Image brightness of landscape pics....

GlasgowTitan · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:19

Hey folks, on my little trip in the hills today I took some photos, first time Ive really used my new digital camera. A lot of my pictures seem to have come out really dark, even though the suin was blazing! Have a look:

GlasgowTitan · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:20

Yet this picture here was taken from the exact same spot, just facing the other direction, about 5 seconds later, why is this one soooo much brighter?

I'd like to know how to try and prevent this from happening in the future because it has kind of ruined my shots

.

Also I have decided there is no point in shooting pictures at the full 5MP my camera can do, because when I stick them on the pc, they have a ridiculous resolution of 2592x1944. So these have to be resised to be able to see the whole picture at once. I might as well just shoot them at 1MP so I can see them when I put them on pc right....? Am I missing something here?

Thanks folks

SDK^ · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:33

In your first set of photos the camera has set the exposure based on the bright sky. The darker foreground is therefore under exposed. It's actually better to do it this way so you don’t over expose the sky (the highlights). It's possible to recover shadow detail but impossible to recover clipped highlights.
The photo in your second post looks like you have set the shot up to expose for the foreground more.

Setting your camera to a low pixel setting will mean your final photo print quality will suffer. To view the whole photo on the screen at 5mp set the zoom setting to 'Fit to screen'.

Awesome · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:36

Also I have decided there is no point in shooting pictures at the full 5MP my camera can do, because when I stick them on the pc, they have a ridiculous resolution of 2592x1944. So these have to be resised to be able to see the whole picture at once. I might as well just shoot them at 1MP so I can see them when I put them on pc right....? Am I missing something here?

Yes you are missing something,

If you manage to shoot a pic you really like at a resolution of 1MP and decide to get it printed, or print it yourself, or enlargement etc, you will find that the quality will be terrible due to low resolution. Also if you need to crop the image you are loosing even more pixels.

It really is better to shoot at the maximum possible resolution, You can always resize the pics after. Batch resize is easy, search for pixresizer or just download it here
Pixresizer

I'll let someone more qualified answer the landscape question (I hate my landscape photos).

Kieran

Awesome · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:36

SDK bet me to it :rolleyes:

GlasgowTitan · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:42

Ah ok the resizing bit makes sense now.

SDK if, as you say thats the right way to take those photos, how do I get the brightness of the ground up a bit? Using photoshop I guess, any pointers where to start fiddling?

Thanks

SDK^ · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:53

If you have Photoshop CS+ then try the Shadow/highlight filter
Image -> Adjustments -> Shadow/highlight

The curves adjustment gives you more control but is an advanced tool

Colin_da_Killer · 3 Apr 2006 at 19:59

Or Just use the dodge tool and highlight the dark areas, you can also use the burn tool to fake a polarizer...

Quick has job in PS CS2..

oops jsut noticed i missed the right side of the image becuase i didnt see it, stupid ps toolbar things...

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 3 Apr 2006 at 20:23

Yeah the best way is to duplicate the layer and adjust its curves and feather out the top or bottom portions of one of the edited layers. Colin, The dogde and burn tools are extreamly useful but not really to do an entire half of the photo. This is currently the negative output which is making people want to use HDR ( I might recomend landscape photographers try this. Its currently under discusion here )

themask70 · 3 Apr 2006 at 21:16

as everyone has said, you should shoot them on the full 5mp res. i think the reason some of them are dark is the fact that your camera is adjusting the exposure for the sky, not for the ground!! i don't really know how you could overcome this, just play around and experiment!! if you have photoshop then just adjust the levels and you should be able to do what SDK has done or you could easily take the photo with the exposure correct for the ground and then add a sky background from another pic you have taken. good luck and have fun taking photos