Thanks guys (or Jason), whoever it is. I'm glad that this video is taking off... it was a lot of work and I was afraid people wouldn't appreciate it.

I had to pull a bunch of the video for time. Please read the full post on fstoppers.com/iphone and I explain this.

And yes, If I take away the lights, backdrop, and post, of course it wont look good. This video is to show what a crap camera is capable of giving it the best chance. It's not a scientific sensor test.

This is exactly what I was going to write. But then I stopped to think for a minute. There are cheap ways to get similar illumination qualities, aren't there?
It's all about finding creative solutions and just doing it.
(I think that is the overall message)
So, yes dear FStoppers the video is very appreciated :)
keep up the good work!

I think some people expected us to take a bad model, bad lighting, bad camera, and bad environment and pull off the most amazing photo ever! Of course you need everything in place for a good photo but tons of people on the internet complain about the most ridiculous stuff when it comes go pro camera gear. We simply took all the tools a pro photographer may have (or even a lot of hobbyists for that matter) and then removed the most crucial: the camera.

Your point it well-demonstrated with regards to the camera hardware. I'd love to see something similar with lighting sources and modifiers. For example, how could someone make a softbox-like modifier to use with their Home Depot work light?

Great work, fellaz. Awesome video.

So how much did all the lighting equipment cost? Even if you did shoot outside, or with cheep lights... anybody see how he "didn't" use fancy software? Give me a break dude.

Yes the images turned out great with a phone, but thats not the point. Do it again with nothing but the phone, and post it strait from the camera.

Even if he had $30,000 worth of lights on set he was still only using the modeling lamps on them, which are... incandescent bulbs. If they had to rely on Arri HMIs you might have a point.

It's hardly fair to discredit this due to the lights considering he wasn't even using them for their primary function.

I'd bet that you could get to within 95% of these results with some nice white sheets, a few cardboard grids, and $150 worth of shop lights.

And that's *especially* true if you're going to desaturate the images in post and give them a cross-processed look, as the retoucher did.

And furthermore, I bet you could use a free image editing program such as GIMP to do most of the cloning and color work; it'd be more cumbersome than Lightroom or Photoshop, but there's still plenty of functionality there.

Thanks Peter, most of the hater comments are coming from non photographers who assume we are using $10k worth of lights. We bought these off ebay for $3000 max and even then we didn't turn on the strobes which are why they cost so much. The lowes light worked much better than any of the other lights and they were $50. This can be done cheap and is done cheap all the time....we just wanted to do it with a cheap horrible non manual phone camera...it just happen to be an iphone

Great video guys!

Don't sweat the haters. Anyone THAT concerned about using crap cameras, with homemade light modifiers and little retouching probably shouldn't be interested in Fashion or Beauty Photography.

With that much post and lighting you can make any camera look good. That's merely what I'm saying.

Not trying to be a "hater". Your video proves a good point.

Great vid : ) Any camera in the hands of a visionary will be taken to it's limits! Very cool, you have a new fan.

Love and Aloha, iamKP-

Of course you guys used lights. And of course you post-processed the images. And of course you had hair and makeup. That's what people on fashion shoots do.

And you really did prove the point about camera hardware. Absolutely awesome.

The only thing which didn't seem part of a normal fashion shoot was Lee's pleasant personality. Normally there'd be a lot more pretension and bad attitude on the set.

Way to keep it real Lee.

This was shot on 2 or 3 Nikon D300s cameras. Mainly two, Travis had one and I had one, then maybe one on a tripod a few times.

-Patrick

Yeah I got the iphone 4 as soon as it came out. I hate that we didn't have it for this shoot but honestly, I think it shows more what can be done with a crappy camera vs a nice one. All iphones need a white balance and exposure lock control though. It's tough working your away around with those two features missing.

-Patrick

'xactly.

I've said this time and time again, we could have done this with $300 worth of lighting equipment because we were using hot lights. Those two lights from Lowes were much better than anything else we had. I kind of wish we took the time to make softboxes out of shipping boxes, bed sheets, and lightbulbs.

I concede. I should have said that all you need is a couple of thousand dollars worth of attractive female model. ;)

Great video and you can shoot with very cheap lighting. Check out my photos, which are all done with natural or cheap lighting. I spent $100 on my lights and this is the outcome facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.274815625879214.78474.256852254342218&type=3

And I spent $250 to fly the model in from Austin, that's it. She got her own hotel. I also spent $75 on food and drinks for her and the crew. Crew worked for free, because they were my friends.

I got the studio for free also. All because I created a good treatment, that people believed in.

Don't know if the link works, so here is a better one facebook.com/Filmbeast

Hey Emil, thanks for watching. In no way were we trying to say that all you need is an iphone. I don't think our point came across as clear as it should in hindsight but the video is now what it is. We accidentally cut a line that said "this video is aimed at using the worst camera but in a normal pro setting". We did not mean to imply that without a pretty girl or great lighting you could produce a compelling photography. Of course you couldn't!

This video was meant to just point out that most images at websize (which most images now are, including the one you just posted) will not look that different when using an iphone or a pro camera. Of course they look different blown up and you should never use an iphone for a professional shoot. But if you are just using what you have, you could create amazing images without spending thousands of dollars. Our lighting could have been all DIY, our hair and makeup could have been from our friend who works in that field, the "model" could be a cute girl we know. The point is just because you do not have the most current camera that can shoot clean ISO 260,000 in available low light should not prevent you from taking great pro looking images for the web.

I think most people who watch this video understand what we were trying to do and none of this stuff should be taken too seriously. It was just something fun we wanted to try and were shocked at how good the images wound up looking. And the photoshop is very very minimal compared to what goes into REAL commercial shoots especially fashion. Most of what you see in magazines is completely fake; you can see our original images in the phone when Olivia is scrolling through them.

Thanks everyone for watching and please keep an open mind and don't take this video too seriously; we want to inspire not discourage.

-Patrick

again the idea was not to do a photoshoot with no gear or no money at all. It was to show that at this point in time, even the worst camera sensor could produce a compelling image in the hands of a good or even mediocre photographer. We were not trying to do this with absolutely no budget or no talent.

That's understood. And like I said, there were some great insights gained from watching this video.

I don't think anyone's trying to boo you over your efforts. This was helpful, but I think what people, myself included, are saying is it would have been that much more helpful had it been about how to get great photos in ordinary circumstances.

Perhaps that's a subject for a later video :)

Yeah exactly. We are all for sharing how to get better photos but there are a million website about how to make cheap lighting setups or do things with a small budget. We want fstoppers to showcase higher end photoshoots and videoshoots so we sort of assumed our readers would have some sort of lighting setup. I mean we are featuring videos made by Nissan, Wired Magazine, and the top headshot photographer in NYC Peter Hurley!! We just wanted to prove that it's not about the camera, and only the camera really. We just didn't explain that perfectly in the opening part of the video because of our 10 min video limit on youtube. Sorry guys, someone needs to submit a really inexpensive shoot like this to our contest at fstoppers.com/contest and you may win a free camera

That's an awesome idea for a contest. I just shot behind the scenes with my T2i and a 50mm 1.8 prime on a beautiful short film about a group of children who discover a monster in the woods and befriend it. I'd love to submit it but the producer and director understandably don't want it to be seen before the film is released - but I'll certainly send you the link when it finally does get posted online!

They're actually very good cameras! It's like me saying Chevys are horrible, because I happen to drive a Ford.

I'm sure Olympus cameras are fine cameras. Very few pros seem to use them so we were joking mainly with our readers who are pros or semi pros (they all use Canon and Nikon almost unanimously). I'm glad we took out the lines about Pentax or we would have offended everyone.

Don, settle down. The whole point was we were saying that cameras don't matter....so joking about Olympus is going against the very point of this video. But yeah, they are really rare and horrible haha jk

You are the only person to mention it. ha

Glad you enjoyed it. And honestly, if you look at photo #1 and #2, they aren't that different. The major change is the effect in photo #3 which to me isn't really 'photoshopping' it's just creating a style. Very little was really 'retouched'

Im with Thea guys. This sounds like a challenge.

I challenge you to this feat. We are done shooting on iphones

Use the sun, studio is harder to do than outdoors

What if I said I live in Alaska?

-just giving you a hard time. Thanks for the demo

I'm not sure I understand your point? Should we try to take bad photos with no production at all? This was just to show what can happen when you take one variable out and that variable was the camera. Most photographers have lighting and models. The newest greatest and latest camera isn't necessary

The guys could have done this with bare bulbs and garden lamps and bed sheets. The lights were not used as photo strobes but just as bog standard lamps. Colour temperature might have been different depending on the bulbs they used but that would have been fixed in post.

Light is an essential element of photography, and particularly fashion photography. Get used to it.

thanks Steve. Yeah people are so ridiculous when it comes to their opinions about this video. Glad you enjoyed it and check out fstoppersforum.com too if you want to join the community of photographers/videographers

Steve has the right idea. I too will be upgrading my lighting kit and hanging on to my 5D Mark I.

Hey Tim, Glad you enjoyed the video and took the comment with a laugh. We had a funny joke about Fuji too to it didn't make the final edit. Where are you based out of?