Peter Belanger | Blog | Macworld iPhone 4 cover

Notes from the Studio

Mwcover-belanger

I’ve always thought it would be cool to photograph the cover of Macworld magazine using an iPhone as my camera. When the new iPhone 4 was released with the 5MP camera, the editors at Macworld were excited to see if it could be done. What better way to showcase the phone’s new camera than to have an iPhone take the photo of the iPhone on the cover?

Normally when I shoot the cover of Macworld Magazine, I use a Phase One P65+ which is a 60 MP digital camera. It has twelve times the megapixel count of an iPhone 4. This was going to be a very challenging task for the iPhone. My goal was to photograph the cover using only the iPhone and any available app for the iPhone (I couldn’t use Photoshop on my Mac!)

For the most part, my strategy for photographing the cover didn’t change from how I normally would photograph with the Phase One digital camera. I still had my normal set with lots of lights, flags and stands. I did have to change my light source from strobes to tungsten lights because the iPhone can’t sync with studio strobes. I did end up making my own camera mount for the phone to go on my tripod (monopod). I hadn’t seen one that would do exactly what I needed (even if I did I didn’t think it would ship to me in time) so I picked up some parts from the hardware store and rigged one myself.

Normally when I photograph the cover I use my Mac to add the iPhone’s screen, clean up dust, scratches and any other imperfections. I wasn’t going to have that same control on my iPhone so I had to ensure the photo looked good and close as possible to final in-camera. During the shoot I would send the image files over to the art director at his computer so he could drop the image into layout. We needed to be sure the scale and crop was perfect.

The iPhone’s Retina display was truly awesome. I was really able to see the detail in the photo as I was shooting. It made me wish Apple produced all their desktop monitors this way. The final photo was dust-free and looked great. I was extremely impressed with the detail that the iPhone was able to capture. For post production I used two iPhone apps: PhotoForge and Resize-Photo. PhotoForge was used to remove a slight green cast from the photo. Resize-Photo was used to increase the photo from 216 dpi to 290 dpi in order to meet printing requirements. One app that I wish had been available when I was photographing the cover was Camera+ 1.2 with separate touch exposure and touch focus.

Also check out the Editor’s Desk inside the magazine where Jason writes about me and my process for creating this month’s cover or view online here.

The digital version of the magazine is out now on Zinio. The printed version should be on newsstands soon. See what you think:

http://www.zinio.com/browse/publications/index.jsp?productId=6564920

Comments

Jon Moyer

That is awesome. I’m amazed at how good the screen looks on the photo. I shoot phones all the time with a Digital SLR and I always drop in the screens afterwards in Photoshop.
Dan

Great photo, but perhaps you could do better if you had another C-stand!
Meredith

Brilliant job! I have to say I’m very impressed. I am constantly using my 3GS on the fly for photographs (especially when traveling) and the quality is ok but my god, that is amazing!
Aldo Monteiro

Geeez! Look how many stands just for that pic. Isn’t photography like brain surgery? No, sometimes it gets worse!
Mau Orozco

Great stuff! Congrats Peter. A couple of people and myself were wondering if the surface you are shooting on is black glass or something else?
boone

yeah, more c-stands!
ken

16 C stands?? I can do that photo w/ 5…LOL. ok…maybe 20. :-)
iPhone 4 Blog

Great photo and amazing work. But yes like others the stands does bother :)
Matt

I actually thought to myself the other day, “Man, you have quite a few c-stands.” Now I just feel stupid.

Great job.
Peter Belanger

Thanks for the comments. I do love using C Stands. Sometimes I use so many I can’t get in to dust off the product.
Peter Belanger

Mau the surface that was used is black plexiglass. In the San Francisco you can get it Tap Plastics.
Marcel Winkel

Sorry, Peter. But this is pure technical overkill! I bet the same photo could be done with much much less too.
Peter Belanger

Marcel, I take that bet. Send me the photo once you have it done. :)
Justin Watt

I’m not exactly sure that all that setup really qualifies as an “iPhone photo” at least in spirit. Not to be a hater, but it would have been more interesting to see a more “naturalistic” shot.

That said, it’s pretty cool that you tool a photo of an iPhone with the iPhone. There should be a word for that. In Computer Science it would be “”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting">self-hosting".
Andre Felipe

Ironically, an old-school photo shooting – with some accurate attention to preps and details that became surpassed by things like 60mp cameras and digital editing and retouching. Nice work!
Brad Trent

It’s bad enough that every monkey with a 12mp point & shoot thinks he’s a photographer, but now I gotta deal with Zipperheads using their iPhones who wanna take work from me! I think I’ve just been made redundant…….
Mau Orozco

I think Marcel above should try to shoot this with less as he so confidently states and then Brad above will have his answer as to why he’s not redundant.

The difference between “enthusiasts” and “pros” is more than that.
Polla Lee

My reaction when I saw this is that if you don’t know what you are doing and you have $30,000 camera, it’s not going to do you any good. Wow, talk about perfecting your craft and I agree, you need more c-stand.
Massimo

The professional black camera holder with tiny red symbol is the Italian Manfrotto 405… a robust tool for much heavier cameras :-)
Eric

Love those available light shots. :D

But then, as photojournalist and master of the photo essay W. Eugene Smith used to say, “Available light is any damn light that’s available!”

Lots of C-stands is irrelevant. It’s what the ultimate result is that counts.
Darcy Fitzpatrick

Actually, what you seem to need more of is sand bags. Those c-stands aren’t looking very secured!

Interesting experiment, if a bit gimmicky. Can you tell me, is that camera noise I’m seeing in the above cover image, or is that just jpeg compression for the web? If it’s noise, I’m wondering what this shows up like on the printed page.
Jason Beatty

Darcy, I was curious about that too. If you’re talking about the same thing I’m seeing, it’s a grainyness most noticeable above the ‘one’ in iPhone. I wasn’t sure if it was plexiglass matte texture or jpg artifact either. Either way, it’s a beautiful shot.

Peter, nicely done! To those who say “hey, I bet you could do that with less”, they couldn’t reproduce the same exact effect each time. My teacher used to say photography is art, but being a photographer is a craft. It takes skills and precision to execute on that vision exactly the way your mind’s eye sees it. Bravo, and thanks for sharing the setup pics, letting us see behind the magician’s curtain.
Douglas C.

Nicely done. The end result is fabulous!

I’d like to see what the setup would have been with the higher end camera. Is this a typical setup, or did you have to compensate for the iPhone4’s short comings?
Neil

I’m curious how you got it to read 7:00 exactly? Did you have to reset the time for each photo?
Lachlan

Darcy and Jason

It looks like macro-blocking which is a compression artefact.

Couldn’t say whether it’s from the phone without seeing the original image.
Peter Belanger

The cover photo above is a screen grab from the Zinio version of the magazine. This version of the cover has more compression on it than the actual file. Maybe I’ll post the real file later.
Farid SALAH

One question Peter how did you actually take the picture ?
Did you do it with your finger and the stands absorbs the shock, or did you use something else (I see the iPhone is connected to something) ?
Joe

Looks great, but would love to see the final result from a decent quality JPEG, rather than the nasty compressed version shown!
Peter Belanger

Neil, it just so happens it was going to be around 7:00 when we were finalizing the shot so we just waited ’til 7:00 to take it!

Farid, I did use my finger to focus and take the photo. The connection you see is just to keep the iPhone charged.
Isaak Kwok

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the detailed description. It is good to have an insight into how a professional photographer works.

However, I would like to find out how you used Resize Photo to increase the dpi. And how did you export the image from the iPhone to the computer? I can’t seem to be able to increase the dpi other than through Photoshop. Thanks.
Peter Belanger

Isaak,
Resize Photo isn’t perfect, it needs to be updated. To increase the size of the photo you can’t use the drop down menu. To change the photo you’ll need to pinch to zoom or type new numbers at the top. Save the photo from the drop down menu. You’ll then need to use Image capture on you mac to download the photo.
Isaak Kwok

Thanks, Peter. Guess I will just have to go do some trial and error testing. :)
Eric

Great idea, great article. It shows that a fancy camera isn’t the most important component in creating wonderful photos.

But I must point out that this statement is nonsense, “…to increase the photo from 216 dpi to 290 dpi in order to meet printing requirements.” People seem to be horribly confused as to what DPI actually is.

Image files don’t really have DPI. A 1000×1000 pixel image file at 10 DPI is the same quality as a 1000×1000 pixel image file at 1000 DPI. It’s the exact same information—1 million identical pixels. The only difference is some metadata labeled as “DPI”.

Now, there is certainly metadata called DPI, but it’s almost meaningless. (DPI really isn’t something that should have ever been included as metadata in image file standards.) DPI is a measurement related to the physical world. There is no DPI without an output device like a screen or printer.

I suggest reading these two short articles on DPI:

http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/mythdpi.html
http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/printshop.html
Martin

Amazing!
Peter Belanger

Eric,
If I were talking just about pixels you would be right. I’m talking about files size measured in inches not pixels. Because I’m talking about the printed magazine I used DPI. So the file does and did increase in size.
Simon T

So, what camera did you use to take the photo of the iPhone 4, taking the photo of the iPhone 4? An iPhone 4? :-)