is equipped with tungsten modeling lights (in our case 650W each) and won´t run cooler in a small studio. My experience has been completely different, while we cannot use a motion workflow for the majority of our work it feels more organic and it is easier to get authentic expressions than with MF and strobes and we never ever experienced any heat related problems with make-up, materials, too narrow pupils or making the model feel uncomfortable, rather exactly the opposite. That said I use moderate HMI wattages for these kind of jobs like for this one:

https://www.facebook.com/1449331412...331412023936/1586189741671435/?type=3&theater

 

[Björn Benckert]

I say Prints and stills are not dead. More and more still photographers that we work with learn about the benefits of shooting with lights instead of strobe and doing motion for stills instead of just stills. We do this all the time. Can not show any thing we made lately as it's all hush, hush with new collections etc but. we work with quite a few still photographers that are now acustomed to pull stills from red motion material and use burst mode and short shutter etc. But sure things can be improved, the next improvement in line I think is spelled 8K...

Some examples where we done standing 6k for print and used the material with extended sides for release films etc.

https://vimeo.com/95296578
https://vimeo.com/96173111
https://vimeo.com/142900482
https://vimeo.com/111624314
https://vimeo.com/151023940
https://vimeo.com/105641809
https://vimeo.com/63882242
https://vimeo.com/88677505

 

[Zeb B]

I thought you could sync the flash with the profoto lights???

What release was that? Is that the case on Weapon?

Basics:
in Film you want motion blur to blend frames so you shutter for that
In Stills typically you want frozen, zero blur so you shoot with very short duration strobe flash

Pulling frames from motion is fine for web use but would never reach the level of quality of a MF stills cam + strobe. It's a budget saving compromise for those who don't want to spend for a professional Filmmaker and Stills Photographer.

From a lighting POV: take a camera that is fixed at say ISO320, then let's say you want both eyes in focus shooting on a 100mm+ lens so you have to shoot at F8+, then you want the action frozen so you're looking at shutter 1/500+. That's a freakin big ass hot light both in watts and physical size to ETTR.

A strobe the size of a baseball can overpower the sun by a bunch without melting the model. The quality of light from a very small light source can never be matched by that of a very large source. You can always make a small light source bigger - hard to reverse it. The specular quality you get on micro detail like metallic make-up or fabric cannot be matched with hot lights. Size matters.

As budgets get squeezed I can see RED style cameras being used in a pull frame capacity. That does not mean it is a better method - just cheaper to produce. Like CD's v. Vinyl