curing blown wintery skies? (help)

Matt L

Matt L

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Matt
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Hi just wondering how you lot cure blown skies now that they are just one big white sheet of cloud :lol:

Want to go out today with the camera and take some landscape stuff but the sky has no detail to it at all it is just like a big white sheet, so how would you do it? or is it a lost cause and it will be blown no matter what?
 
Pick better weather, there is little you can do to an overall grey sky other than photoshop a replacement in, but then the lighting would look odd on the rest of the shot!
 
Expensive way - buy a graduated neutral density filter.

Free way - Bracket the shots, then combine them in photoshop - it's basically a digital graduated neutral density filter.
 
Matt L said:
Hi just wondering how you lot cure blown skies now that they are just one big white sheet of cloud :lol:
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Photography is all about light.

A Neutral Grad filter will just turn the big white sheet into a big grey sheet, so will combining shots.
If there is no detail in the sky then you cannot create it - without pasting in a different sky.

Either go out on a better day or go out today and discover where the potential shots are so you can return when the light is better.
 
Or PS using some masks !!! Thats the only way to really put something in that isnt in the lens in the first place.
 
Jayst84 said:
Take some landscapes without including the sky. Overcast days are great for detail and colour saturation.
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This.

A featureless overcast sky will rarely make for a good landscape photograph. OK, there will be exceptions but generally you want to do landscapes without sky. Harder than it sounds - I find that a telephoto lens is great for picking out details and excluding sky.
 
RichardtheSane said:
Harder than it sounds - I find that a telephoto lens is great for picking out details and excluding sky.
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Yes I entirely agree. Try and get yourself onto an elevated position, a hillside for example, and using a telephoto/zoom lens you can pick out selective areas of a landscape without including the sky.
 
A grey sky is no good, diffused light like that casts no shadows, creates no drama and renders colours very flat and bland.
So shoot colour in good light, use an ND grad if necessary.
On flat grey days, shoot b/w, use contrast to make "it" happen, and try not to make a blank white sky a feature of your photo.
 
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