I'm getting sick of blown highlights and washed out sky!
Discussion
Hi all,
I need some technique or filter advice.
I take a lot of photos of cars and bikes outside where I obviously have no control of the lighting, and I often find that a lot of my photos come out with the car being correctly exposed for the most part, but the sky/background being completely blown out to white which is annoying.
I sometimes knock the EV down into the minus for a few shots to try that out and whilst it does stop blow out and improve background to a certain extent, I am often unhappy with the exposure of the car (too dark).
I like the cars in the photos to really 'pop' and come out really bright and colourful, but often that gets lost to a certain extent when the sky/background is so bright. A darker deeper blue look to the sky would be good!
I shoot with a Nikon D90 and a 50mm F1.8, 18-200VR F3.5 and Tokina 11-16 F2.8 and I generally use no filters at all at present.
The only way I seem to get good exposure across the board is to use bracketing/HDR which isn't too much of a problem as I generally always use a tripod, but I try not to use HDR too much as I know its not really to everyones liking!
I really don't want to go full-frame to get more dynamic range as I think its more a technique issue.
I tend to crop out most of the sky in photos but even so I would like to improve the exposure of my shots.
Any advice or filter suggestions very welcome!
I need some technique or filter advice.
I take a lot of photos of cars and bikes outside where I obviously have no control of the lighting, and I often find that a lot of my photos come out with the car being correctly exposed for the most part, but the sky/background being completely blown out to white which is annoying.
I sometimes knock the EV down into the minus for a few shots to try that out and whilst it does stop blow out and improve background to a certain extent, I am often unhappy with the exposure of the car (too dark).
I like the cars in the photos to really 'pop' and come out really bright and colourful, but often that gets lost to a certain extent when the sky/background is so bright. A darker deeper blue look to the sky would be good!
I shoot with a Nikon D90 and a 50mm F1.8, 18-200VR F3.5 and Tokina 11-16 F2.8 and I generally use no filters at all at present.
The only way I seem to get good exposure across the board is to use bracketing/HDR which isn't too much of a problem as I generally always use a tripod, but I try not to use HDR too much as I know its not really to everyones liking!
I really don't want to go full-frame to get more dynamic range as I think its more a technique issue.
I tend to crop out most of the sky in photos but even so I would like to improve the exposure of my shots.
Any advice or filter suggestions very welcome!
An example from saturday.
It wasn't a sunny day at all, fairly bright but completely cloudy.
The background looks like a white sheet of paper!
The below are uncropped, unadjusted, right out the camera with the exception of the HDR examples etc.
Original:
Mild HDR:
Wild HDR (My eyes! my eyes!):
It wasn't a sunny day at all, fairly bright but completely cloudy.
The background looks like a white sheet of paper!
The below are uncropped, unadjusted, right out the camera with the exception of the HDR examples etc.
Original:
Mild HDR:
Wild HDR (My eyes! my eyes!):
A grad filter would be one way of sorting it - Cokin are entry level, Lee are fab but mega pricey.
Another way would be to bracket and rather than HDR the shots, chop a decent sky and stick it on using photoshop
ETA - are you shooting in RAW ? You'll be able to recover much more detail in the sky then if you're shooting jpeg...
Another way would be to bracket and rather than HDR the shots, chop a decent sky and stick it on using photoshop
ETA - are you shooting in RAW ? You'll be able to recover much more detail in the sky then if you're shooting jpeg...
Edited by dibbly dobbler on Monday 16th April 22:36
dibbly dobbler said:
A grad filter would be one way of sorting it - Cokin are entry level, Lee are fab but mega pricey.
Another way would be to bracket and rather than HDR the shots, chop a decent sky and stick it on using photoshop
ETA - are you shooting in RAW ? You'll be able to recover much more detail in the sky then if you're shooting jpeg...
Thanks,Another way would be to bracket and rather than HDR the shots, chop a decent sky and stick it on using photoshop
ETA - are you shooting in RAW ? You'll be able to recover much more detail in the sky then if you're shooting jpeg...
Edited by dibbly dobbler on Monday 16th April 22:36
I would rather get it right at the shutter press stage with filters or technique rather than photoshopping sky in simply because I shoot a lot of pictures at shows and simply would have time to 'shop' them all! I don't mind shopping the odd landscape shot etc!
I shoot in RAW and JPEG but I tend to use only my JPEG photos because when I open the raw images in Pixelmator or similar they are generally not as sharp, detailed or as contrasty as the JPEG (which I assume is due to them being processed in camera with Nikon's D-Lighting etc) and I am a bit unsure as to how to get the most out of RAW images!
I'll have a look at the ND grad kits!
OK a few options here.
First I would throw on a polariser and cut the glare down from the cars. This should help a little in balancing the exposure.
Second I think the HDR way is possibly getting there, you need a more subtle HDR , what app are you using? Remember you can blend the HDR with a single frame also. OR manualy blend two exposures (though in this case that would be next to impossible).
I thing an ND grad in this situation wouldnt work.
Remember we are trying to balance out bright sky and dark cars here, in one exposure (or more).
Rather than making the sky darker, why not make the cars brighter?
Add a flash (or two) with a decent diffuser and this would work a lot better (with the polariser)
First I would throw on a polariser and cut the glare down from the cars. This should help a little in balancing the exposure.
Second I think the HDR way is possibly getting there, you need a more subtle HDR , what app are you using? Remember you can blend the HDR with a single frame also. OR manualy blend two exposures (though in this case that would be next to impossible).
I thing an ND grad in this situation wouldnt work.
Remember we are trying to balance out bright sky and dark cars here, in one exposure (or more).
Rather than making the sky darker, why not make the cars brighter?
Add a flash (or two) with a decent diffuser and this would work a lot better (with the polariser)
Overcast skys will be brighter then a blue sky. The clouds act like a massive diffuser and are very bright.
It might be worth trying a Circular Polarising Filter, this will help to deepen the sky and will also help to saturate the colours.
I don't think ND grads will be any good as they wont give you enough control about which parts of the photo are being darkened by the filter.
tbh i think shooting when the light is better will be your biggest help, early morning or late evening when the light is not not so harsh or direct.
You may also be expecting too much from your kit, you have a two very dark cars there, no camera will be able to expose for both that and a bright sky.
your mild HDR looks like overcooked HDR to me 
It might be worth trying a Circular Polarising Filter, this will help to deepen the sky and will also help to saturate the colours.
I don't think ND grads will be any good as they wont give you enough control about which parts of the photo are being darkened by the filter.
tbh i think shooting when the light is better will be your biggest help, early morning or late evening when the light is not not so harsh or direct.
You may also be expecting too much from your kit, you have a two very dark cars there, no camera will be able to expose for both that and a bright sky.
your mild HDR looks like overcooked HDR to me RobDickinson said:
Second I think the HDR way is possibly getting there, you need a more subtle HDR , what app are you using? Remember you can blend the HDR with a single frame also. OR manualy blend two exposures (though in this case that would be next to impossible).
Rather than making the sky darker, why not make the cars brighter?
Add a flash (or two) with a decent diffuser and this would work a lot better (with the polariser)
I use Photomatix which I am led to believe is quite a popular one? but I'm not sure. It does have lots of options for the blending from very light HDR effects to quite serious as per the wild example. Rather than making the sky darker, why not make the cars brighter?
Add a flash (or two) with a decent diffuser and this would work a lot better (with the polariser)
I usually take 3 photos, one correct EV one -2 and one +2.
As for the using flash, I have 2 decent battery operated speedlights on mini stands with wireless triggers that I can certainly take with me to try to light the cars more. I might just need to add extra diffusion onto the diffuser cars I already have on them.
RobDickinson said:
Be interesting if you supply us the raws for this shot see what we can make of it, photomatix is certainly capable of a much more subtle mix.
Yeah..... That's gonna be a problem seen as how I don't have them anymore! I foolishly had a clear out after selecting the JPEG's I wanted to keep thinking that I wouldn't need the rest of them, but I was just looking back through the shots and the blow outs were annoying me, hence this thread.
Sorry about that and thanks for the offer.
If a shot is important enough and I'm willing to put the time into it... I like to get an HDR from Photomatix, and also process the Raw file twice so I have one with good sky and one with good everything else...
Then I add the three pics as layers in GIMP and start combining them gradually until I have a balance that I'm happy with.
Still usually looks HDR-ish, but a lot more subtle.
Easier with filters, though.
Then I add the three pics as layers in GIMP and start combining them gradually until I have a balance that I'm happy with.
Still usually looks HDR-ish, but a lot more subtle.
Easier with filters, though.
RobDickinson said:
OK a few options here.
First I would throw on a polariser and cut the glare down from the cars. This should help a little in balancing the exposure.
Second I think the HDR way is possibly getting there, you need a more subtle HDR , what app are you using? Remember you can blend the HDR with a single frame also. OR manualy blend two exposures (though in this case that would be next to impossible).
I thing an ND grad in this situation wouldnt work.
Remember we are trying to balance out bright sky and dark cars here, in one exposure (or more).
Rather than making the sky darker, why not make the cars brighter?
Add a flash (or two) with a decent diffuser and this would work a lot better (with the polariser)
ND Grad might work....First I would throw on a polariser and cut the glare down from the cars. This should help a little in balancing the exposure.
Second I think the HDR way is possibly getting there, you need a more subtle HDR , what app are you using? Remember you can blend the HDR with a single frame also. OR manualy blend two exposures (though in this case that would be next to impossible).
I thing an ND grad in this situation wouldnt work.
Remember we are trying to balance out bright sky and dark cars here, in one exposure (or more).
Rather than making the sky darker, why not make the cars brighter?
Add a flash (or two) with a decent diffuser and this would work a lot better (with the polariser)
It really depends on the clouds in the sky, the ND Grad (ND8) will put definition into the clouds, if there are clouds to be seen. If there are no clouds then the ND Grad will only affect exposure, which in theory will pull the exposure of the sky down, and bring the exposure of the subject (eg the car) up.
Getting the exposure on the subject right will give much better colour as well, so although an ND Grad might not do much for a very overcast blank sky, it will do wonders for the subject itself.
Where an ND Grad rocks is in broken clouds, it really brings in definition that is missing.
HDR is a bit of an odd one. I've had some nice shots using it, but it does bring out the worse in comments from other photographers, and it's done badly so often.
If you use an ND8 Grad and HDR you can get some great skies though!
How are you metering?
Original looks technically overexposed: tarmac, tyre tread (left car) and around the exhaust (right car) all seem brighter than I'd expect. Drop a stop of exposure and already you'd have more latitude to work with your sky.
Histogram view on the LCD will help you judge overall exposure at times when ambient brightness makes it tricky to review the screen and make an aesthetic assessment of exposure.
I think also it's easy to have big expectations when in reality a blown sky is often unavoidable within an overall composition. This is particularly true when using ultra wide angle lenses.
Original looks technically overexposed: tarmac, tyre tread (left car) and around the exhaust (right car) all seem brighter than I'd expect. Drop a stop of exposure and already you'd have more latitude to work with your sky.
Histogram view on the LCD will help you judge overall exposure at times when ambient brightness makes it tricky to review the screen and make an aesthetic assessment of exposure.
I think also it's easy to have big expectations when in reality a blown sky is often unavoidable within an overall composition. This is particularly true when using ultra wide angle lenses.
Had similar conditions a few months ago at a classic rally.
IMG_1843 copy by motion_captured, on Flickr
The sky was probably not as bright as yours OP but still very flat, with 2 ND filters stacked (and some natural vignetting from the lens) I managed to bring out a bit of interest in the sky and create a bit of a mood.
The problem with doing that is it tends to muddy everything up a bit and leave you with a colour cast (expensive filters will reduce this) but it's all you can really do in these conditions without compositing exposures or controlling the lighting.
IMG_1843 copy by motion_captured, on Flickr
The sky was probably not as bright as yours OP but still very flat, with 2 ND filters stacked (and some natural vignetting from the lens) I managed to bring out a bit of interest in the sky and create a bit of a mood.
The problem with doing that is it tends to muddy everything up a bit and leave you with a colour cast (expensive filters will reduce this) but it's all you can really do in these conditions without compositing exposures or controlling the lighting.
NinjaPower said:
I shoot in RAW and JPEG but I tend to use only my JPEG photos because when I open the raw images in Pixelmator or similar they are generally not as sharp, detailed or as contrasty as the JPEG (which I assume is due to them being processed in camera with Nikon's D-Lighting etc) and I am a bit unsure as to how to get the most out of RAW images!
Put the horse before the cart, and forget about HDR - the above is the key to it. You will be amazed at how much more data is lurking in a RAW file - in both directions. It's not a cure all; you are still looking for a good histogram and once something is blown out, there is still data loss, but JPEG compounds the problem by taking an even narrower snapshot. Note that the increased range gives you some freedom to bring back highlights by underexposing, because you will be able to rescue the shadow detail. Remember that this is a bodge but will bring you some benefit.RAW files initially appear flat so that you can work with them to achieve what you want, unlike the 'on rails' approach of JPEG processing. Get Lightroom or similar, and either just play or get a book on it. Learn how to recreate the same output as the JPEGs - it's not hard. From there start looking at highlight & shadow control, and on to gradient masks.
This isn't for everyone, the JPEG fanciers will probably moan, and it means at least some time editing each and every photo, even if it's just the most cursory level changes. However everything you say suggests you are invested enough for the effort to be worthwhile, and think about it: it means every photo is treated on its context and merit.
Finally, don't obsess about it. The shot in your OP is good and the sky is not integral to its impact; yes, it would be nice to have some detail in it, but it's not what the photo is about, it's a boring sky and you will be shooting yourself in the foot if you cripple the rest of the image through the distraction of some obvious processing like HDR.
As the other guys I'd use a circular polariser and an ND grad filter for a shot like that.
Also, as you've got the raw file have a go at it, you might find there is enough information left to pull that sky back a bit, looking at the top right there is still some information left, raw keeps more than jpeg (not by a lot).
Also, as you've got the raw file have a go at it, you might find there is enough information left to pull that sky back a bit, looking at the top right there is still some information left, raw keeps more than jpeg (not by a lot).
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