# The sky is too bright in photos?



## Devon8822 (Oct 22, 2012)

Just did my first legit photo session with my new camera (T3i), and I kept running into a problem which I am not sure how to deal with. When the exposure was set automatically on close up subjects, the sky was always overexposed while the rest of the photo turned out great. Is this normal and something we have to live with or is there something I can do to change it? Here is an example.


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## Ysarex (Oct 22, 2012)

You don't have to live with it, you have to deal with it.

Those logs are backlit; backlighting pushes the contrast range far beyond you're camera's capacity to capture and process an image. It's your job to see the condition and then either walk away or apply a correction. You can't change camera settings to correct this -- you have to actually change the light. One answer that would have worked in this case would be to use flash to balance the lighting contrast.

Amateur's look through their cameras and see the subject; pros look through their cameras and see how the subject is lit.

Joe


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## snowbear (Oct 22, 2012)

I'm not a pro, so I may not know the "correct" answer.

For me, photography is a battle of compromises.  If you meter for the darker parts of the scene (the logs, specifically the bark), then you take a chance on blowing out the highlights; meter for the sky and the logs (being in shade) will be dark.  You can lighten the shadows a bit in post (at the risk of noise) but blown out lights are gone, so my preference is to try to expose for the lights (if I'm really worried about it).  You might want to try a graduated ND filter that will darken the top a bit and leave the rest alone.  You could also try HDR - expose for lights, then darks (and one or more in the middle) and merge them.


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## MLeeK (Oct 22, 2012)

That's what flash is for. Expose for the sky, use a fill flash to illuminate the subject. Both will then be well exposed.


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## Sw1tchFX (Oct 22, 2012)

This is a digital thing, color negative film not so much.


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## Ysarex (Oct 22, 2012)

Sw1tchFX said:


> This is a digital thing, color negative film not so much.



This is true, using digital technologies there are solutions to this situation so we deal with it, with film it's simply impossible and that settles the matter right there.

Joe


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## KmH (Oct 22, 2012)

Cameras don't 'see' the way people do. Cameras vs. The Human Eye

Your camera's image sensor does not have as much 'dynamic range' as your eyes do - Understanding Dynamic Range in Digital Photography

As mentioned you can meter the sky and use fill flash to add light to the foreground. Neil vN  tangents

You can also make 2 exposures, 1 for the sky and 1 for the foreground, and then combine them post process. Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure

Yet another option is to make 3 or more exposures and combine then into an HDR image (High Dynamic Range), using HDR software. High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography in Photoshop
HDR photography software & plugin for Lightroom, Aperture & Photoshop - Tone Mapping, Exposure Fusion & High Dynamic Range Imaging for photography


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## Sw1tchFX (Oct 22, 2012)

Ysarex said:


> Sw1tchFX said:
> 
> 
> > This is a digital thing, color negative film not so much.
> ...


LOL 

As if human kind has been incapable of creating photographs with more than 5 stops of dynamic range in them until digital took over 10 years ago!


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## Ysarex (Oct 22, 2012)

Sw1tchFX said:


> Ysarex said:
> 
> 
> > Sw1tchFX said:
> ...




Having spent 35 years as an expert film photographer I'm well aware that film can capture more than 5 stops of dynamic range. The dynamic range of that scene posted above however was well beyond 5 stops and well beyond the limit that film could capture. With film you also have a usability issue -- how will you handle the information that film captures? Scan it? Use digital technologies to get the most out of what the film can produce? Heaven forbid that you'd try and burn and dodge through those tree leaves in a darkroom--how laughable! Digital, as we all know, has a superior ability to capture an extreme dynamic range far beyond the capacity of film. That's just a simple and established fact.

Oh, 10 years? I was using digital cameras that trounced film at least 15 years ago. They were costly then but they did exist. Today my $349.00 P&S puts down 35mm film and, as far as dynamic range is concerned, any film. And I can prove it.

Joe


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## Fred Berg (Oct 23, 2012)

You can meter for the sky and note the numbers, then meter the logs and use the average of the two readings to take your shot. This will help a little in such a situation.


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## fmw (Oct 23, 2012)

Another option, OP is to use a polarizing filter.  Unfortunately they only work at certain angles to the sun but you can give one try.  If I had to make the image I would probably wait for the better light.  Failing that, I would make two exposures - one for sky and one for logs. Then I would combine them in Photoshop.  That isn't really a photographic answer but that's what most of us would do in this day and age.  The fill flash concept will also work but it won't look as natural.


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## TCampbell (Oct 23, 2012)

Everyone has correctly pointed out that the exposure for the sky and the exposure for the logs are too far apart for the camera to do a good job getting both in a single shot.  

If the background exposure and foreground exposure were closer together then your camera would have no problem.

You can't do anything about the background.  But you CAN do something about the foreground by adding more light to it (e.g. flash).  If you increase the light to the foreground, it'll increase the exposure value and bring it closer to the background.  

Was the background sky overcast?  I ask because I your exposure was ISO 100, f/4, 1/50th.  

The Sunny 16 rule says that "light" shade will be 1 stop down, "medium" shade is 2 stops down, and "dense" shade is usually about 3 stops down.  Your setting looks like it's probably medium to dense shade.  But your exposure is 5 stops down from Sunny 16.  It would make sense if the sky had light to medium overcast conditions.  Your wood pile would be about 3 stops away from the sky.

3 stops is still a lot.  That means an exposure for the wood pile would render the sky 8 times brighter than it should be.

In any case... you can't do anything about the sky, but you boost light on the wood pile if you have sufficient flash.  And if you can bring the two exposures closer you can solve the problem.

Shooting RAW can also help.  Your camera can probably deal with at least 2 stops up and down... and maybe closer to 3.  That means if you split the difference (allow the wood pile to be 1-1/2 stops under-exposed and allow the sky to be 1-1/2 stops over-exposed) then you wouldn't have a good exposure "straight out of the camera", but you WOULD be within the dynamic range of the camera so no detail would be lost.  You could then adjust in post processing (photoshop, etc.) and end up with a good shot in the end.  What you cannot do is allow detail to be completely lost to the point that it can't be recovered.  If you really exposure for the woodpile and the sky is 3 full stops over-exposed then you'll have blown out area that can't be recovered.


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## amolitor (Oct 23, 2012)

I assume the point which Sw1tchFX is trying to make is that digital's handling of blown out highlights is spectacularly awful, relative to film's handling of the same.


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## gsgary (Oct 23, 2012)

You could get on the phone to him upstairs and ask him to turn it down a bit


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## Ysarex (Oct 23, 2012)

amolitor said:


> I assume the point which Sw1tchFX is trying to make is that digital's handling of blown out highlights is spectacularly awful, relative to film's handling of the same.



In other words if you're going to make a critical error and ruin the photo, it'll look less ruined if you do it with film.:thumbup:

My point is, since digital has the ability to capture a more expansive contrast range than film ever could, use digital and don't ruin the photo in the first place. Digital expands our tool set and gives us abilities we never had with film. Caveat: it's always best to have the lighting under good control, but when we take photos under uncontrolled conditions (available light) the expanded capacity that digital provides is a valid tool that can make it possible to get the photo that film could not.

I take photos all the time now with a digital camera that I know, and knew, were impossible back when I used film. I took one yesterday afternoon in fact so here's an example:








On the left is the camera JPEG untouched. On the right is my processed version of the photo from the raw capture. If I had been hired to take the photo I would of course have brought in lights and a tripod and lit the machine properly etc. etc., but I was just stopping in for a cup of coffee and thought I'd grab a photo while the beans were cooling. I got a cool photo. I made one exposure and made sure I would hold the highlights in the temperature dial with the spot light glaring on it. You can see the beans cooling in my photo because I used a camera with a 14 bit raw capture capability -- far beyond anything film can do.

So when film must fail, use digital and don't fail. Then you don't have to worry about the relative awfulness of mistakes.

Joe


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## runnah (Oct 23, 2012)

Sun in your face, photo will be a disgrace. Sun at your rear, your photo is in the clear.


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 23, 2012)

runnah said:


> Sun in your face, photo will be a disgrace. Sun at your rear, your photo is in the clear.


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 23, 2012)

Faster shutter for sun, fill flash on subject


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## runnah (Oct 23, 2012)

2WheelPhoto said:


> runnah said:
> 
> 
> > Sun in your face, photo will be a disgrace. Sun at your rear, your photo is in the clear.



I was trying to think of a whitty saying, but failed...


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 23, 2012)

Ohhh  =)


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## DiskoJoe (Oct 23, 2012)

*<Moderated>  Time to go outside and play Joe!*


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## Solarflare (Oct 24, 2012)

Ysarex said:


> [...] Digital, as we all know, has a superior ability to capture an extreme dynamic range far beyond the capacity of film. [...]


 Um ... ? The best digital cameras are somewhere around 13 EV right now.

No idea what color film has, but chemical black and white film has a dynamic range of 16 to 18 EV.




runnah said:


> Sun in your face, photo will be a disgrace. Sun at your rear, your photo is in the clear.


Not true, for example for portraits in bright sunlight, the best strategy is to put your subject between yourself and the sun, so that the hair is backlit (giving a nice framing), and then use fill flash to brighten the face.

(Unfortunately that requires a camera and flash able to do HSS which, for example, my D5100 and SB-400 cant manage)


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## Ysarex (Oct 24, 2012)

Solarflare said:


> Ysarex said:
> 
> 
> > [...] Digital, as we all know, has a superior ability to capture an extreme dynamic range far beyond the capacity of film. [...]
> ...



13 EV is probably a tad high for digital and I'll qualify my tendency to exaggerate and say useable dynamic range. The 16 to 18 EV figure for B&W is fantasy. This from Edward Ingold published in 2007:

_  Based on characteristic curves (*) published for various films, Fuji  Velvia (reversal) has a useful dynamic range of 3-1/2 stops. Fuji Provia  has a range of 5 stops. Representative negative films include Reala (8  stops) and NPS160 (10 stops). Tri-X has a range of 10 to 12 stops,  depending on development.

__Modern DSLRs have a dynamic range of about 7 stops (D2x) to about 8  stops (Canon 1dsMkII), based on test results published on DPReview.com  and my own experience (D2x). These sensors have a 12 bit range of  capture, expressed in the RAW mode.

__Many MF digital sensors have a true 16-bit sensor. Hasselblad/Imacon  claims a 12 stop dynamic range for their CFV back. Having seen the  results, I'm inclined to believe it.

__*The abscissa of the characteristic curves is logarithmic - divide the  extrapolated range by log2 (0.301) to express the difference in f/stops.
_
That was 2007. Five years in the digital world is like half a century in film. Today I use digital cameras with 14 bit range sensors. If you wanted to try and compete you'd have to use a color neg film like NPS160 which as noted above can capture 10 stops. But then what? You'll have to purchase a scanner capable of extracting that data and you'll have to switch to digital processing at that point (you won't do it in a darkroom). That scanner is going to cost more than my digital camera, and you'll still fall short.

Joe


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## JSER (Oct 24, 2012)

Grad filter, simple


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## Solarflare (Oct 24, 2012)

Uh-hu.

Sorry, but my books say 16 to 18 EV for black/white chemical film.

I also know a photographer who still does chemical film and he uses a camera from the 1960s that can no longer do metering. So there must be much more potential than your source claims, because the person in question is a casual photographer, not a professional.


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## amolitor (Oct 24, 2012)

It's possible that for some b&w films there is SOME measurable variation in density across 18 stops of exposure range. This might conceivably be a figure you are seeing someplace? I don't know this for a fact, but it seems to be possible -- film does "roll off" for quite some time.

This is different from the standard measurement methods, which are about usable variation in density, and come in well under 18 stops, and is generally considered to be about 10 stops plus or minus.


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## Ysarex (Oct 24, 2012)

Solarflare said:


> Uh-hu.
> 
> Sorry, but my books say 16 to 18 EV for black/white chemical film.
> 
> I also know a photographer who still does chemical film and he uses a camera from the 1960s that can no longer do metering. So there must be much more potential than your source claims, because the person in question is a casual photographer, not a professional.



Uh-hu.

Your books against my books then. My books say your books are wrong. I referenced my source by the way.

And I use a camera from the 1950s that never had a meter installed and I use it without a hand meter -- so what?

Amolitor right after you used the term "measurable variation" and I'd say he's on to it there. This is also about usability -- measurable and usable are two different things. If you're going to go after a scene with an extreme contrast range and not light the scene to correct the extreme contrast, but still want a photo that looks like you did, then out the other end in processing you're going to have to jump some tone-mapping hoops to get the data to your target. That shuts your darkroom down. Burning and dodging compared with Photoshop is like a rock versus a scalpel. So as I noted, now you have to bring your film over to the computer and you need a serious money scanner and usability wise you still won't get useful data that equals a good 14 bit digital capture. And I know this from years of practical experience. I've been there with film. I've used a Hasselbald/Imacom ($18,000.00) scanner (at the office) with medium format film and I've tried. I've squeezed every last useable drop of tone out of film. I've been shooting film for 40 years. With massively less money I can use a 14 bit digital camera (and Photoshop) and beat film.

Joe


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