NIKON. Shooting in the woods

The forest will delight you not only with fresh air and lush colors, but also with interesting photo subjects. How to take pictures in the forest, in the new Nikon Masterclass. Share their secrets: Elena Sokolova, Ivan Mukhin and Alexander Andreyko

Full review and test shots of the Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/4

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 125

Focal length: 26mm

And if you are lucky enough to have small rocks or cliffs nearby, the forest scenery becomes more mystical and fairytale-like.

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/5

Shutter speed: 1/500

ISO: 160

Focal length: 16 mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/5

Shutter speed: 1/320

ISO: 160

Focal length: 16mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/5

Shutter speed: 1/640

ISO: 160

Focal length: 16mm

A stream or small river in the middle of a forest on a rocky bed would look beautiful.

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/60

ISO: 160

Focal length: 31 mm

Vertical panorama of 2 horizontal frames

Camera: Nikon D810

AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/100

ISO: 160

Focal length: 16mm

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/8

Shutter speed: 1/80

ISO: 160

Focal length: 16 mm

Time Lapse

Morning hours are best for capturing forest scenery. When the sunlight just breaks through the thicket, there is no strong contrast, like in the daylight.

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/10

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 200

Focal length: 25 mm

With a bit of luck and a bit of fog, the shots will be even more mesmerizing. When shooting in the fog, it’s easier to show the atmosphere and depth of field. The foreground remains the clearest and brightest, while the background beautifully melts into fog.

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

Aperture: f/5

Exposure: 1/200

ISO: 100

Focal length: 66mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/5

Shutter speed: 1/250

ISO: 160

Focal length: 24mm

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/8

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 320

Focal length: 16mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/5

Shutter speed: 1/640

ISO: 160

Focal length: 16mm

Taking pictures of forests in winter

In winter the forest is best captured at dawn or dusk, during the golden hours. This is the time when the sun’s rays are coloring the forest in bright yellow-orange hues. It kind of glows when the sun rises or sets. Shadows are soft, colors have pleasant pastel tones. It is best to choose moments when the trees are covered with snow caps after a heavy snowfall, or to look for scenes in high mountain areas where the trees are covered with snow for most of the winter.

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 100

Focal length: 17mm

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/10

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 80

Focal length: 16mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 100

Focal length: 24 mm

Vertical panorama of 2 horizontal frames

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 100

Focal length: 24 mm

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/13

Shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 80

Focal length: 16 mm

You’re most likely to take beautiful winter photos on frosty days, t.k. It’s when it’s freezing that the trees are most often covered with frost and you can catch a beautiful sunset.

Don’t hurry to leave the scene after the sun goes down. That’s when the blue hour comes in. When the sun goes below the horizon line, everything turns a shade of blue. During this time the sky can turn various shades of blue and reflect orange, yellow, purple and pink. “Blue Hour occurs twice a day, just before sunrise and just after sunset.

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 100

Focal length: 16mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/2

ISO: 100

Focal length: 16 mm

If you can’t go to the forest during the golden hours, you can take beautiful pictures during the daytime as well. Especially good shots in February, March on sunny days when the contrast appears: snow-white forest against the deep blue sky.

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/10

Shutter speed: 1/250

ISO: 80

Focal length: 16mm

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/13

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 80

Focal length: 22mm

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/13

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 80

Focal length: 22 mm

Vertical Panorama of 2 Horizontal Frames

Camera: Nikon D810

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/11

Shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 80

Focal length: 16 mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter Speed: 1/320

ISO: 100

Focal length: 30mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/8

Shutter speed: 1/400

ISO: 100

Focal length: 16mm

Camera: Nikon D7100

Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR

Aperture: f/9

Shutter Speed: 1/500

ISO: 100

Focal length: 16mm

Technical features

I use Nikon D7100, Nikon D810 and AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR wide-angle lens to take pictures. I shoot in RAW format. This way you can get more out of the picture. The forest is best shot with the aperture closed. Aperture value set at 4-10. When I shoot against the sun during the day, I shut it down to 20-22 to get the rays.

It is better to take the picture darker so as not to over lighten the bright parts of the sky. In RAW you can get the shadows out easily, but the over highlights are next to impossible to remove in post-processing.

Shutter speed doesn’t really matter. During daylight hours you can easily shoot on short handheld, but during the golden hours, when it gets darker I use a tripod and lengthen the shutter speed. A strong wind can be a nuisance at such times, so it is better to choose no wind at darker times of the day, or to catch the moments when the wind calms down.

Ivan Mukhin

“I am a landscape photographer. A love of nature and contemplation, inculcated by my parents in my early childhood, made me shoot in this particular genre. Today I want to share my experience and give you some tips for taking pictures in the forest, which may also be useful for any landscape photo.

Place and Time

Plan the location beforehand – find the composition and judge which side the light falls from at different times of the day. Sideways and backlighting are best. Try to shoot at a certain time, in the forest it is about a couple of hours after sunrise and the same amount of time before sunset, because this is when the light is at its most interesting.

Camera: Nikon D90

Aperture: f/11

Shutter speed: 3

ISO: 200

Focal length: 10 mm

Camera: Nikon D90

Aperture: f/11

Shutter speed: 1/3

ISO: 200

Focal length: 10mm

Equipment

My main assistants are my Nikon D90, a 10-20mm lens and a Slik PRO AMT Alloy Series tripod. The wide angle lens gives you close focusing and allows you to zoom in on foreground subjects. In the forest, slow light conditions often mean you have to take your pictures at slow shutter speeds, so a tripod is advisable to avoid blurring your shots.

Camera: Nikon D90

Aperture: f/13

Shutter speed: 1/6

ISO: 200

Focal length: 10mm

Composition

Frame just the necessities, don’t try to cram everything in at once. This allows the viewer to see exactly what you wanted to show. Use the rule of thirds – mentally divide the picture with two horizontal and two vertical lines into nine equal parts, placing the main subjects of the picture either on the lines themselves or on their intersection. However, rules are there to be broken, and the rule of thirds is no exception. Try to change the point of view and focus on an interesting foreground, such as a fern or a tree covered in moss. It adds depth to the landscape and makes the picture more expressive. Capture the water – forests often have little rivers and streams that make a great addition to your composition.

Camera: Nikon D90

Aperture: f/13

Shutter speed: 1/13

ISO: 200

Focal length: 10mm

Shooting parameters

When shooting a landscape, you want sharpness all the way from the foreground to the background. One of the most effective ways to improve depth of field is to keep the aperture down to f/8 or more. Also, a closed aperture will help “complement” the sun with beautiful rays. However, you need to be aware of diffraction, which can reduce the detail, so it’s better not to use apertures higher than f/16. You have to use the lowest possible ISO setting in order not to spoil the image with noise. Shoot in RAW – this format allows you to save more detail in later processing, and you can always adjust the white balance if it wasn’t quite right at the time of shooting.

Camera: Nikon D90

Aperture: f/13

Shutter speed: 1.6

ISO: 200

Focal length: 10 mm

Exposure Bracketing

In the forest, the light is very uneven, so what’s really tricky is the difference in brightness. This is especially noticeable when shooting with backlight. The camera can’t always handle such a large dynamic range of scenes, and a very effective way to fix this is to use exposure bracketing. This method is based on taking several shots from the same point, but with different exposure values. Combining these shots in a graphics editor does not lose the darkest and brightest parts of the image. Almost all modern cameras have a bracketing mode, and you can always set the desired number of frames and exposure steps.

Camera: Nikon D90

Aperture: f/16

Shutter speed: 1/50

ISO: 200

Focal length: 10mm

Camera: Nikon D90

Aperture: f/13

Shutter speed: 1/20

ISO: 200

Focal length: 10mm

And the last but not the least bit of advice is to shoot more and more often, as it is practice that helps you develop. Great light and great shots to you all!”

Alexander Andreyko

“My introduction to photography started with the purchase of a Nikon D3100 about seven years ago, at the time I didn’t know there were other modes besides auto. But being a technical person I decided to learn the manual settings and how the camera works, and that’s how I got hooked. At first I photographed everything, but then I realized that landscapes are the most interesting for me, and as I live in a forest, the forest landscape has become my main subject.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/50

ISO: 400

Focal length: 50 mm

Equipment

Paradoxically, perhaps one of the basic tips does not apply to photography, although it is only at first glance. Imagine you’re in a beautiful, pristine forest a couple of hours before sunset, you find some interesting light that might disappear or change in ten minutes, now is the time to focus, think about composition and find your shot point. But the forest insects have an agenda of their own, this bloodthirsty horde will incinerate all uncovered body parts faster than the shutter clicks. You can’t be in those conditions, much less take photographs. More than once I have been in such a situation, so the clothes should be taken very seriously and be sure to take insect repellent.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/30

ISO: 100

Focal length: 10 mm

Equipment

Bring only the bare essentials. Most of my photographs of forest landscapes are taken on foot, so after 5-10 km of winding paths and swampy terrain in American forests you feel every extra pound of weight. In my practice, I use a Nikon D7000 camera, a 10-20mm, 50mm lens, and my favorite AF NIKKOR 70-210mm f/4-5.6D. If conditions allow, I try not to bring a tripod.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/9

Shutter speed: 1/80

ISO: 100

Focal length: 105mm

Preparing to Shoot

The results of carefully planned photography are much better than spontaneous. There’s a great mobile app called The Photographer’s Ephemeris that allows you to track the time and point of sunrise and sunset as well as its position during the day, it helps to imagine which objects will be illuminated and which will remain in shadow. Some sites display the likelihood of fog, which is also very useful for planning.

And before you go out, look in the memory card slot, just in case.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/4

Shutter speed: 1/250

ISO: 100

Focal length: 210 mm

Composition

You can talk about composition for a long time, lots of books have been written on the subject, but I think you have to learn it, not feel it. When you get to the location, you forget all the rules and laws, all the actions happen intuitively. This probably comes with experience.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/8

Shutter speed: 1/25

ISO: 100

Focal length: 10mm

But what to do if you haven’t much experience and you can’t get a good feel of this intriguing composition, and it’s too shameful to show the pictures you took during your walk in the woods to your relatives??

Here are a few tricks I use when I’m composing:

● Main subject

Most of my photographs are centered around a main subject: it might be a tree that stands out in color, such as a birch with yellow leaves in a pine forest, or grass covered in dew from morning fog and forming patterns, or a sunbeam that has streamed through the pine trees. Include the main subject in the picture is very important, because the viewer begins to consider the picture and it ends, and in his absence the image looks vague and inexpressive.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/11

Shutter speed: 1/2

ISO: 160

Focal length: 10mm

Plans

Multidimensionality is a powerful compositional technique. Foreground, middle and far views add volume and depth to the photo and help convey the atmosphere of the scene better. Add a foreground to the frame with a wide angle lens, and you get the impression that you can take a step and find yourself in the scene.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/10

Shutter speed: 1/30

ISO: 250

Focal length: 10mm

Clutter

The main objective in making a shot, and probably one of the most difficult ones, is to eliminate all extraneous elements that have no sense, but only distract attention, create imbalance, and spoil the harmony. For this reason, I use the Live View monitor when I am shooting a forest landscape, which gives me a better idea of the end result, helps me frame the shot and find the right position.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/8

Shutter Speed: 1/80

ISO: 100

Focal length: 16mm

Abstraction

Have you ever been out in the woods and spent some time there, but the camera didn’t pick up anything interesting?? I did. This may be due to dull light, bad weather, the off-season, or the place itself is unremarkable.

In these conditions I look for color, texture and form, because a forest is not only trees, lakes and lawns. You can find very interesting and surprising abstract subjects this way.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/8

Shutter speed: 1/100

ISO: 100

Focal length: 11 mm

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/6.3

Shutter speed: 1/50

ISO: 125

Focal length: 10mm

Shoot and reshoot

I took a beautiful photo? Great! Now go back to the same place and make it even better. Wait until the euphoria of the shot has passed and try to shoot the same scene, but under different conditions: it may be different weather, time of day, or year. I regularly keep an eye out for perspective spots. Sometimes you only get unique conditions for a few weeks out of the year, so it’s important not to miss the chance.

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/10

Shutter speed: 1/320

ISO: 400

Focal length: 210 mm

Camera: Nikon D7000

Aperture: f/10

Shutter speed: 1/40

ISO: 250

Focal length: 10 mm