Blown Out Sky

[dustin_smith1]

<p>I am fairly new to digital photography. I just bought a new Canon T1i with the standard lens it comes with. After continuously having the sky turn out pure white I went out and bought a new circular polarizer. It helped out some, but the pictures still arent coming out with the sky as blue as id like, esp. when the sun is in view. I tried taking multiple shots all at different exposures, but had the same problem in every pictures. There are two shots in my gallery that show the problem, and what im looking to do. The first shot posted is an unedited picture taken by myself of the problem, and the second shot posted a picture taken by Dionys Moser of what im looking to do. Hopefully someone can help me fix my problem. thanks.</p>

[dustin_smith1]

<p>Sorry, couldnt get any of the images uploaded.</p>

[dustin_smith1]

<p><img src="../photo/9960254" alt="" /></p><div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>You'll get more views if you resize your photo to fit the 700 pixel width limit for forums. And please upload only photos you've taken yourself. Per photo.net guidelines, any images uploaded other than your own will be deleted.</p>

 

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[CoryAmmerman]

<p>Do a search on <em>dynamic range</em> . Basically, the sensor on your camera has a range of exposures that it can handle at one time. Our eyes have a much wider range than the sensor does. In the pic you posted, the majority of the scene is very dark, and the sky is light. The camera's meter is guessing on the exposure and since more of the frame is dark, it is trying to expose that correctly. This causes the sky to get blown out. Sometimes this can be corrected in post processing. Sometimes it can't. If you had composed the same image with more of the sky in the frame than rock, the sky would have been exposed correctly and the rocks would have been dark.</p>

<p>P.S. You have to resize your pics to 700 pixels on a side to get them to post inline.</p>

[asafrye]

<p>The majority of your image contains relatively dark and shaded area. It could be that your camera is taking an average reading and setting the exposure conditions to get some detail in the shaded region. . .this will then blow out the sky. Sounds like you might want to look into getting a graduated neutral density filter for your lens. Google it! Or you can start with this <a href="http://www.great-landscape-photography.com/graduated-filters.html">link</a></p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>Also, there is another way to get around this, called HDR. It involves taking multiple exposures and combining them in post processing. I don't know much about it because I haven't attempted to use it yet.</p>

[mark_drutz]

<p>Polarizers work best on the sky when shot at a certain angle to the Sun. You can darken the sky with a graduated neutral density filter. It's darker at the top and becomes lighter as you go down on the filter. The result is a darker sky w/o darkening the rest of the picture.</p>

[gdw]

<p>A polorizer does NOT work if you are shooting toward your light source. It does NOT work if you are shooting away from your light source. In orther words if the sun in in the frame, directly in front of you are even directly behind you, the polarizer is not going to have much effect.</p>

<p>A polorizer is not magic; it does not magically add blue to the sky. It works within certain perimeters. Shoot a group of photographs as you turn in a circle.</p>

<p>Start with the sun coming directly over one of your sholders--where you are shooting at about 90 degrees to the sun. Rotate the polorizer--you will be able to see the affect in the viewfinder. When the sky is as saturated as possible take a shot.</p>

<p>Turn turn to where the sun is at about 45 degrees and do the same.</p>

<p>Then turn to where you are shooting directly toward or away from the sun and do the same thing.</p>

<p>You will discover that the polorizer works really, really well when the sun is comeing over your shoulder. It works pretty good at 45 degrees. But it will not work at all when you are shooting toward or away from the sun.</p>

<p>It is simply a matter of learning what a polorizer will and will not do.</p>

[tim_eastman]

<p>There are situations such as this when bracketing makes lots of sense. If the bracketing can be tied to a function button, all the better. I found that on my D300 if I bracket with 5 shots @ 1 stop apart I will get a winner. I set exposure compensation -1 because the highlights cause more trouble than the shadows. Also, set to Ch it will shoot the five bracketed shots and stop. Just remember to cancel bracketing!</p>

[carbon_dragon]

<p>The traditional way to handle this when you have a picture where the much brighter area is divided by a straight line is a graduated neutral density filter. There are round screw in ones, but the better, more versatile ones, are similar to the Cokin filters, where you screw an adapter on the front of your lens and then a rectangular filter half dark and half clear is slid onto the adapter and positioned such that the sky is covered by the dark part and the line is approximately positioned on the transition from sky to ground. This reduces the dynamic range of the photograph.</p>

<p>In the modern age, using digital RAW files, often the raw picture has some ability to recover the data in the bright sky though programs like Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture. Even with a single raw image, often you can combine two versions of a photograph -- two "developments" of a RAW image in Photoshop (or an HDR program like Photomatix) to create an image with detail in the sky and the ground. Even better, though I haven't done this, you can take multiple pictures at different exposures, usually 3-5, from a tripod usually, of the same scene and use a program like Photomatix to combine the images. With tone mapping a surrealistic picture can be created, but you can use HDR to create a non-surreal image that just gives you the ability to reduce the effective dynamic range so that the sky and the ground have detail.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

[lachaine]

<p>What you are finding out is that digital cameras are much quicker to blow out highlights than film is, and in addition to that, there is less in-between. You have about 5 stops of dynamic range, and you just have to deal with it by choosing the time of day and the light you want to photograph the scene in. Without resorting to tricks like HDR, or using graduated density filters, you have to expose for the highlights, and let the shadows fall where they may. This makes sense because you can never recover highlights which have been recorded as all white, while you usually can recover some detail in shadows. On my much cheaper camera, in such situation, I deliberately underexpose via exposure compensation and let the camera's built-in ability to boost shadow detail do its work. After that, there's usually also some room left to make minor curves adjustments in even the simplest photo editor.</p>

[carbon_dragon]

<p>Digital cameras definitely started out with poor dynamic range, but I think they've gotten better over time. Some people say they're nearing black and white film or are already there. Can anyone point to a definitive study?</p>

[maciek_stankiewicz]

<p>Go back to film my Friend... An I am serious.</p>

[raymondborg]

<p>First of all, you must take the photo at the right time. The best time will be at sunraise or sunset. At mid-day the contrast of lighting will be too high, hence the exposre meter may easily be fooled, resulting in an overexposed sky. Secondly, try to have some clouds. Totally blue skies is not that much interesting. Another option is to change the sky while editing with your softwear. I have photographed many dramatic skies which I insert in any landscapes with white skies. Good luck.</p>