Too Bright?

[SirTyler]

Quick question here, I have been into photography for a while, but what i notice is that when the sun is too bright, then I cant seem to get a good picture to see the blue sky AND the stuff in front of it, because its too dark... If i let in too much light, my sky turns from blue to just bright white and blurryish but my landscape looks normal, if i let in not enough light then my landscape looks VERY dark but I can see the colors in the sky... what if i want to see the colors in the sky AND the landscape looking normal though? Is there a way to do that WITHOUT taking two pictures in different exposures and putting them together?

[Jan]

The best information I can give you is to take your photos early in the morning and late in the afternoon. The sun has much less strength. I'm sure some of the techos have more information.
Cheers and keep shooting!
Jan
PS Welcome to Photozo

[brucep]

I'm with Jan in liking morning and evening light. Much more pleasing to my eye. To combine two drastically different areas of lighting (for me it's a sunlit cave entry and a very dark cave in the same shot), check my tutorial, Combining Two Exposures to Make One Photo. In the example, I use just one photo (it could even be an action shot), but it's taken in the Camera Raw format. For a static landscape, if your camera won't do Raw, you could use two exposures.

Raw opens a lot of possibilities!

To see if there's actually too much light with the f-stop, shutterspeed and ISO combination you've chosen, check your camera's histogram. If there's a large "spike" at the right, you're loosing highlight detail. You can compensate for underexposed areas, but you can't replace blown highlights.

[stewartsmith]

If the sky is a lot brighter than the landscape/subject you can use a Neutral Density Graduated filter over the sky to cut down on the light getting through.

[SirTyler]

awesome, thank you for the help guys!

[Landis]

Expose for the sky and let the other go dark. Then open in Photoshop and go to Adjustments > Shadow and make your adjustments.

However Rule #1 is to try NOT to do any photography between an hour and a half after sunrise and an hour and a half before sunset. Bright sun sucks.

[stewartsmith]

Also remember, Rules are there to be Broken. :-)

[kugy5]

How about a polarizing filter?

[brucep]

You'll want a circular polarizer for your digital camera. It will cut glare, especially in the sky, making it darker so the clouds show up more. Here's an article about polarizers: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/polarizers.shtml

Since you won't always use it, you might buy a polarizer the filter size of the largest (filter size) lens you plan to get, and buy step-up rings so it'll fit on your smaller filter size lenses. As with any filter (including clear protective filters you might get), be sure it's optically as good as you can buy and multi-coated, such as the Hoya HMC Pro filters. There's no sense spending hundreds on a camera, further hundreds on a good lens and taking your photos through cheap filters.

[Wildkid]

To summerize - try shooting earlier or later hours, try an ND filter or a polarizing one (the polarizer is especially useful for shooting landskapes - makes the colours way more rich). As far as circular or linear - it's said to be a problem for digital cameras to shoot with linear polarizers, because it's supposed to screw up the autofocus and sometimes - metering, but as far as my experience goes - I've never had a problem with it (I have used both types on my Panasonic FZ20 and can't see any difference or problems with focusing and metering), nor have I heard of anyone having such troubles. Probably the best way is to try it - if a linear works, get a linear (cheaper and arguably a bit better), if not - get a circular.
You might also try going for a lower ISO setting and smaller aperture too, but that shouldn't help too much on a really sunny day.....

[KathysPix]

Bruce - thanks for the link for the Polarizing article. I did buy a Hoya - and am having little luck using it. But, my theory is that my glasses are the root cause (and a lack of experience.) My viewfinder is adjustable, so that will be step one. Kat

[stewartsmith]

A polarising filter works best when taking a pic that is forty five degrees from the sun. :-)

My advice is to read up on the types of photography genres you are interested in and learn from the professionals.

I have bought books on Black and White, Landscape, and Photoshop so that I always have a reference handy if I need it. :-)

[KathysPix]

Thanks, Stewart - I was using it willy-nilly. No wonder it wasn't an overly effective tool. By the way, my next filter is going to be a 4-ND or an 8-ND. Your mention of a grad-ND and a 1/2-Pol in a couple of threads is intriguing - and worth investigating further. Kat

[milehidweller]

One more solution that was not mentioned here yet is fill flash.
It does not help with distant landscape, but with people and close range backgrounds the difference is "night and day".
If I have to shoot during the day, my flash is always up.

[apssti]

The best information I can give you is to take your photos early in the morning and late in the afternoon. The sun has much less strength. I'm sure some of the techos have more information.
Cheers and keep shooting!
Jan
PS Welcome to Photozo



jan hit it right on the head!!!