away with the clouds

Mr Bing

Mr Bing

Suspended / Banned
Messages
462
Name
Chris Turner
Edit My Images
Yes
hi i was after some advice everytime i shoot clouds they appear all blown out any ideas how i can stop this
 
Not knowing, but until somebody with more knowledge answers.

I would guess you have two ways, either in manual mode purposely under expose what the camera is suggesting

or (and i guess this woudl be easiest) use a little bit of exposure compensation, take a few pics, with varying degrees of exposure comp and see where you like it.

I am guessing it will be different every time though.
 
increase your shutter speed and increas the f number. lower iso.

the usual things you do when your shot is blown i would have thought.
(the advice assumes the picture is only of the sky)
 
also you find that your camera has a bracketing mode, which will take 3 or 5 (or soemtimes 7 ) versions of the same shot at differnet exposure, which again shoudl do exactly what you are asking.


Also, If you dont have a camera that will do the above, try focusing on a lighter area of the sky, so that the camera sets the exposure for that, and there for the darker clouds should be a little under exposed and just what (i think) you are after.


my god im rambling

/slowly slinks away
 
no its usually like if i take a picture of a building with the sky above it and that
 
ha ha ha thanx guys ill have a play later
 
Do you have an example you can post with some exif? My guess would be your exposure needs adjusting.

Are you just shooting clouds or is there some landscape in the shot too? If you expose for the land on a sunny day 9 times out of ten you will get over exposure in the sky if there are clouds. If you expose for the clouds on such a day then you will probably find your land is under exposed. There are a few options to solve this. You could use the HDR technique using Photomatix or a new on I have found called Picturenaut which basically blends your bracketed shots to make the exposures blend nicely. It does not give the same look as Photomatix though, it's more of a natural look.

One of the other options is to take two exposures, one for the sky and one for the land and then use them both in one image simply by deleting the underexposed land in one shot and the overexposed sky in the other. Then merge whats left of the two to make 1 image. :thinking: I hope that makes sense, and that it helps.

Jo
xx

Edit: in the time it took me to type all that you got a bucket load of replies :lol: so some of it sounds repetitive.
 
0877fcba.jpg


1cc77ae8.jpg


Its a crap picture but thats how my clouds always seem to come out
 
that seems to be quite high ISO for a bright sunny day, maybe drop it down to 100? Also try an ND grad filter to take the top half of your exposure down a stop or two.
 
I think the metering seems to be the biggest problem. The exif shows you used pattern metering which if I am right, takes an average reading. To get more control you need to set the camera to spot metering. With this picture you could have then taken a reading from the canons. You would then end up with a very light sky but thats just the way it works. HDR or grads are the only way round that and grads would have been difficult in this one.
 
thanx for the advice. i also can only go down to 200 is on my d50 so i dropped it down to that
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top