Nature Light Tips

[CRT]

I really want to use natural light as my main means of lighting for my photography.

I have been studying certain people who I know shoot this way.

Are there any sites, books, or tips that you all may have.

Thanks!

[MarcelLuettmann]

Shooting with natural light can be a challenge. Some thoughts on this:

Direct sunlight is very hard, giving hard-edged shadows and high contrast between shadow and sunlit areas. On overcast days, the light is way softer, with less contrast. Thus, overcast days are considered better for portraits.

Outdoors, the angle of the sun over the horizon is important. If the sun is low, the light is warmer and usually gives better results.

Indoors, the light comes from the windows only. A reflector might be very useful (just as if you're taking portrait shots outdoors in the sun) to get some light into the shadows.

Watch the shutter times, aperture and ISO level, especially indoors. It is hard to get enough light indoors, you might want to keep the shutter time short, stopping down the lens a bit gives better image quality and the lower the ISO the less noise will appear. Here, a tripod will help - as long as you don't want to shoot pets.

Marcel

[Mefistofeles]

I always take 4 looks before taking a shot with natural light.
Specially on a sunny day:

1. Trough the viewfinder
2. Trough my eye... obvious.. but, sometimes we just look, and don't observe how the subject is composed.
3. Trough the LCD display
4. At the actual photo.

These works with all kind of photos... but i've realized that sometimes we don't take the time to OBSERVE and to actually lay our eyes before take the shot.
Try to imagine how the subject would look trough a different angle, or with a different lightning. Walk around it, go with weird angles, from below, up... be creative and don't be afraid to experiment.

Oh yeah.. and take at least 6 shots of each "scene".

[Ikke_006]

Originally Posted by CRT

I have been studying certain people who I know shoot this way.

Who are those people that you study, cause I am interested in this as well...

[cwphotography]

I don't know of any books.
All I shoot is natural light. I barely use my flash. I just love the way natural light is, so I learned with it.
Remember try not to shoot between 10am-3pm, thats when the sun is very bright and overexposure alot of pictures. You can still shoot during those times depending what you're shooting, you can get some cool shots.

[CRT]

Originally Posted by Ikke_006

Who are those people that you study, cause I am interested in this as well...

There are a few people on Flickr (whose info I don't have with me...I have a list at home)

And I simply love this photographer...I aspire to take pictures like she does
http://tarawhitney.com/justbeblogged/