Hey, dentist here who is new to photography.
My setup is a D7000 with Metz ms-1 wireless ringflash and nikon 85mm VR macro lens.
Can anyone advise what settings I should be using. I'm wanting to make use of the 2 user presets and have settings for portrait full face shots and also for close up intranet oral/mirror shots of individual teeth etc.
I dont really have much idea about ISO/shutter speed/fstop/White balance and other settings so any help much appreciated, as well as flash settings on the camera and flash itself.
I've managed to program the d7000 into commander mode to activate the flash.

Many thanks

Your biggest obstacle in close-up photography is depth of field (DOF). At least for the individual teeth photos, apertures from f/8-f/16 would probably give you the DOF you need. (DOF increases as the aperture size decreases. Larger numbers are smaller apertures, e.g. f/16 is a smaller aperture than f/8.) For the full face shots, you could probably use larger apertures, and may need to as the subject distance will be greater (not sure how powerful the ring flash is).

ISO again will be somewhat determined by flash power. You may get well exposed images at f/16 of teeth using ISO 100-200, but if they're consistently dark, use a higher ISO.

As far as white balance goes, try Auto or Flash. If you shoot images in NEF (RAW) format, you can change the WB in post-processing.

I would shoot in aperture priority or manual exposure mode with the flash on TTL. Don't use BL-TTL (balanced fill flash) if there is such a setting on the flash.

Alan

I am a dermatologist and take pictures of all things I biopsy. I use a D700 with a 60mm micro (I found the 105 to be too much). I use an R1C1 flash and have the camera set on 1/125 sec, F11, ISO 200, aouto white balance and all other settings as the camera came from the factory.

Philip

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