Shooting fashion with just natural light
Fashion photography is mostly associated with large setups – lots of lighting gear, power packs, assistants running around, etc. While, if theme allows, it is possible to create good fashion photos with just a camera, nothing else. Your setup time will be close to zero and you’ll be shooting very fast. Important part of such shoot is to choose location properly. Soft light in the shade is probably the easiest to work with.
Camera settings. Set white balance to either Cloudy or Shade depending on the mood you want to achieve and ambient light temperature. Note that Shade setting will produce warmer images. Set camera into Aperture Priority mode, Spot metering and choose single focusing point. Setting camera this way will allow you to base your exposure on face skin tone of your model, though you might need to correct it with Exposure Compensation dial depending on the desired mood. Always put your focus point on model’s face, eye preferably. Set aperture for your liking, I prefer to have it open wide to blur the background.
Following images were shot with Nikon D700, 50/1.8 lens at f/2.8. Shutter speed was chosen by the camera depending on available light.
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