I'm crap at this photography thing... help!

68lbs

68lbs

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April 2008
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Help, I'm crap at this photography thing.

Took the family out yesterday. NYMR for a nice ride on a steam train and Pickering Castle. The weather was great, everyone was happy, and I took my new toy (Canon 400D) expecting to bring home some lovelly shots. I even had some ideas for creative ones. Looking backwards out of the train, the track sweeping out of shot, with a nice sky and the foreground blurred to show the speed. And then some nice castle shots. Curved walls, high bits, peeking through arrow slits, etc.

What I ended up with was a complete useless pile of digital manure. In every single shot the sky was blown. I'd even tried using the AEB feature so that hopefully one of the three shots would be fine. But no joy.

There must be something incredibly basic that I am missing here. I've seen plenty of landscapes and none have this white expanse of pixel-less poo like mine!

I wasn't expecting miracles, the sky was far from interesting yesterday, but I was expecting the shots to be correctly exposed.

Since getting home last night, I have already learn't that I could have realised the problem after the first shot if I'd looked at the little preview graph (something I didn't do all day). But I'm still not sure that would have helped.

Any advice on what I am doing wrong?
 
It can be tricky exposing both the sky and the ground correctly, especially without the use of an ND Grad filter, this darkens the sky to make it easier to expose both without blowing the sky out. The other option, is to take 2 shots, one exposed for the sky, the other for the ground then blending both in photoshop (this doesn't work if you are on a moving train though as you'll have 2 different exposures.) One last option is to shoot in RAW, then slightly underexpose your shots then you can bring detail back into the shop during processing. The first option is the easiest though, the ND Grad filter.
 
First point is 'don't panic' - we can all do blown skies, thats easy and sometimes you just have to live with it. Take on boar wez' suggestions and in the meatime, see what you can make of your pics from yesterday by perhaps removing the worse of the skies with cropping, or indeed, just living with it. Another trick is to reduce the impact of a blown sky by converting images to B&W, which whilst not the perfect answer, might save some of yesterdays efforts ;)
 
Hi 68lbs

Same as wez says, what ever you don't give up sounds like you have the creativity and great ideas for some super shots, look forward to seeing your work
Dave
 
second the filter thingy, but again you need to know how to use or you could end up with a pile of poo again. as i found out!!!!!
 
Shooting in raw can help a great deal in recovering a blown sky, here's a simple example of what Lightroom can do with some sneaky use of controlling the highlight and luminance channels.

blown_sky.jpg
 
Reading this with interest as I have the same problem...went out yesterday fully armed and dangerous but when I got home they looks pants and feel like giving up :'(. Theres such great stuff on this site which make me feel worse!!

I did shoot in raw though so will have to play around later :(

Nice to see your before and after PX18. Can I do that in PSE6??
 
I ain`t no expert tog, but a ND grad would help a lot.
 
Always remember what 'greatest tog ever' Henri Cartier Besson said "Your first 10,000 shots are always your worst" Stick at it! Also tinkering with the luminance on photoshop raw does the world of good!
 
Other raw apps might offer the same amount of recovery but Lightroom or ACR in CS3 seem to offer the best out of the apps I've tried.
 
So is lightroom miles better than photoshop? Something else to add to my never ending shopping list!!
 
If you've got CS3 then the version of Camera Raw is basically the same as Lightroom but earlier versions of Photoshop don't have all the features.
 
russbates said:
Always remember what 'greatest tog ever' Henri Cartier Besson said "Your first 10,000 shots are always your worst" Stick at it!
Click to expand...

He left off a zero :(
 
you want to see some blown sky? come 'ere.


It will take time to get to know your new tool. If you hate blown sky then don't include the sky in the next 100 shots ;)
 
dod said:
He left off a zero :(
Click to expand...

:lol: :agree:
If you manage to bring back some of the sky (excellent example there Pxl8!!) Then some dodging & burning can help a massive amount too - it's best to not overuse this but it can help to deepen the skies tones at the cost of slightly increased noise levels.

Duplicating your layer & setting it to "multiply" will also show you whether there is recoverable detail - this multiply layer can then be masked to affect just the sky (which does not affect noise levels & is the method I'd try first) :thumbs:
 
dod said:
He left off a zero :(
Click to expand...
:agree: :lol:

I do a really great blown sky, I had so much opportunity to practice the technique at the weekend (shame it rained on Sat!) :lol: I managed to get a few without but it was only by doing weird things with the iso, shutter speed and apperture! Seriously though, there was no way I could avoid getting the sky in the shots as I was on the Pennines trying to get some landscapey shots so it looks as if I may need to look into the filters as well if I intend to do more than just sit and look at the views.

Pxl8, thanks for posting that, it really does show the difference good processing can make.
 
Thanks for all the +ve feedback. I shalln't be jacking things in... just a bit hacked off that all the shots turned out so bad. I did shoot everything in RAW (this seems to be the more professional format, so I thought might as well start with right format from day 1), but don't have Lightroom or CS3, so probably don't have as much control using Canon's own software that came with the camera. I know it does allow you to adjust curves, set WB etc, so will have a play.

Will have a read up re filters too (which I'm aware of, but wouldn't have a clue which ones to choose/use).

Thanks
 
even canon camera raw can help, lightroom is just more of a workflow but canon raw has basically the same tools for processing photos.
 
pxl8,

That is a great example of how to use an application like Lightroom to such level, the only problem is that I wish I knew what steps you did ... would you be kind enough to post the steps you've taken, please?
 
What metering mode were you using? Depending on the scene it can make a huge difference to the exposure.

Is it just the sky that is over exposed? Just wondering if you could have accidentally set some + exposure compensation.
 
Spose nowadays an extra zero would be more appropriate!
 
wez130 said:
even canon camera raw can help, lightroom is just more of a workflow but canon raw has basically the same tools for processing photos.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid not, Lightroom's ability to adjust data for certain hues is a massive (and neglected) feature that Canon, Capture One, etc. just don't offer.

Wail said:
pxl8,

That is a great example of how to use an application like Lightroom to such level, the only problem is that I wish I knew what steps you did ... would you be kind enough to post the steps you've taken, please?
Click to expand...

In simple terms I dropped the exposure added some fill light and then in the HSL/Color/Luminance panel I turned on interactive mode in Luminance mode and dragged on the sky until I was happy. I then did the same in Saturation to make the sky pop some more.

Final values for the main panels are:

Exposure -0.84
Recovery 0
Fill Light 32
Blacks 10
Brightness 60
Contrast 25
Clarity 28
Vibrance 0
Saturation 0

Tone Curve
Highlights 0
Lights +20
Darks -20
Shadows -10
Point Curve: Medium Contrast

HSL panel
Saturation
Blue +73
Purple +1
All others 0

Luminance
Aqua -4
Blue -64
Purple -1
All others 0

Everything else as at the default values
 
pxl8,

Thank you so much for sharing this ... it is ever so helpful, and now is the time for me to go and see what I can do with these kind of settings (or there-about) with my pictures.
 
Pratical photography magazine has a article on raw this month. Just to let you know.
 
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