Photographing parade on overcast day - tips?

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Burningflan

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Hi,

This Saturday is the first weekend of the Brighton festival, and as always is opened with the childrens parade. I have volunteered to be 'tog for the day for the school my fiancée works at.
Unfortunately, it's currently looking like the day will be overcast with chances of rain showers. My limited past experience in shooting on overcast days suggests that the colours of the props and costumes won't be as naturally vibrant as I would hope for :'(
So, what tips could you give me for achieving the best photos given the situation. Equipment will be...

Nikon D5000
Tamron 17-50 f/2.8

Many thanks for any tips/help :thumbs:
 
Up the ISO to 200 and get in close...overcast and rain often make for better images as you're not fighting the sunlight all the time...

And contrary to what you'd think - colours actually appear brighter in overcast weather conditions...just as long as you get the exposures right...
 
Excellent, thanks, I guess my previous efforts in cloudy conditions looked a little washed out due to running in evaluative metering and not really checking the histogram after shooting then? It's been a few months since then and (hopefully) I've been learning so am much more clued up on metering and exposure now.
Getting in close shouldn't be a problem as I'll be walking as part of the parade, avoiding having to battle crowds!

Cheers for that, I'm feeling a little more confident and less apprehensive about it all now :D
 
dont know about the D5000

on my D40 I always set EV = -0.3
set WB to "cloudy"
and saturation to "Vivid"
 
On the creative side hunt down splashes of colour and try and offset them against drab backgrounds,
It might be worth using iso auto if the light is very poor, you can set the parameters in the custom setting menu on the d5000 from what I remember.
John
 
Cheers for all the hints guys, I'll keep them all in mind tomorrow.
I've cleared my memory card and the camera's battery is on charge, I'm as ready as I'll ever be for tomorrow's parade, hopefully I'll get some photos I'm happy with :D
 
I'd rather it didn't rain but I love overcast dull days! You can shoot in any direction - you don't get harsh shadows or screwed up faces - use a little fill flash if you need to give a little zap. Dull = perfect conditions for what you are doing.
 
awp said:
I'd rather it didn't rain but I love overcast dull days! You can shoot in any direction - you don't get harsh shadows or screwed up faces - use a little fill flash if you need to give a little zap. Dull = perfect conditions for what you are doing.
Click to expand...

That's the way. A dash of fill-in flash will make a world of difference :)

You need to get the balance right, so read up in the handbook and give it a bit of practise. It's really easy using i-TTL auto flash :thumbs:

It can flatten your battery quite quickly though, so keep an eye on that.
 
It's do-able...
Here's an image from a set taken in 2007 that I just uploaded to Flickr as an example of bad-weather parades: it was teeming down with icy-cold rain - properly torrential i was in full Gore-tex even though the cameras were not. By the end of it, one D2x was unusable as there was so much condensation in the viewfinder eyepiece that I couldn't see through it...

4565642498_27a416cd15.jpg


My biggest problem was rain on the lenses and viewfinders - I was constantly wiping both with a bunch of towels in my bag.

Here's the full set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arkady001/sets/72157623837707723/

The colours are a bit muted, true, but it's March in Northern Germany - there is no colour up there at that time of year and there was almost no light at all to speak of... You cannot use flash in weather like this as all you do is light-up the raindrops - you get white streaks all over the images, making them pretty useless...
 
Yeah...mebbe...not one of my better efforts, but sometimes you just want to get it done and get warm and dry again... 4hrs stood still in freezing-cold rain is enough to test anyone's artistic sensibilities...
 
Wide-angle size 14 feet! :eek:
 
HoppyUK said:
Wide-angle size 14 feet! :eek:
Click to expand...

:lol:
She's what you'd also describe as 'freakishly' tall...about 5'11" and skinny with it... In the right light, she's quite attractive, but with a grim, surly disposition (and large feet - it's not all 24mm up-sizing...lol).
Not my favourite officer in 7Bde - and actually, thinking about it, there were none that were...
I think she's content that it's just her and her dogs at home...
 
Arkady said:
And contrary to what you'd think - colours actually appear brighter in overcast weather conditions...just as long as you get the exposures right...
Click to expand...

Yeah something I noticed was that things are always brighter than you think in the UK because the sun lights up the mass of white clouds we always have. Makes you want to wear sunglasses on a cloudy day ^^
 
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