[pterk]

Hi All,

Please have a look at these two shots. One's too dark, none of the colors I tried to capture, and in the other the sky is (almost) completely white. Both were shot with K200D and the kit lens (18-55) in landscape mode. I have this problem a lot (the white sky). What can I do to resolve it?

From the exif data I see the main difference in these two samples is the aperture (f/5.6 vs f/8). So my guess would be 6.7 might have produced sth. in the middle. Should I go for Av mode in such circumstances i.s.o. the programmed modes? (I *do* like the results in portrait and macro modes ... )

The shutter speed was 1/179 sec. and the focal length 24mm in both cases. No flash in either and ISO 100 was used.

Thanks in advance for your help.

PterK

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[Denis]

With conditions like the one above, I tend to avoid showing large parts of the sky. You have to be realistic in your expectations when you have to deal with nature. On cloudy days I do not take landscape photos with prominent skies showing. Go early in the morning when skies tend to be clear, wind down and strong shadows from low angle of the Sun. Even if you don't plan for favorable conditions, take the time to analyze what you see and then decide what is or not possible with what you are give to work with.

The shot at F8 would look much better with a longer exposure. F11 might even have been better. You need the DOF otherwise the bushes will not be sharp. Just remember with smaller apertures you need to let the light in for longer.
You can always do something with the sky in PP.

[Blender]

If you're ok with touching it up quite a bit and you have a tripod, try hdr. Thats worked out quite well for me, though I am far from being an expert. Otherwise, maybe a polarising lens and capturing less of the sky?

However, with the kit listed above, Ill have to agree with Denis; its a difficult shot to take to get the proper exposures. Have you tried using the bracketing mode? It helped me a lot at the start when I couldn't get the right exposures.

[paden501]

I would really push the processing of the sky in my PP to try to get some blue out of the clouds. Also you might try a polarizing filter. They work best in the sun, but even on a cloudy day they can bring the 'blue' out of the clouds.

[SpecialK]

Hi All,

Please have a look at these two shots. One's too dark, none of the colors I tried to capture, and in the other the sky is (almost) completely white. Both were shot with K200D and the kit lens (18-55) in landscape mode. I have this problem a lot (the white sky). What can I do to resolve it?

The sky is full of white (or very light gray) clouds. You are not going to get a blue sky when there is no blue sky in the scene.

And, all that white tends to make your image underexposed, such as in the second shot. You must give it an extra stop or so of EV compensation.

Either shoot on a blue-sky day, or include less of the sky.

Shooting RAW can help because it gives you more latitude in post-processing.

[zeek10d]

Try using a graduated neutral density filter.

[pterk]

Thanks for all your comments!

I didn't know about bracketing so I will try that for sure and I have a polarizing filter so I'll try that too. I'm a beginner and the post-processing isn't my first priority. I don't (yet) understand what to do anyway. I want to get my 'decent-shot'-ratio up a (fair) bit first.

In closing a pic that did catch the sky more or less as it was. The trees are a little less colorful here, but I still like it ;-). The still water in the lee of the trees hides the fact that there was a cold north-eastern wind that chilled us to the bone...This is Ilperveld just north of Amsterdam by the way.

[JCSullivan]

Agree regarding the filter - try adding a blue filter to the top half of the image.

[marlon]

A grad. ND would work, but with the tree line, you will end up darkening that too.
But ja, these kinds of scenes are hard for me too.

[Lowell Goudge]

a couple of questions for you regarding how you shoot.

in the exif data it shows contrast as high. Do you shoot JPEG?

If so, set contrast to low, as this will extend the dynamic range of the image.

I am not sure if this remains the same for all pentax cameras, but I ran a test with the K10D, and between greyscale of about 25 and 225 the greyscale value changes almost linearly with f stop. SPecifically each stop is 50 greyscale for high contrast but only 40 with low contrast. This means that in the mid range, low contrast as a setting gives you an additional stop of dynamic range.

Additionally, at the low and high ends, below 25 or above 225, there is a non linear portion which also has extended dynamic range when the contrast is set to low. While the high and low ends of the exposure scale are compressed, the total difference between high and low contrast can be 10 stops in low contrast to only 7 stops in high contrast. This makes a big difference to your images.

[Jimbo]

Would have been interesting to see the front of the boat centered to the channel versus off to the left. This one would have been great to try a HDR shot on which would have helped bring out the sky more well keeping the great mood of the water. I find with most of my shots a re-look back and say "how could I have shot this picture differently" This shot say early in the morning or late day, with just the right light, would have change the image completely... Still a nice shot though.... JIMBO

[pterk]

@Lowell: I shoot JPG and contrast is set to 'hard' (on k200d). I think I can change this in the 'custom image' settings (-4 to +4) In the default (bright) mode contrast = +1. I have set it to natural at the moment and will see what results this brings tomorrow. Thanks for your reaction.

@Jimbo, thanks for the suggestions and kind words ;-) I have similar shots without the boat but I liked the hard blue and red as a contrast.