Best Camera for Natural Light Portraiture?

[elementgs]

Darrel, as always, thank you for your time and response, very much appreciated.

 

[Derrel]

Sure thing John. Lately I've been reevaluating a lot of my shooting techniques and approaches, and trying out some different equipment. Trying to keep an open mind about what I like versus what younger people want, and what I can do to make my images look different than everybody else's images. I really always have tried to go with a very natural, "straight photography" approach...like August Sander's old-fashioned sort of straight documentary look-at-the-camera-and-stand-there-and-let-me-record-how-you-look, with basically natural, accurate color. But I've also always liked soft, ethereal,pictorial renderings, and kind of dreamy looks, some blown highlights, and strong backlighting looks too.

Here is a smattering of images I shot Friday, and processed on Saturday. I shot all day with two lenses, and mostly, one camera. I made about 835 exposures. These are just basic Lightroom processed shots. I don;t "do" skin smoothing on these kind of web uploads...that's not my thing. I suck at skin smoothing,and basically seldom do it except for clarity adjustments and the very rare Gaussian blur layers. I want things to look "real". I will clean up blemishes and zits with the clone tool, but I try and use the natural light so that I do not have to do much except adjust my highlights and shadows and make an exposure tweak and be done with each frame in about a minute or so. I'm still using Lightroom 3.6...I probably should upgrade to 5.x or whatever. I don't have the time to slave over 500 or 800 frame sets, I just try and crank them out and move on to the next one.

Here's a few frames that I liked, all totally natural, available bright sunshine on the very last day of spring, at the Oregon coast on the windiest damned day one could ever hope to not have to shoot on.
D3X_9497_SneakPeak-2.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
f/8 at 1/250 second, monopod, ISO 250, Exp +1.0, 200mm VR-G, 3.16 meters,Hawaii 5-O Lightroom processing


D3X_9500_web.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
f/8 at 1/250, monopod reflection visible in eyeglass lens. ISO 125, Exp + 1.0, 200mm VR-G, 3.35 meters, cold-tone B&W processing look


D3X_9687_web.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
Sepia-tone "eye cut" on 3/4 face view, evening, 80-200 AF-S at 112 mm, ISO 400 at 1/200 second to stop windy hair, f/3.5, exposure + 1.33 EV, 2 meters. sepia tone. Her new profile image.


D3X_9723_SneakPeak.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
Deliberately shot against the BRIGHTEST,most blinding, intense backlighing sun we could find, 80-200mm AF-S at f/5.6 for corner to corner sharpness, ISO 400 to build shutter speed to 1/640, 10 meters distant at 165mm. cream-tone monochrome


D3X_9495_web copy.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
3/4 face view on windy beach, cold-tone B&W, f/8 at 1/250 second 200mm VR-G, ISO 220 at 3.16 meters


D3X_9775_web-2 copy.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
late in the day; 80-200 AFS at f/5.6 at 1/1250, ISO 400, + 1/3 EV, 4.47 meters. Strong sidelight from low sun, front fill light from sandy beach. cream-toned monochrome.


DSCF0063_WEB.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
end of the day, last shots. Subject facing toward the evening sun over the ocean, 1/640 at f/10, 3.98 meters, 200mm VR-G. cold-tone B&W processing

 

[ghache]

"I want to shoot natural light" always turns out to be "I don't know how or don't want to be bothered with learning to use flash to make it look like non-man made photons." Like 99.99% of the time... Cause it is a real PITA to do it. I'm still looking for the right flash diffusion setup for my macro while using manual or iTTL.

Most ignorant statement ever. i know plenty of people who can actually shoot amazing photos using lights OR natural light
Matter of fact, i shot with lights only for years and shoot more and more natural light. oh well, i guess im just lazy.

 

[KmH]

Those that are good at using just sunlight generally have extensive experience and knowledge of doing photographic lighting with a variety of light source types.
There is no doubt that having such experience and knowledge is helpful.

You yourself mention that you have years of experience using lights, thus making a circular argument that chases it's tail by stating "i [sic] guess im [sic] just lazy".

 

[TCampbell]

I think Derrel has given you great advice.

While you could use just about any camera, I suspect you'd find you prefer the look of a full-frame body (Nikon D600 series or D800 series / Canon 6D or 5D series ... or higher level bodies). The "full frame" means the same lens provides a wider angle of view and this causes you to tend to shoot at a closer distance -OR- to switch to a narrower angle of view lens. But that change (to achieve roughly the same subject framing) changes the physics so that you naturally get a shallower depth of field and stronger background blur than you'd get with a crop-frame body.

In regards to "natural" light... I use the term "available light" because a wavelength is a wavelength regardless of what generated it. What you REALLY care about is how tight or broad the light source appears to be as this affects how rapidly areas of light can transition into areas of shadow. Gentle transitions tend to look better. When "natural" light is full sun in mid-day... it doesn't look very good. Light modifiers are more important than light sources and hence, the light you can control is better than the light you cannot control. It naturally follows that what you really want is to be able to control the light.

But supposing you want to use "available" light (hint: buy a few reflectors... they're cheap), then you may find yourself really cranking up that ISO sensitivity for areas that just don't have much available light. When you do this, you'll get more "noise" in the image. Full frame sensors naturally collect more light and tend to exhibit far less "noise" at high ISOs.

Nikon just announced their D810... while you could wait for a D810 to show up in the retail chain, this announcement will typically cause a drop in price for the bodies that it's intended to replace -- meaning a D800 may become more affordable. I'd say this will "save you money" but we all know you'll spend the money anyway... but you'll get more gear! ;-)

 

[elementgs]

Thanks again for the response. I've had my eye on the rumor mill for the 810 and yesterday's announcement almost entirely sealed my decision.

It seems to have (based on the stats) everything I need to do what I want to do while still allowing me the flexibility in the craft to be happy.

My only concern is that they still didn't include wifi and gps. I just don't understand why they wouldn't include that.

 

[TheFantasticG]

Most ignorant statement ever. i know plenty of people who can actually shoot amazing photos using lights OR natural light Matter of fact, i shot with lights only for years and shoot more and more natural light. oh well, i guess im just lazy.

Be butthurt all you want but that's how it is. Read hundreds and hundreds of posts from hundreds of people and it's painfully obvious that it always turns out they don't know how to manipulate light to make it look natural no matter the source. Since you say you know how to manipulate light, I wasn't talking about you so not sure why you even got the butthurt.

 

[TheFantasticG]

Thanks again for the response. I've had my eye on the rumor mill for the 810 and yesterday's announcement almost entirely sealed my decision. It seems to have (based on the stats) everything I need to do what I want to do while still allowing me the flexibility in the craft to be happy. My only concern is that they still didn't include wifi and gps. I just don't understand why they wouldn't include that.

I thought it included GPS? Hmph. I just glazed over the specs. Congrats if that's what you go with as I'm sure it'll be a great camera.

 

[imagemaker46]

Photography is learning how to read light, doesn't matter what kind of light. There is no "best camera body" for shooting anything, there is knowing how to use the camera that is sitting in a persons hands. There is no best light to be using, there is just knowing how to use the light that is there, it doesn't matter if it's coming from the sun or a 10watt bulb.

I believe in a simple approach to taking pictures, use the light and shoot. I'm not sure why people like to try and complicate their lives when it comes to photography.