Natural Lighting with D7000

Good Morning D7000 Users.

I'm fairly new to using the D7000 and/or advanced cameras in general. I'm a HUGE fan of the natural lighting shots and have been trying to get it just right but am having some issues with the settings.

Right now, this is what I have for lenses...
1) 50mm
2) 18 - 55
3) 70 - 300

I also have the SB900 Flash

Here are my questions:
1) Are there other lenses that would be recommended for that more "natural" look?
2) What are the best settings to use to get that effect?

Thanks so much for your time!
~ T

the look? laughs,, well, that is more a function of the White Balance setting of the camera.

Our eyes forces light to the White state, but film captured more real, and people like the "look" because it is not often as our eyes see its (because of the brain correcting white balance).

if you leave it in auto wb state, the camera will try to force it closer to what our eyes see, but perhaps further from the "look".

so,, you can

1. leave it in sunlight WB, that more manages the light as it is.

or

2. shoot in raw, and tune the temperature and such to your own "look"

enjoy,,, learning light control is a core FUNdamental of photography.

tfernandes49 said:

Good Morning D7000 Users.

I'm fairly new to using the D7000 and/or advanced cameras in general. I'm a HUGE fan of the natural lighting shots and have been trying to get it just right but am having some issues with the settings.

Here are my questions:
1) Are there other lenses that would be recommended for that more "natural" look?
2) What are the best settings to use to get that effect?

Thanks so much for your time!
~ T

Click to expand...

First, let me welcome you to Nikonites. I hope you find what you were looking for here. I'm sure you'll find a lot of information (sometimes too much) and will meet very interesting people.

Now to answer your question: To me, "natural look" could be very different than for you. Your question leaves too much for interpretation to be answered. If you could post examples of what you mean by "more natural look", maybe we could help.

This is probably something that you will have to find by experimenting, reading, looking at other peoples' work. There is no magical recipe for this "natural look" thing.

One thing I can tell you is that the camera's sensor does not see the light the same way your eyes do. So it is up to you to train your eyes to see the way the camera sees. It's not magic, but experience and practice.

Enjoy your Nikon!

As was stated, white balance is critical for creating a look that is "natural". How it's set will depend on your preferences. Spend some time shooting outside and varying the white balance setting to see how it impacts the "look" to you. Remember, there are tools to manipulate that after the fact as well. But it's best to get to know your camera and how it works.

With lenses, I would think any of them would be well suited to outdoor work. For a "kit lens", I am continually impressed by just how well the 18-105mm works with my D7000. It's a great lens for just walking around and doing landscapes and such. If it lacks anything it might be the ability to create a nice, narrow depth of field effect when objects are close together. A bright 35 or 50mm (f/1.8) works great for that. I have a 24-70 f/2.8 for that reason, but find that there are times I wish it was a touch wider. But when you're not looking for a narrow DoF then any of those lenses should work.

The best advice I can give is to just get out and make pictures. Make mistakes and learn from them. Try things just to see what happens. If you're setting everything to Auto and keeping your fingers crossed for great pictures then you probably should have gotten a point-and-shoot. There are lots of great photos to be found here. If something inspires you then think about why and then try and duplicate it. It all starts with a great image capture, but there are so many places you can then take it with different software. Work in something that allows you to exploit the RAW files and "fix your mistakes". Then, next time out, figure out what you had to fix and try again to get it right. The best part is, you're not wasting film, and you're (hopefully) having fun, right?

A good question about people having fun, sometimes, I get the impression that people want to spend say 500 dollars on an SLR, and that magically, they will start getting those Ansel Adams pictures.

Thank goodness its not that easy, I mean, what's the point if it was so easy. Photography is a life long journey, with bumps along the way. Yes, equipment is helping, and auto buttons, and such, but in the end, its being in the right place, right time, right composition, and right camera settings.

I consider that fun, but not something that one learns quickly,, savor the journey,,, its the only one you get.

"Natural lighting" huh? I assume you are talking about shooting with available light?

If you are talking about portraiture then the answer is you do not need too much light. What you want is soft diffused light. This best thing here is to shoot with the sun behind the camera, maybe an overcast sky, and one those fold up reflectors. The problem with natural available light is that the contrast tends to be weak so you have to compensate by underexposing just a tad. You can use your flash to bounce the light of a ceiling or wall to get good results also. If you use to much light or your light source is to close to your subject you'll get chalky faces and black shadows...you'll see this a lot with beginners and a bunch of studio lights.

I've never really bought into that Leica "glow" that everyone talks about but I do think that modern lens formulas tend to be somewhat sanitary and sterile compared to the old lenses. They may be sharper but they lose something if you ask me...maybe it is the "glow" that they lose.

Research the golden hour...light at dawn and at dusk for landscape and other stuff too...that kind of light is great.

As far as white balance goes if you don't have the light right first then WB doesn't really matter because the snap is going to be nil. I always use around 5500 K or the flash WB setting on my digital it imparts the yellow orange warm glow or when indoors I use a cooler setting like incandescent.