Really bright, hazy skies - what to do?

[rhubarb]

Hi all, I'm in asia at the moment and really struggling with the skies over here. Much like an earlier poster, however my problem is knowing what to do with them. I spent the weekend in Shanghai, and the whole sky was one lump of cloud, but it was 30+ degrees and the sun was making it reallly bright, in fact is was acting like a massive defuser (I still managed to get sun burnt too). There was no detail in the sky at all just one mass of bright grey.

So the question is what to do, leave the skies blown and concentrate on the subject? I was trying to remember photographs taken by others in similar circumstances but I could not remember what people had done, and didn't have internet access to have a look

I tried a few things metering twice using spot metering but the difference was huge between the shots and there really wasn't anything of interest in the sky anyway. I was generally photographing buildings and the Shanghai skyline so had no choice but to include the sky. I contemplated a grey-grad but that would have afftected my subjectI did use a circular polarizer, which helped a bit.

So what's the best approach, in the end I got a bit disheartened and decided to try and post process, but I know this is not the way.

Thanks

 

[gwh]

use both nd & pol but this will slow your shutter speeds down, unless you have is on your lens, then it maybe a problem . you could also try to compensate by a stop but without knowing your kit its hard to coment . yours gwh

 

[davidbridges]

personally i just cry ... but just avoid as much sky as possible in your shots ...

 

[RobertP]

With a single shot I doubt you can do much more than aim for the best balance between overexposing the sky and under exposing the subject. Sometimes you just have to let the sky go. If filters aren't doing it then the only other way is blending bracketed exposures which will mean a tripod and processing work afterwards.

You should be shooting RAW and particularly so with difficult exposures as it gives you a little more leeway. Use the highlight warnings and the histogram to help decide the settings.

Good luck

 

[skyandstone]

Never fear !!!

Look for strong simple shapes and complimentary colours.

Simplicity is an important part of photography and you can use those blank skies (either overcast or completely clear) to your advantage when you have strong shapes in the frame. Large expanses of sky probably won't work. I've come to the conclusion that there are no such thing as bad conditions for landscape photography. Getting out in all weathers is what will give you variety in your portfolio.

 

[rhubarb]

Thanks for the posts. Now I look back i should have shot in raw, I was just there for a short time, no laptop and didn't want to run out of space. I was doing the mad touristy thing trying to see everything I could in a couple of days, and should just slowed down a little. Iwas generally using D300 with a Sigma 10-20 plus polarizer and mainly stopped down 0.3 - 0.7. I need to go through them and have a see what I can do, maybe just have to do a bit of blending of a few shots. I'll get some shots posted when I get back to the UK and have a bit of time. Cheers