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#1919 2008-06-16 22:33 GMT |
hello
i was looking at some photos on myshots and found a photo named Havana by crystalm
the photo is beautiful but has a problem i always encounter while i am shooting landscapes (i do not know if it is a problem)
the sky most of the times is white not blue and overexposed
and the green trees seem underexposed near the overexposed sky but have good color in other places
so my questions are is there a fix for this?
is this kind of problem accepted in books and photo
exhibitions or we have to shoot some other time?
is it fixed by photoshop?
thanks
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#1920 2008-06-17 01:00 GMT |
The photograph you are referring to is suffering from over exposure and it is a problem that occurs frequently in this kind of harsh light.
It is not a problem caused by a faulty camera,it is caused because the dynamic range of the sensor has been exceeded.
Most digital cameras have a DR of around 8 stops of light and the difference between the deepest shadow in this picture =0 levels and brightest part of the image =255 levels.
When you encounter conditions like this and you want to preserve detail in the sky then you have to expose for the highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves.
In this particular instance I would have metered to retain detail in the sky and lit the immediate foreground with a burst of fill in flash.
There are fixes in photoshop but you should always aim to get it as good as you can at the time of exposure,relying on photoshop to rescue badly exposed images through poor technique is not the right approach.
Using the camera in raw mode gives you more highlight headroom and makes it easier to recover the highlights that would be lost forever on a jpeg file.
Photographs that display loss of highlight detail would not generally be acceptable for publication and stock libraries would certainly reject them.
There are various tutorials on this site that can give you great insight into the kind of problems that you describe and they are worth studying.
Regards,Les.
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#1921 2008-06-17 07:12 GMT |
Thanks for the tips! I tried to fix up the Havana shot, but now fear it looks too fake.
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#1922 2008-06-17 08:05 GMT |
Another thing worth looking into is a Graduated neutral density filter, this kind of filter starts clear and gradually darkens, thus reducing the brightness of part of the frame. This can be used to properly expose the ground without over exposing the sky.
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#1923 2008-06-17 14:55 GMT |
thank you all for the information
i read a lot about dynamic range on the internet and i also read about high dynamic range images the problem is that making HDR image is as hard as producing a painting
and no matter what you do the sky will not be blue
sometimes i have the same problem when it is cloudy or near sun set (i call it white sky not overexposed sky because there is no sun light at that time)
so is there a time of the day that has no overexposed sky or i have to go to my photo destination and pray for the best?
what are the forums that deal with this particular problem please tell me
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#1924 2008-06-17 15:00 GMT |
Quote
CrystalM :
Thanks for the tips! I tried to fix up the Havana shot, but now fear it looks too fake.
i also tried with my photos using a selection tool and gradient tool with acceptable,yet a bit fake, results maybe some color contrast saturation and sharpening would help the greens near the sky
i read on the internet that ccd sensors has more dynamic range than CMOS so do u think that ccds are better in this particular point?
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#1927 2008-06-18 15:47 GMT |
Azeem if you are consistently getting the over exposed skies no matter what the shooting conditions, then there is either a problem with your cameras meter or the settings you are using.
You have to keep in mind that a camera cannot see in the same way as the human and eye and while you can see a sky as blue and are able to see through a deep shadow at the same time, a camera cannot.So if you meter to record detail in the shadows the chances are the sky will inevitably burn out,expose for a blue sky and the shadows will start to block up.It is a fact of photographic life always has been and there is no way for a camera used in auto to know what what you want.You have to take control and make the decisions for it.
Having said all that,if you have some photos that have a nice sky and some of the shadow detail is to dark then try the shadow and highlight filter in photoshop and play around with the settings.
Also could you post a example of a picture that has the problem you describe along with the shooting info.It could help to identify if the camera is working ok or if it is pilot error.
Regards,Les.
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#1929 2008-06-22 08:31 GMT |
I was having the exact problem Azeem is having. My fix was to use the "AVERAGE' metering system in my camera not the "SPOT" metering system also could try a Circ. Pole Filter.
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#1930 2008-06-22 17:49 GMT |
You have hit the nail on the head there Mark,that was what I was hinting at in my previous post.
Spot or partial metering is only useful if you know where to take a reading from and can lead to erratic exposures if misused. Alas, until Azeem comes back to us with some more information such as metering mode,aperture and shutter speed etc then we can only speculate and this solves absolutely nothing.
Les.
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