Canon xsi 450d exposure help

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Gary
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Hi everyone I am new here and have looked through a few topics and found quite a few on exposure and the 450d.
I have had my 450d for about a month.I seem to struggle with photos that involve any part of the sky. By this I mean generally it will be washed out.Unless I just shoot the sky then it will be ok as it as metered for that.
I have posted some test shots I took this morning out of my window for comparison.If anyone as some time could you pleas tell me which ones in your opinion are exposed correctly.All the exif data is there.

I shot all photos with evalutive metering and centre focus.
Focus on the photos with bush centre was on the bush.
The focus was set on the tree in the other.There is quite a bit of differance in the sky & this morning the sky had afair bit of cloud so as you can imagine if there was less detail it would be washed out.

Hope this post makes sense and someone can point me in the right direction if my settings are wrong or not.
Will be intresting to see which you all think is correctly exposed.

I have also took some inside this morning next to a window but "early light though soft" nothing harsh cloudy here today.

Thanks
Gary

link to set

www.flickr.com/photos/46559688@N08/sets/72157623968581608/
 
In fact they are all acceptable but I would say that the best exposures are the darkest ones on all 3 photos - the house, the trees and the wine bottles.

All these three have detail in both the highlights and the shadows.

It's very difficult to get full detail in a sky and a foreground without using either filters or HDR, but almost all your pics are acceptable.
 
Those don't look bad. Google ND Grad filters, they're a common approach,. There's also HDR or exposure merging. Plenty of tutorials online that'd explain it better than I could.
 
Thanks for taking the time to take a look.
My thought's were the same "that the darker ones were best"
Although from your replies all shots were decsent enough.From this I assume it is personal preferance in some cases?
The photos that were shot ev/0 all have some blown highlights in the histogram which leads me to think I should always be shooting at ev-2/3 or 1/3, or is every situation different?
I have been using evalutive metering but I have read centre weighted maybe more reliable,any thoughts on this?
 
Every situation is slightly different. The greatest degree of control will come from using spot metering and setting the exposure manually. Both the built-in exposure meter and the histogram provide the feedback to get the exposure you want.

There's essentially three parts to the process.. firstly knowing what end result you want.. secondly knowing which part(s) of the scene to meter from.. and finally how to read the exposure meter and histogram to get the result you want. It will come with practice.
 
I'm in a very similar situation to you Gary. From my limited experience on these forums there is a wealth of knowledge, and I'm sure you'll get some very useful answers on this post.

I just wanted to drop in that I was recommended the same book from several sources, which would probably benefit you in this situation (i.e. being able to read it at your leisure, instead of sitting at the computer).

The book is Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. It was written for film and digital cameras, but 90% of it is very relevant/helpful for digital. There's an updated edition due on out in August 2010 so I wouldn't buy the current one, but it could be worth a trip to the library.

Regards,
Michael
 
I am really grateful for all your replies "so kind"
I will take a look at the 2 books mentioned and keep practicing.
I think I need to learn one thing at a time.
 
A couple of other things you could try if you have something like photoshop.
Meter the sky and use the AE lock button to lock the exposure and take the shot.
Do the same again but recompose and shoot the foreground.
Ideally it's best to use a tripod for this method but when you are done you can use both photos to create 1 good exposed photos.
Another method is to use AEB and take 3 shots at different exposures and again combine the one you like into 1 image.

The great thing about these methods that it helps to teach you more about photo manipulation via software.
 
Thanks hashacke.
Yes I have cs2.
The exposure lock seems a great tool.
If I press it and release the settings stay for a few seconds if I keep it pressed down then recompose /focus the settings stay while I shoot.
Am I doing this correctly or is there an option to press the star once and then the lock stays on until I have taken the shot?
 
Unless you go HDR (which I normally do not like the results of) you have to accept that if you are taking images with a large range of brightnesses that you will either blow the highlights or lose detail in the shadows.

As forblown skies, does it matter that much. Possible solutions would include a CPL or turning down the contrast in camera (if shooting JPEG) so that as much detail can be kept and then the compromise can be dealt with in PP.

As has been said before, expose to the right (on the histogram) so that you get as much detail as possible - to allow options during PP.
 
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