Fashion photographer Frederico Martins, his team, and ELLE Magazine led by art director Paulo Gomes went to Fuerteventura to test the new features of the IQ2 digital back series.
Frederico: "We just arrived at Fuerteventura to shoot an editorial for ELLE. The island is pretty much a desert. There is not a lot of trees or vegetation but the beaches are beautiful, they have black lava rocks, and the entire scenery looks beautiful. I think it's going to be fantastic.
We have been preparing this shoot for a few weeks now. We have a production company
working for us on Fuerteventura. They did all the location scouting
so we have been exchanging pictures and figuring out which locations we wanted. I have to run about to check out the locations they got me."
"We have been working with Paulo [Gomez, Art Director Elle Magazine] on the styling. He has been working for the last two weeks to find the right clothes and all the accessories that he wants."
"Our model is Edda Oscars. She is from Iceland. She is a really beautiful blonde girl. We chose her because she has a nice appeal for the summer story that we are creating here. She will look Italian.
We are doing something in a 90's style. The beach story will be more sporty so we need her to be more athletic in the poses there. That is more or less the feel that we want and Edda is perfect to play both roles."
This new camera [Phase One 645DF+ and the IQ260 digital back] allows you to work wirelessly. You use the camera with a CF card and at the same time the art director has the possibility to watch the workflow through an iPad or an iPhone. That is a big bonus since we are shooting on location. We don't have to bring the computer, and we don't need cables.
I usually shoot an average of 1000-1500 images when I'm shooting an editorial. That is quite a big amount of images. It is important that the art director will narrow down the images that he already likes so that afterwards we only focus and work on those images. Of course, if we are not happy with those images we can always go back but it is nice that we already on location are narrowing down the possibilities to ten images or so."
"The sun has already set. Sensor+ will allow me to double the ISO. This will give me at least an extra half to one hour of shooting. Of course I'll have only a quarter the resolution but for magazine purpose that is more than enough. This is a really handy solution for this type of situation. That you can prolong your day at least half to one hour is money saving."
"Today it's not sunny so we'll have to be very creative in order to create the right mood. We can mix it but we want to be really strong in attitude and colors. We'll have to use artificial light
so that we can get this feeling.
To post-production I only leave the levels and color balance, some minor retouching, and skin retouching. I mainly work with the camera and light."
"The iPad allows you to see the image on a much bigger screen on location with a high quality. You can shoot really fast and your art director is already checking the images. It is on the go so we don't have to stop and go to the computer and check the images.
You can even have the iPad next to you and you can check the images yourself on the iPad.
Now we can compose - because we are using the tripod it will be easy. That is really handy when you are on a tight schedule and you need the pictures to get to your client fast. Then you need to know if you already have the image you want or not. Amazing! Looks awesome!"
"I'll be shooting from the iPad. You can control the camera through Capture Pilot. If you place the camera really high or low and it is not comfortable for you to look in the viewfinder, you just frame it and then control the camera through the iPad or iPhone. You can keep shooting without having to look in the viewfinder. It's quite handy."
"We had beautiful light conditions on the first day. On the second day we weren't so lucky but we still managed to get some sunlight into the pictures and get the final result that we wanted and the right look that we wanted for the shoot. We had a lot of locations and a really tight schedule but I think we nailed it."
"Thank you!"
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