Making the Most the Sky in Pictures?

smogsy

smogsy

smogsy

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Im a amateur photographer i love landscapes,

i can get a good picture of landscapes fairly easily but, i have trouble with the Sky it seems always to bright.

how can i combat this, without buying a polorizer? i need to know by tomorrow as im going on hoilday im currently using a D60 with 17-50mm Tamron Lense
for example
http://www.nyfalls.com/tutorials/overexposed-sky-1.jpg
Click to expand...

i would like to know without Photo proccessing if its at all possible :)
 
Can't think of any way to do it which involves no post processing or buying a polariser. Unless someone knows a cunning method I've not seen before you're going to need one of the 2.
If you shoot in RAW a little bit of post processing would probably get the worst of the over exposure fixed.
 
Post-processing is the only way to go but even then, you'll need to compromise between the sky and the darker foreground. ND/Polariser or a set of cokin filters the way to go unfortunately...

And as PinkFloyd said, shoot in RAW and these overexposure can be saved without too much compromise.
 
with lightroom2 you can do selective exposure changes and just change the sky without effecting the foreground

layers in photoshop will also do this

even HDR might give you a nicer look

but all means post processing ..
 
Take two shots, one with the foreground correctly exposed and another with the sky exposed correctly. Then blend them.

Without filters, it's not possible without PP'ing.
 
smogsy said:
Im a amateur photographer i love landscapes,

i can get a good picture of landscapes fairly easily but, i have trouble with the Sky it seems always to bright.

how can i combat this, without buying a polorizer? i need to know by tomorrow as im going on hoilday im currently using a D60 with 17-50mm Tamron Lense
for example


i would like to know without Photo proccessing if its at all possible :)
Click to expand...


what you ask for is impossible. Your options are:
Buy an ND-Grad filter
Use tripod and multiple exposures with blending in PP
Try to extract what you can from the RAW file in PP
A CPl may help if there is a blue sky

The only alternative is to expose correctly for either the foreground of the sky depending on what is most important. Expose for the sky at sunsets or with interesting clouds, expose for ground in normal shots and minimise the amount of sky in the photo.
 
ok thanks,

i try your steps although i think i will get a polrizer

i will need to need to get one on the way to my hoilday,

can these be picked up at a well known photo store? & how do i know they will fit my lense? any models to look out for?
 
Get a circular polarizer, you wont regret it. You just need to find out the thread size of the lens you want to use it with.
 
Take two shots, one exposed for the sky, the other for the ground. Then blend the two together. Like this:

blend.jpg
 
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