Expectations

[Sour Kraut]

Never been in this sub-forum before...


Anyway, my office faces east so I get to see the sunrise each morning. And sometimes it's pretty spectacular. But my camera in no way translates what I see into what it sees.

So is this down to my expectations exceeding my camera's capability or exceeding my own ability to manage my camera?

It's nothing flash; one of the new Canon SX30is jobbies, but somewhat beyond a simple compact (so I'm told).

These pics were taken over a couple of mornings. I saw: amazing red skies, weird streaks in the redness, perfectly formed visuals of the sun (early enough to look straight at it) in the lighter mornings.

The camera saw: things like this. Any advice?

[GetCarter]

The problem is that cameras are pretty thick. Some more than others. What you are trying to photo is very difficult for the camera as there is so much dark in the foreground, it exposes the sky incorrectly. If you don't want to fart about changing exposure settings (which is the best way to get good results) the first thing to try is to limit the amount of land in the shot. Also, most people try and fit too much sky in (IMHO), zoom in more!

Edited by GetCarter on Sunday 23 January 22:01

[V8mate]

Thanks for the advice. I couldn't decide whether zooming in would be a good or bad thing, so didn't. Your comments about acknowledging the different areas of dark and (very) bright are useful too.

I'll go and play some more

[itsnotarace]

Simply put, your eyes have much better dynamic range than your camera does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range

You need filters mounted in front of the lens to block the bright areas off from the sensor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduated_neutral_den...