Sky detail

George.d(^^,)b

George.d(^^,)b

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Hi all, just wondering how everyone gets so much sky detail in their shots? Everyone's clouds look so prominent - in my pictures the sky almost looks entirely white.. Is this done in PP or a certain setting?
 
I dont own any grads at the minute but can anyone recommend which one i should purchase first? 2, 4 or 8?
 
SeeFarr said:
I dont own any grads at the minute but can anyone recommend which one i should purchase first? 2, 4 or 8?
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I don't have any either though I've been looking into it. It seems that you may want all varieties to suit any scenario and possibly hard and softs depending on what you shoot, though I guess if you're only going for one somebody may be able to say if one is used most commonly.

My work around at the moment is to either bracket the shot (exposing for the sky and foreground separately) and do some mild HDR or to try to recover the sky a little in the RAW file.
 
Circular Polariser, shoot RAW, and (sometimes) apply a small Grad in post.


ND Grads are nice, but only of use if you are using a tripod.

The "post-apocalyptic" clouds you sometimes seen are done by bracketting exposures and HDR-blending them together (and generally looks nasty).
 
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Got this shot yesterday with just a polariser.
A very minor exposure adjustment in Lightroom and jobs a goodun.
Most of the time you will need an ND grad for a traditional landscape shot where there sky is brighter than the foreground.


DSC_4425 by TCR4x4, on Flickr​

Of course it helps when the sky is blue. If its a grey horrible sky when you look at it, it will be grey and horrible on camera.

I took this shot last week at the same location as the above. Again just a polariser. No HDR or exposure merging. I had to wait a week to go back because the sky was just flat and grey and it wouldnt have made a good photo no matter what filters were used.

 
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Yes circular polariser reduces the glare in the sky so the blues deepen (on sunny days!) and contrast increases (so the clouds stand out more).

Maximum effect is at 90deg from the sun, so stand with the sun shining onto the side of your head. I haven't tried at sunrise/sunset when the light is lower and other colours are more subtle.

Just bear in mind that the filter reduces the amount of light so you need either higher ISO or longer exposure (so tripod will be needed).

Nick's run-down was great :)
 
JamesL100 said:
Just bear in mind that the filter reduces the amount of light so you need either higher ISO or longer exposure (so tripod will be needed).
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If its bright enough for a Circular Polariser to have an effect, it should be bright enough to hand-hold! Part of the reason for using ND's and CPL's outside is too much light, not too little...


On a road to nowhere by FTS Photography, on Flickr


Of course, a tripod can often help composition if you are shooting landscapes, especially if you are waiting for the light to be just right or have trouble with wonky horizons.
 
I found my photos in Mexico the skies were amazingly blue, here in the uk theyre blue on the odd occasion, got a lot to do with it being a completely clear blue sky or a gray hot day. Can bump saturation a bit in camera to help to. Most will use NDs.
 
Keep an eye on where the sun is to as this will affect it.
 
You don't need to go down the full HDR route to get well exposed skies. I shot this by using auto-bracketing and hand-holding my camera and manually blending what I wanted from each exposure into one. I had to align each layer manually as they weren't perfectly lined up but this takes about 10 seconds so isn't a big deal:
5691383294_26d9ae14ef_z.jpg

No filters needed, just shooting in RAW and some careful PP gets you a lovely natural looking shot with a good level of dynamic range without the really weird HDR effect.
 
I see Jessops have their Polarising Filters at 1/2 price on the web.
Are they worth the money for someone who has few spare pennies?
 
Jessops polarisers are great value, alternatively source one on ebay. Hoya and so on are excellent of course but expect to pay for the privilege!
 
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