Clouds 1

Any pointers on shooting storm clouds would be appreciated!

Thanks

Diane

I see that you were shooting this at an ISO of 800.  In normal daylight conditions there is no reason to be shooting that high.  Especially shooting into the sky like that, ISO 100 would have been more than enough.  Yes, your shutter speed would have been a lot lower as well.  I don't know about the A500, but there might be some camera settings you could change as well.  Boost the contrast and sharpness in camera.  Also, shooting in Low Key would have created a very interesting effect. 

Once the image has been shot, now it's time for post processing.  I'm guessing you were looking for a darker, more ominous sky.  I did a quick run through Photoshop and came up with the image I uploaded as an idea.  I'm not sure if it's what you were looking for or now, but worth a shot.  For this image I cropped out the distracting trees at the bottom of the frame.  Then duplicating the background layers twice, I used the blend mode of Multiply on one layer, and Soft Light on the other layer.  Using Hue and Saturation I selected the Blues channel and moved the slider towards desaturated, and also decreased lightness.   

Hi Diane, I've looked at all three cloud shots - I will not rate them. I agree that clouds can look spectacular and have done many myself. A Polarizing filter would have helped on all three shots - it would make the blue more saturated which would help. For clouds IMHO you need drama - so the more dramatic you can make the shot the better. This is often better achieved in B&W rather than colour and I would be using a wider angle lens than you have. I would also usually ground the shot by providing some of the foreground as a reference point to place the clouds/sky in context. Also try using graduated neutral density filters, either on the lens or in photoshop. I also agree that ISO 100 or 200 would be fine for this type of shot.

One of the issues with higher ISOs, especially on consumer level DSLRs, is that it tends to significantly reduce the saturation in a scene.  I agree with everything Lacey and Andrew have suggested here,  lower your ISO, use a circular polarizer to increase the contrast, and be prepared to post-process if you really want to add drama to your cloudscape.

I noticed that you were shooting in Av (Aperture priority) on this shot which is fine however there is really no need for using such a small aperture (f/13) given that there are no foreground elements to keep in the focal plane.  The lens you were using is probably sharpest at it's mid-point (around f/8), so for a shot like this I would stay in that area.  I'm assuming, by the EXIF data, that the blue portion of the sky was actually darker in reality than it appears in your photograph, at 2029 in the southern part of the U.S. it's getting pretty dark at that hour so I suspect you might be a little over-exposed here, as well.  Use your exposure compensation and histogram to try and balance the exposure once you're close.  Good luck!

Thanks for your cloud photos, Dianne.  I want to be able to do better at this, but my shots came out like yours, just not what I want.  Thanks to Andrew and Libby for their tips. 

Yeah, awesome advice, Libby :)

Wow!  Everyone thanks! This kind of information is exactly what I wanted and surely need.   I happened to look out the window, saw the clouds and grabbed the camera.  

I'm still learning my camera and will have to try each of your suggestions. 

Lacey - I am unfamiliar  with the term 'low key' that you used.  Could you elaborate?

And, as to the post processing - each of the 'revised shots IS more of what I was looking for.  I do most of my post work in Picasa as I am still trying to figure out PhotoShop.  I'll try working with the photo in PS.

Thanks again.  I just love PhotoNet!