VOGUE + RED

[Nathaniel Kramer]

As a fashion photographer myself, and having shot quite a few covers, i can say that the cover of an insert is definitely not the same prestige as the cover of the magazine. Inserts are mainly promotions for an advertiser, they are not editorial.. But the ad and the cover still look wonderful, and thats all that matters.. I have never used HDRX to capture stills and motion at the same time. I have great success with a shutter of 1/60th of a second and have no problem pulling stills.. Here is a lookbook i shot as both motionhttp://vimeo.com/36913102 and stills were pulled for the print book. Client simply sat at the DIT station and scrolled through clips and created a tif when she found her shot.. My clients love the process, and it sure beats having single images popping up on screen.. The only ones who ever have a problem are the models who are used to hearing a shutter.. For fun, we sometimes just take pics with iphone s she can hear something..http://vimeo.com/36913102

Loving Epic #1241

www.nkmedialab.com

 

[M.Paul El-Darwish]

Sorry. If I was told on set that the AD of Vogue wanted to use a still from a headshot that i happened to be shooting in a horizontal format video, for the vertical cover of the April issue, I certainly would not pull one out of a video stream that was shot at 1/60th of a second, horizontally framed, even off a tripod.
Not to sound uncharitable or cynical but... I don't buy it.
I'd be shooting with a SECOND camera set up for vertical stills at 1/250 with strobe. It's a long known fact that 1/250th shutter speed is the slowest for OPTIMIZED resolution of a still capture, even tripod mounted and especially in 4K .

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

I have shot many an ad, cover and editorial page at speeds below 1/60th. And for the lookbook stills were absolutely pulled from horizontals-- but yes, sometimes we do shhot vertical with our cinecpvate riser plate . Maybe you should check outvmy work- especially the covers to see slow shutters- your Lina about 1/250 is utter nonsense

Rob, tell me, what fashion clients do you shoot for?
I have 2 covers coming out next month, both shot at 1/48 th. Your facts are wrong. Sorry, I dont mean to be rude, but you are wrong.

 

[Ryan De Franco]

Funny story: five pages away from the Red foldout, you'll see a 2-page Coach ad. For this campaign the client used stills from 35mm film--motion picture film. I was in the basement at Deluxe, hunting down the exact frames on a make up table then cutting them with a splicer and gloves.

Hacked right out of the negative, the clip went off to some high-res scanner at their vendor. I have a feeling that these particular Coach stills were photographed by my boss with the Hasselblad, not pulled from 35, but I had to laugh when I saw it so close to the Red centerfold... fashion pulling stills from motion can be done at any shutter speed, on any format, it just depends how much motion blur and grain you're after.

 

[Koray Birand]

I think this discussion about motion blur vs crisp photos are totally up to the photographers style. Some love motion blur or soft images, some detailed crisp photos.

In my opinion (for my style of photography), If you are doing a studio work, it is better to use a photo camera for the photos. To get a crisp photo in a studio you need a lot of watts which will be really difficult for your model to open her eyes, if she has light colored eyes then you are in trouble. And also production wise not cost effective.

If you are shooting outside under the sun then I think you can use red to get bonus images. Still the A-Camera has to be a photo camera. At least with the brands I work with I can not risk it.

Editorials for magazines can be done with RED but still you have to know what you are doing, you have to do a lot of tests to gain total control of the camera. If you are working with a model whose daily rate is more then 100.000 Euros you do not want to risk anything. Campaigns are even more
tricky. The most difficult medium which has to be considered is the POS material (In store photos which are around 2-3 meters ) These photos are mostly printed in 150dpi so if you have a 3m x 2m photo which is equal to 11811x17717 pixels. You do not want to resize an frame grab that much. Even if you think it would work, in case of a problem you would be the first person to be blamed. But for magazine work you just need to do a resizing of %120 which is way acceptable. The worst part is if you shoot horizontal and need a vertical image after the cropping, resizing will be even worse.

Nathaniel mentioned that he used the camera in 1/60. It is possible of course if you use a tripod. But I hate tripods and epic is a heavy camera and I do not have the right arm for that. Many photographers can shoot with 2.8f - 1/15 and can still have sharp images but with epic I doubt it. Weight matters.

Paul when you are shooting with strobes, shutter has no importance, photography 101. Fstop is the only parameter with strobe photography.
So doing 1/250 shutter with strobe light is a funny statement. Also if it is still funny with available daylight, never heard of it and there is no logic. I am sorry. But I agree with you about size and crop.

There are even more parameters to be discussed when using a DMSC but I am very optimistic about the future but not yet from my experiences of "workflow".

 

[Tom Lowe]

So, so awesome!!!!

 

[Jarred Land]

I thought I'll make this for the non-print related redusers here. and it's always nice for having as a quick check sheet. hope you guys can put this to good use.

want a job?

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

word mofo, word!

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

thank you Koray! You hit it on the nose - and yes i was on the tripod.. Because the look book was printed only 8x10 inches, pulling the vertical crop stills from horizontal was completely acceptable.... For any other jobs, we tilt the epic vertical . When it comes to shooting an SLR, i can hand hold with success as slow as 1/30th and be sharp for 80% of my frames with an 85mm 1.4 nikon or, but that is partly due to the fact ive been doing this since 1987.....hand held on the epic, im probably 75% crisp at 1/60th, but thats only with nikon glass.. Back in time when we shot analog (film), we normally shot 10 rolls (360ish frames) per shot, selected about 10 frames as selects and then gave the editorial client 4 frames if it was a non conde nast magazine.. If it was conde nast, we gave them 10. Franca Sozanni, who now heads Vogue Italia ( then LEI and PER LUI, both Conde) however was happy with 2 frames... Gotta love the italians!

 

[Michael Hastings]

What page is the Ad on ? I'm looking on the vogue app and I don't see it.

It's a pullout in the print magazine, might not be in the digital version.

I picked up 8 copies at my local target store, for $3.99 each it is a great marketing piece to show potential clients.

 

[M.Paul El-Darwish]

I have shot many an ad, cover and editorial page at speeds below 1/60th. And for the lookbook stills were absolutely pulled from horizontals-- but yes, sometimes we do shhot vertical with our cinecpvate riser plate . Maybe you should check outvmy work- especially the covers to see slow shutters- your Lina about 1/250 is utter nonsense

Rob, tell me, what fashion clients do you shoot for?
I have 2 covers coming out next month, both shot at 1/48 th. Your facts are wrong. Sorry, I dont mean to be rude, but you are wrong.

Look. I did not invent the 1/250th recommendation, it was in a research paper I read that was published by Nikon in the Mid 80's. I manage to shoot lots of lovely images at anywhere from 1/15th of a second up hand held so sure, you can do it but this 'nonsense' as you wish to characterize it was based on a formula that takes lens focal length and the resolution of the capture into consideration. In the case of that legacy article it was talking about 105mm-200mm on Kodachrome 25 using AVAILABLE light, not flash. I have yet to see the full details of the JLo cover shoot but looks like at least the equivalent of a 200mm lens on a full-frame 35. Even with flash, I'd be doing at least 1/125 to ensure the ambient didn't add blur. When I studied the Vogue cover I compared the lashes only and to several other pics in that issue as well as other covers on the newsstand. So not to make this into a silly ping-pong as we often see in lesser forums, As both an AD and Shooter, the difference matters ---- If you love sharp lashes

 

[M.Paul El-Darwish]

That's what happens when i jump into forums littered with rookies. sigh! I'm in no mood to educate as i have too much real work to do. So Do as you please. Believe whatever you please.
Just deliver the goods.

I think this discussion about motion blur vs crisp photos are totally up to the photographers style. Some love motion blur or soft images, some detailed crisp photos.

In my opinion (for my style of photography), If you are doing a studio work, it is better to use a photo camera for the photos. To get a crisp photo in a studio you need a lot of watts which will be really difficult for your model to open her eyes, if she has light colored eyes then you are in trouble. And also production wise not cost effective.

If you are shooting outside under the sun then I think you can use red to get bonus images. Still the A-Camera has to be a photo camera. At least with the brands I work with I can not risk it.

Editorials for magazines can be done with RED but still you have to know what you are doing, you have to do a lot of tests to gain total control of the camera. If you are working with a model whose daily rate is more then 100.000 Euros you do not want to risk anything. Campaigns are even more
tricky. The most difficult medium which has to be considered is the POS material (In store photos which are around 2-3 meters ) These photos are mostly printed in 150dpi so if you have a 3m x 2m photo which is equal to 11811x17717 pixels. You do not want to resize an frame grab that much. Even if you think it would work, in case of a problem you would be the first person to be blamed. But for magazine work you just need to do a resizing of %120 which is way acceptable. The worst part is if you shoot horizontal and need a vertical image after the cropping, resizing will be even worse.

Nathaniel mentioned that he used the camera in 1/60. It is possible of course if you use a tripod. But I hate tripods and epic is a heavy camera and I do not have the right arm for that. Many photographers can shoot with 2.8f - 1/15 and can still have sharp images but with epic I doubt it. Weight matters.

Paul when you are shooting with strobes, shutter has no importance, photography 101. Fstop is the only parameter with strobe photography.
So doing 1/250 shutter with strobe light is a funny statement. Also if it is still funny with available daylight, never heard of it and there is no logic. I am sorry. But I agree with you about size and crop.

There are even more parameters to be discussed when using a DMSC but I am very optimistic about the future but not yet from my experiences of "workflow".

 

[Patrick Grossien]

want a job?

EDIT: just sent you an email which hopefully won't land in the spam folder

 

[M.Paul El-Darwish]

I thought I'll make this for the non-print related redusers here. and it's always nice for having as a quick check sheet. hope you guys can put this to good use.

Nice Table! Out of an inkjet printer or a litho press using stochastic screens the DPI call outs at dimensions make huge sense. Garden variety 4c halftone litho the nomenclature is LPI however. I should carry my loupe to study the latest stuff which is direct to plate or have they thrown plates out too ?

 

[M.Paul El-Darwish]

when you are shooting with strobes, shutter has no importance, photography 101.

Oops! I took photography 101 in 1973 when strobes sync'd at 1/30th (bulb . Modern day strobes sync way faster but don't take an old fool's word for it about 1/250th being optimal for avoiding shake, go ahead, shoot some tests. Try sync'ng at 1/1000th, 1/500th etc. then 1/60th. they all probably work.Try tripod vs hand held yadda yadda. Just watch those eyelashes on Ms Lopez

 

[Michael Hastings]

Nice Table! Out of an inkjet printer or a litho press using stochastic screens the DPI call outs at dimensions make huge sense. Garden variety 4c halftone litho the nomenclature is LPI however. I should carry my loupe to study the latest stuff which is direct to plate or have they thrown plates out too ?

IIRC from my desktop publishing days, we used to figure you needed 266 DPI to get a good 133 line screen for printing - i.e. double the line screen number to get the needed dpi.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

Nice Table! Out of an inkjet printer or a litho press using stochastic screens the DPI call outs at dimensions make huge sense. Garden variety 4c halftone litho the nomenclature is LPI however. I should carry my loupe to study the latest stuff which is direct to plate or have they thrown plates out too ?

Glad to hear you guys like it!
Plates are gone only in digital print. For offset printing these are still used. Don't know if there already are other technologies where the plate is omitted.

 

[Nathaniel Kramer]

i can get sharp lashes at 1/60th M.Paul.... thats a lot more about DOF than shutter speed.. still waiting to hear from you what magazine covers and ad campaigns you have shot to be such an expert with such strong opinions?

 

[M.Paul El-Darwish]

IIRC from my desktop publishing days, we used to figure you needed 266 DPI to get a good 133 line screen for printing - i.e. double the line screen number to get the needed dpi.

You remember well but that's for 4C halftones which as I'm sure you also recall amounted to a factor of 4X in total for the 4C Impression . Thus> 133X4= 532 total line per inch 'resolution' per average 4C halftone impression on coated magazine stock. Extrapolating the needed digital file resolution (density) for an aggregate 532LPI page would look like this> 1,064 DPI of RGB. Interesting huh? The caveat is that halftones went by way of the dinosaur in the US and Europe around 2000 and most shops go direct to plate... in CHINA! I'm being mean, but truthful. Stochastic screens are to offset, what 4K is to 1080p. The garden variety 'photo grade' inkjet printer uses the same principle- random dots versus halftone 'rosettes'. That's why you can get awesome images out of 222DPI files, the Injet Printer creates the perceptual 'up-rez' via software and in some cases, multiple inks.
Sorry to ramble, it's just that I'm finishing up a book project so I'm all giddy thinking of my 7 color print job

 

[M.Paul El-Darwish]

i can get sharp lashes at 1/60th M.Paul.... thats a lot more about DOF than shutter speed.. still waiting to hear from you what magazine covers and ad campaigns you have shot to be such an expert with such strong opinions?

You shot the JLo cover, No? Is so, where did the sharp lashes go Nate? I semi-retired from still shooting in 1990, selling of my whole studio and then picked up a point and shoot on lark in 2004 (i switched careers in the interim) and have been retrenching in Video and begrudgingly coming back to stills. Not fashion this time, just hard goods.
I am about to jump on a hybrid DSLR since i cannot bear the deep dive into 4K RED or start collecting lenses for still since I do so little of that now.
I shot a ton of fashion in the 80's and commercial studio stuff as well. None of that digital though. I've also handed off the reins of photo gear testing to someone that does is easily better than I can, Phil Askey. But run some tests yourself! Maybe once NAB rolls around and they announce something intelligent I'll jump back in.
So take a look at what a point and shoot can do and imagine if i will really pull stills from 1/60th continuous lite interview shots like the Vogue cover.
http://www.gearstylequarterly.com No girlie covers there sorry. I'll post some on my fb page i guess... if i can find some decent scans. Oh wait! I can shoot a test for you if you like but it's with a P&S. Is that OK? ....leafs through Willhelmina/Ford/Elite books.....