Shooting Portraits in the Rain With the Sony a7R III

Do you always hide yourself and your camera as soon as the first raindrops appear? Check out this photographer and model braving it for a shoot in Chicago during rain!

Just recently, we wrote about travel photographer Pierre T. Lambert also exploring Chicago during a crazy rainstorm and shooting street photographs. This time, our eye got caught by portrait photographer and YouTube content creator Manny Ortiz, who shot a model during the type of weather that makes you want to curl up under a blanket with a hot cup of coffee, not go outdoors with a camera! Kudos to Ortiz and the model, as the images produced were certainly worth getting soaking wet!

Ortiz used a simple setup of a Sony a7R III combined with a 35mm f/1.8 lens, which allows you to capture a wider scene around the model and get those lovely city buildings and streets in the background. It's not your traditional portrait lens choices, but the shots speak for themselves. Ortiz went for a moody, almost film-like look, and the lens choice certainly added to the mood without distorting the model's features. 

Although the weather was rainy, the photographer added additional rain overlay textures on top of some of the images to be able to see the raindrops more clearly instead of simply wet streets around the model. Ortiz shows how he edited one of the images so you can see the subtle effect.

After seeing this video, now all you need is to find a willing model who's up for an adventure and doesn't mind getting her hair and clothes wet! And of course, let's not forget waterproof shoes.

Anete Lusina's picture

Anete Lusina is a photographer based in West Yorkshire, UK. You'll either find her shooting weddings, documentary, or street photography across the U.K. and Europe, or perhaps doing the occasional conceptual shoot.

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6 Comments

The a7iii will have returned out to be exactly what it was, a budget full frame with some fancy bells and whistles. Sony color science is still the overall worst of all the camera companies. Their lenses render disgustingly artificial digital imagery. The menus are awful. The IBIS, well, it sucks. The camera isn't even fully sealed. And that body, it's just sooooo bad.

The oranges are terrible ...I'm not a troll, just so tired of all the totally lost souls of photography that think the Sony system is actually good

You know I would love to test out both Nikon and Canon. But still neither of them managed to make a mirrorless camera that would replace my Sony camera. I need IBIS and reliable autofocus and prefer dual slots, so I am with Sony. The Z5 is close, but it have old sensor tech, on pair with first generation A7. Canons R6 have less pixelcount and are overpriced.

You might not like Sony colors but in blind tests most photographers actually preferred Sony colors. I think the a7iii have good colors, and that something in the orange actually is not there anymore. But besides Fuji I never have worked with other brands. Still I would not want to shoot with a second generation A7, because of colors. I did and the something in the orange got to me.

I want to try something else. As soon as either Canon and Nikon will make a camera that fits in the same price range as my A7iii, or cheeped, I will test. I already waited a few years for that, still waiting!

Canon has the R6 and R5 now, and they are looking much better than the Sony offerings. Sony skin colors still come straight out greenish in some spots on some skin tones--not a single other camera company has this problem. Why would you want to have to correct that. I believe Sony shooters have been brainwashed. If they shot with Cannon or fuji long enough they would not be happy with Sony color science.

I changed from Fuji to Sony because skin om white light people was reddish. Just look at some images. Look at inside of hands and face to. Sony skin tones are much better. My wife took my picture with a Canon crop camera. All the rash in my face was like neon lights, I looked terrible. But never tested.

So often I think about Fuji, then I remember skin tones and it’s the end of that.

Yes on Sony profiles and maybe most of all in Lightroom it could look awkward with Sony. But I use Adobe Color and m3, these problems are not anymore.

Neither of the offerings Canon have suits me. I am not going down 4 megapixel and pay a grand more for a camera less then what I have. That’s an expensive downgrade.
I might get a Nikon Z50 to play with, and look skin tones. Maybe.

Sometimes people who complain about colors have cataracts. Sorry guys, it happens to lots of us. Get your eyes checked.