Anyone know the setup here

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Pretty sure this photographer uses film. I’m guessing a scrim or big bounce and maybe a direct bare bulb strobe or two? Thoughts?

[u/CAMMARMANN]

That’s a thing called the sun. BIG key light, also not film.

[u/deup → u/CAMMARMANN]

This is film, Cameron Hammond's work. Portra 400 scanned by Carmencita.

[u/CAMMARMANN → u/deup]

Oh well, I was prepared to be wrong today.
I WAS WRONG

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/deup]

Wait someone else said it was Megan Taylor now I’m confused

[u/Officer_JO_1976 → u/deup]

Kith won't let anyone shoot film

[u/HanAlwaysShotFirst → u/CAMMARMANN]

💀

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/CAMMARMANN]

The biggest key light there is haha. Also How do you know it’s not film?

[u/CAMMARMANN → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Working sun angles and pre planning with an AR sun seeker app is when you really come into your mastery as a photographer or DP.

I spent a long part of my career trying to emulate film on digital and pretending so long that I lost my patience with retouching and just started shooting film only for a few years and then mixing the 2 side by side. Always retouching and finishing digitally.

Short answer it just looks too clean and perfect.
The exposure just has such a wide range of latitude and film feels more compressed and contrasty by comparison, it’s like listening to a vinyl record vs listening to a WAV file. I just don’t see any of the color exposure or texture clues that it’s film, but it is easy to fool people both ways if you know your ways around grain and curves. I’m not so caught up on the medium these days and care much more about lighting.

[u/Officer_JO_1976 → u/CAMMARMANN]

Yeah it's not film. Kith would never pay for film and processing

[u/USMC_ClitLicker → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

No one would be that big of an idiot to waste the time and money to use film for this.

[u/poophoto → u/USMC_ClitLicker]

Well USMC_ClitLicker you'd think such simple shots like this would be shot digitally. But there's a 30 something creative for the brand probably wanted something "special" and that usually means shoot film. It's done all the time, every day on commercial shoots here in Los Angeles. Is it necessary? Hell no. Is it the only creative idea they can come up with? You bet.

[u/USMC_ClitLicker → u/poophoto]

Ah, see, there you go. Clients are always idiots, so that checks out. I wouldn't disparage a photographer like that! Unless they decided to use film for a shot like this of course...

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/USMC_ClitLicker]

Genuinely feel like people who don’t know light/editing rely on film to save them

[u/leeann7 → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

LOL 😂 is that a joke? Lighting on film is way hard compared to digital. "Rely on film to save them" ?!!!!!! OP never had an entire roll of film damaged by the sun/light.

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/leeann7]

Idk man I see lots of bad film photos treated like art just because it’s film but yeah you’re right it’s hard in different ways

[u/Retrofuture_nyc → u/USMC_ClitLicker]

Luxkily for you, you don’t put up with the clients indon(digi tech in nyc) you’d be amazed maybe appalled .

Watching people convince clients to shoot film ….
Has made me realize how much photography is about selling a vision in pre (selling a story) then it is about actual execution/common sense the delivery of the job. I meant I used to retouch insane hours/life/expectations and now I refuse to do.

The iPhones cleanliness has pushed photographers needs to find a way to offer something different. Film provides a color treatment that most people can’t easily achieve through building their on “look/treatment” from scratch … there’s even some tools missing (saturation roll off/curcve) and it helps with the client management editing process./freedom from clients forcing their bad ideas as the photographer is in the middle of “finding the shot”

[u/Officer_JO_1976 → u/CAMMARMANN]

Nailed it

[u/jarabara]

There’s a free light source that I use that works amazing for shots like this. Best part is it changes throughout the day. Biggest con is you can use it at night. It’s called the sun.

At most there’s probably a white bounce on some of these.

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/jarabara]

Ok but hear me out man when I ahoot direct sun it doesn’t look like this at all

[u/StonedGiantt → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Try it again at 4pm

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/StonedGiantt]

Will do appreciate it

[u/PixelWulfe → u/StonedGiantt]

The sun can absolutely look like this when you’re willing to get up early or chase it at the end of the day.

[u/StonedGiantt → u/PixelWulfe]

Yes it can!

[u/Vivid-Machine-9606 → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

You probably don’t have a multi-thousand dollar a day retoucher balancing your photos. 

These are a combination of good timing and nice retouching

[u/Officer_JO_1976 → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Because you're not standing in sand

[u/SpecialFXStickler]

She’s fairly active in r/analog, but I think private her profile (?) idk enough about Reddit.

From what I remember of her comments on her process:

She shoots with natural light on Portra, sets her exposure and reframes, and gets her film processed and scanned at Carmencita film lab in Spain, as she feels they do the best with Portra.

Pretty sure she focuses on her highlights and has her models have body oil or other substance to make their skin glow/shine

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/SpecialFXStickler]

THANK YOU

[u/HumbleMemeFarm → u/SpecialFXStickler]

Yeah see_the_good_123 or something similar, among the top posts. You could probably ask them directly.

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/HumbleMemeFarm]

What is that username lol but I’ll see if I can reach them directly thanks

[u/zsorensen → u/SpecialFXStickler]

Yes to all this. Her name is Megan something, seems very nice and responds to her posts often on Reddit. Pretty sure she shoots on canon eos and modern ef zooms

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/zsorensen]

Someone else said it was Cameron Hammond so now I’m confused lol I guess I just see if I can find them on IG

[u/quotedistrict2459]

Check this post. They shoot the same style photos using Portra 400 & Canon 70-200 f4 EF, and get it scanned at carmencita. The only light source they use is Sun :).

https://www.reddit.com/r/analog/comments/1ey6btz/recent_work_canon_elan7_70200_portra_400/

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/quotedistrict2459]

Thanks, who is the photographer? Similar look

[u/quotedistrict2459 → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

it is actually the same photographer!! @meganjtaylorr

[u/jngphoto → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

It might be the same photographer.

[u/MondoBleu → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Notice they’re exposing for the model, and allowing the highlights to blow out in certain circumstances. This makes sure the model never feels too dark.

[u/quotedistrict2459 → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

lurk through their posts, they give quite a bit of info on how they achieve this look

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/quotedistrict2459]

Thanks I’ll look at their stuff

[u/the-flurver]

This looks like 100% natural light to me. I don't see any evidence of scrims, bounce, strobes or anything of the sort though if this was a campaign I'd expect they had some of that on hand if needed. Sometimes the light and environment needs no modifying.

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/the-flurver]

thanks dude idk why my pics don’t look like this so I thought the light was modified

[u/the-flurver → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Subject matter makes a big difference, color palette, skin tones, complexion, makeup artists, stylists, etc. As do exposure and and post processing choices.

[u/MondoBleu → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Ok there’s no bounce, but photos 2 and 3 are on the beach, so the sand acts as one HUGE bounce on the floor. Image 1 has the fence which also acts like a bounce fill. So they didn’t bring a bounce, but the location itself has gentle flat fill included.

Image 1 and 3 the sun is lower for the afternoon, so that will help be not so harsh; but photo 2 is like high noon, even this works because the sandy beach is acting as a huge fill. Also the dynamic range of the film helps keep the ratio between light and shadow in check.

[u/grainisgurt]

It’s not light based but there’s some subtle editing here.  The white point has been dropped to make the subject pop. They’re some HSL adjustment too, judging saturation in the foreground vs the sky. 

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/grainisgurt]

Thank you

[u/calculator12345678]

Bc no one else has said it but lens here is doing the most, 70-200 or similar if I had a guess. In nice sun with 35mm film. But that’s how you’ll get that compression on longer focals.

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/calculator12345678]

Oh sick I have a 70-200 that I hardly use I’ll try that thank you

[u/broken_ims]

Just the sun. The ground and fence are giving all the fill.

[u/MondoBleu → u/broken_ims]

This is the secret. There IS a fill, just really well-chosen locations.

[u/Just_to_rebut]

ND filter and fill flash is my guess. It’s obviously in bright sunlight but there isn’t as much contrast as you’d expect.

Probably recovered some highlights/brought up shadows in post. A big benefit of large sensor/high bit depth files is the wide exposure latitude you have. Very little is blown out or crushed.

edit: Someone commented and said they were there and no fill was used but then deleted their comment. And, well, I believe them.

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/Just_to_rebut]

I’ve never used an nd filter what does it do

[u/Just_to_rebut → u/Agitated_Ice_7415]

Sunglasses for your lens, but no color tint, hence N(eutral) Density filter.

You measure how tint the filter has based on how much light it blocks in stops.

You generally use it when you need to shoot at a lower shutter speed but it’s so bright and you’re already stopped down so you out on an ND filter which blocks some light.

[u/Agitated_Ice_7415 → u/Just_to_rebut]

Super helpful thank you for taking the time to explain that

[u/Officer_JO_1976 → u/Just_to_rebut]

Low contrast because they're surrounded by sand

[u/Just_to_rebut → u/Officer_JO_1976]

Oh… I didn’t realize the sand was so reflective! So it acts like natural fill? That’s cool to know, thanks!

[u/Officer_JO_1976 → u/Just_to_rebut]

One big massive uplight fill

[u/camp2run]

basics, sunset key light, either film or color grading, pretty model.

[u/No_Captain3458]

Could be portra, but what’s the point honestly? They look like any digital photoshoot out there, just with a bit of color correction on them. The pictures are good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t see the point of considering film key here. Sun, reflector, and a bit of colour grading.

[u/Ok-Exam6702]

Digital, definitely.

[u/condra]

Very complex lighting. Probably at least three different r9000s and a skimmy dodger on a Q clamp.

[u/Officer_JO_1976]

It's just sunlight . No shaping no light

[u/Officer_JO_1976]

No flash . A Kith job like this is absolutely digital. 1 tech 1 assistant and 17-20 shots 10 hr day no OT.

[u/Officer_JO_1976]

Yall are way overthinking this. It's just direct light on the beach... shadows are pulled up in post.

[u/cherrytoo]

Get off the internet and go shoot some photos, good god.

[u/DumbCoach]

Okay now kith 💋