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haroon08

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Hello everyone,

I took some photos of family over the weekend and the sky in the background was constantly overblown. Even when I would underexpose the picture I was still getting blown out skies. Even with the subjects underexposed the sky was whited out. Any suggestions on how I can prevent this? Thank you.
 
What camera were you using?

Basically you don't have enough dynamic range. If you have a contrast control turn it way down, it might help.

If you can shoot RAW you may be able to recover the highlights.

Graduated Neutral Density filters are made to correct for this problem.
--

 
Fill flash, graduated filters, or even two shots and some photoshop work can fix or help here. You're simply outside of the dynamic range of a digital sensor.
 
Yes, those suggestions are good. Graduated Neutral Density Filters can be slid up and down in the holder so that the transition matches the horizon. You'll still have to work on the shadow detail and watch that it doesnt over-darken a person but at least that's easier to recover than blown highlights. If you want to take shots without subjects that move then the HDR technique can be quite usefully applied.

--
John.
Please visit me at:
http://www.pbase.com/johnfr/backtothebridge
http://www.pbase.com/johnfr/digital_dartmoor
 
So I will have to make big assumptions.

You were shooting a scene that was back lit and or the subject was in shade. Make sure the sun is not in your 180 degree field of view - and/or use fill flash. Avoid high contrast scenes.

Here is an example. The arch in this photo is 90 degrees from the sun - the exposure of the subject and sky are even. On the right side you see the sun and the sky starts to blow out while the subject is in heavy shadow. The right side of the picture is what you are experience. Shoot for the arch. And yes, you have heavy shadows by the arch, but they are part of the subject, not obscuring the subject

Conversely, take away the sun (second pic) and you have much more even lighting throughout the scene (and a much less interesting pic IMO)




haroon08 said:
Hello everyone,

I took some photos of family over the weekend and the sky in the
background was constantly overblown. Even when I would underexpose
the picture I was still getting blown out skies. Even with the
subjects underexposed the sky was whited out. Any suggestions on how
I can prevent this? Thank you.
Click to expand...
--
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Even if you can't donate, please help spread the word.
 
Thank you everyone for the great tips. The equipment I was using was a Nikon D40X camera along with the Nikon 24-70 f2.8 lens.

Would a CP filter help me as well? I guess I'm not to clear on how these filters work and what exactly they do for me....
 
haroon08 said:
Would a CP filter help me as well?
Click to expand...
Not for backlit or high contrast scenes. Referring back to my pics, the Polarizer would only work pointing toward the arch - where you already have good light, and would have no effect whatsoever pointing toward the sun.

--
Some cool cats that can use your help
http://www.wildlife-sanctuary.org

Even if you can't donate, please help spread the word.
 
haroon08 said:
Thank you everyone for the great tips. The equipment I was using was
a Nikon D40X camera along with the Nikon 24-70 f2.8 lens.

Would a CP filter help me as well? I guess I'm not to clear on how
these filters work and what exactly they do for me....
Click to expand...
The contrast in the scene is too high - the background is lighter than the subject and so either the subject is dark or the background is blown out. You have several ways of dealing with this, I think:

1) Use fill flash to lighten the subject
2) Use a reflector to bounce light back onto the subject
3) HDR if they will hold still enough :)

Bearing in mind that lighting is one of the most important things in photography, it's worth doing some reading on this stuff.
 
Flash. Try it, it works great during the day for the problem you describe.
 
If I use flash it will expose the subject brighter... the subject exposure is fine, its the background that needs fixing. I am working on posting samples.... thanks
 
haroon08 said:
If I use flash it will expose the subject brighter... the subject
exposure is fine, its the background that needs fixing. I am working
on posting samples.... thanks
Click to expand...
That's true. But using flash will greatly increase your level of control over the overall scent contrast. As you've noted, underexposing the overall image to prevent the sky from blowing out will typically yield a greatly underexposed main subject. That's where the flash comes in. Underexpose the ambient to darken the background, and use flash to brighten the otherwise underexposed main subject.

Still, there are limits. Overpowering the sun can sometimes require more power than a small battery operated flash can manage on it's own. Try to keep the brightest portions of the sky behind the camera when possible. Shooting earlier or later in the day rather than at high noon can make this easier.

--
'Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!'

Tom Young
http://www.pbase.com/tyoung/
 
No, because if you don't want to blow out the sky you need to expose for the sky, which will make your subject too dark. Using flash will bring your subject back up to the background brightness. As has been said many times in this thread, you have too much contrast in your scene. The ONLY way around that is to reduce the contrast between shadows and highlight areas. This is done by either having both the background and subject positioned so they are lit equally by the sun, shooting in cloudy conditions (the second photo in my first post), or increasing the lighting on the subject and exposing for the background.
haroon08 said:
If I use flash it will expose the subject brighter... the subject
exposure is fine, its the background that needs fixing. I am working
on posting samples.... thanks
Click to expand...
--
Some cool cats that can use your help
http://www.wildlife-sanctuary.org

Even if you can't donate, please help spread the word.
 
In full MANUAL mode... you basically setup for two separate parts of the image.
1) Meter the background - expose for it.
In your example,
lowest ISO,
high number fStop,
shutter within the limits of the flash sync speed.
If necessary, take a pic or two to confirm the background is well exposed.

2) Add your flash.
If a manual flash, adjust to get the proper subject exposure
If a modern flash, trust the eTTL, iTTL, whatever TTL to get close
adjust exposure compensation to dial in the subject exposure
note: It takes a lot of flash power sometimes

Side note - opposite situation

Suppose you want to shoot pics in a "darker" area like a wedding reception or church. you need to get good exposure of the background and the subject again. In this case, you "drag" the shutter, boost the ISO, open up the lens in order to get a good exposure of the background (using the ambient light), and again, you rely on your flash to overpower the dark and properly expose the subjects. One added twist...the color temp of the ambient light indoors is most likely much different from your flash color temp. (outdoors it's not a problem)

got it?
 
But you didn't maintain the EXIF data in these posted samples.

What I can see is that the background is illuminated by sunlight, but the foregound where the subjects are is in shadows. This causes two problems...you only noticed one. Yes, the background is blown, but the camera "thought" you would prefer to not have the subjects dark. You need to learn how to "tell" the camera what you really want and to recognize situations like these where the camera is going to do the wrong thing...OR to learn how to look at the histogram after you have taken a picture and find out that it's not exposed well...and then correct it and do it over.

The second problem is that subjects in the shade are illuminated by the SKY, not the sun, thus the WB of the foreground is much too blue. Using a fill flash will help with both problems. But even with fill flash, you should "chimp" the initial shots to be sure they are exposed correctly.

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
Bridge Blog: http://www.here-ugo.com/BridgeBlog/
'Experience: Discovering that a claw hammer will bend nails.
Epiphany: Discovering that a claw hammer is two tools...'
 
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