Flat skies...

Kell

Kell

Messages
3,401
Name
Kell
Edit My Images
Yes
i’m New to trying shots outdoors. Most of mine are indoor party stuff.

So i’m at a bit of a loss to know what to do with completely flat skies.

You know the ones where there’s no colour, no cloud just a light grey nothingness.

Most of the time i’m Shooting handheld too, so can’t really do multiple exposures.

This is both in town and out.

How do other people get around this?
 
I normally wait for the light.

Or try mono.

But I'm more likely to get my IR converted camera out in these conditions. It may seem flat to your eyes but IR may bring it to life.
 
Sooner or later some idiot will come along and suggest you can just do a sky swap and add a dramatic sky to improve your pictures.

You can do that if you wish, but it’s pretty stupid and shows a complete misunderstanding of both the art and science of photography.

If you were shooting an interior with some subtle bounced flash, and I suggested adding a chandelier to make the room interesting, you’d think I was daft, because there’d be no light from the chandelier on your subject or background. The same is true with a landscape; the sky is your light source, and a different sky gives a different light on the land, you can try to fake it, but it’s not really worth the effort. Landscape photography is all about the light, so you need to work with the light (and therefore the sky), and learn to shoot when the light is appropriate.
 
Last edited:
just swap the sky in PS ;) (sorry @Phil V - just couldn't resist ... )

Joking aside, if the sky is an integral part of the shot and you don't want a flat sky, wait until until it isn't ! That may mean shooting earlier or later in the day or an entirely different day. Keep an eye on weather forecasts too.

Some types of landscape lend themselves to flat skies, though often use of a 'pod and filters may be needed ... Phil is right when he says it is all about the light, but then it always is :)
 
I had hoped there might some ‘insider’ tips or specific ways of dealing with it.

Unfortunately, if you’re not going out to specifically to shoot landscapes the option to wait isn’t always an option.

I asked as I’ve just spent a week in Slovenia with work and literally had an occasional 10 minutes to grab a shot here and there. It rained most of the time we were there, which led to one or two dramatic skies, but the rest of the time there was just this flat, lifeless sky.

Even bringing in a blend in Lightroom and whacking the exposure right down didn’t help on some.
 
If it's flat flat grey then there is really nothing you can do, bar delete them and go out again if you can! The other option is to compose at the time to exclude the sky if possible and go for something more abstract - if possible.
 
If the sky is rubbish or the light is not interesting, try shooting differently. Rather than taking wide shots with lots of sky, get in closer to trees/buildings/hills. Look at the "land" part of the "landscape". Look down. If the light renders the landscape flat, look for details.
Not all of us are able to get out for sunrise or sunset, if the only time you can shoot is when the sky is rubbish, carry on shooting, but change the plan.
 
Kell said:
I had hoped there might some ‘insider’ tips or specific ways of dealing with it.

Unfortunately, if you’re not going out to specifically to shoot landscapes the option to wait isn’t always an option.

I asked as I’ve just spent a week in Slovenia with work and literally had an occasional 10 minutes to grab a shot here and there. It rained most of the time we were there, which led to one or two dramatic skies, but the rest of the time there was just this flat, lifeless sky.

Even bringing in a blend in Lightroom and whacking the exposure right down didn’t help on some.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t matter what you’re doing in life, you get out what you put in, and unless you’re exceedingly lucky, your 10minutes to shoot a landscape will give you nothing better than a boring record shot.

If you want to record Joe Cornish level images, then you have to meticulously plan locations and watch the weather and be ready to travel in the dark to catch the light at 3am. And if you want to capture Pirelli calendar images, you need a stylist and beautiful location / model.

The best lesson is to learn to make the best of what you have, don’t fight it, work with it. Flat skies will suit some subjects, work with what you have.
 
It is all part of the art and craft of landscape photography to suit your subject to the conditions. Most people only photograph during the golden hour, which I find rather limiting and in the end rather boring. Who wants to see another sunset? Unless it's a really spectacular or particularly subtle and interesting one, that is!

In my experience dull conditions CAN suit certain subjects. Lack of contrast and deep shadows mean that photography in woodland and of waterfalls can be very worthwhile. It may be a minority interest but industrial landscapes look better in even light than bright light - the latter tending to glamorise what you want to be completely neutral.

Don't underestimate the massive investment of time that successful landscape photographers put into their work. It is no use expecting to get decent results in ten minutes between other jobs. If that is the expectation that digital has led to I would like to correct that impression.:)
 
If it's really flat, there's not much you can do. If there is some colour, but if the sky's brightness is distracting, I will often take a graduated filter down from the top in Lightroom and reduce the exposure and boost saturation a little. It is more about increasing focus on the subject and balance than making the sky "interesting". It's easy to overdo. Subtlety is the key.

For some images you could perhaps also consider a heavy crop to get rid of as much sky as is possible.
 
Come up North and photograph dull people in dull towns.

It'll be perfect.

If you want yet another f*****g mountain reflected in a f*****g lake at f*****g "blue hour", whatever the f*** that is, you're f***ed.

Sorry....I get a bit ranty about what is considered "good" landscape photography.

Oooh now... to press "post" or not to press, that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the.....

Aah what the hell.
 
simon ess said:
Come up North and photograph dull people in dull towns.

It'll be perfect.
Click to expand...

There's a niche for that as well

If you want yet another f*****g mountain reflected in a f*****g lake at f*****g "blue hour", whatever the f*** that is, you're f***ed.

Sorry....I get a bit ranty about what is considered "good" landscape photography.

Oooh now... to press "post" or not to press, that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the.....

Aah what the hell.
Click to expand...

Chip? ;)
 
Flat skies and even light on cloudy days is actually good for colour subjects, particularly in autumn. Flat skies mean you're less likely to reflections with blown highlights. Flat skies are also good for outdoor portraits, if you're into that sort of thing.

As an example, here's a shot I took in a local wood on a day with very flat grey clouds. I chose to focus on the woodland and trees rather than taking in any sky.

Autumn in the woods by Alistair Beavis, on Flickr


Take a look at Thomas Heaton's videos on youtube, there's quite a number where he talks about light and trying to find an image working with what's there.
 
Flat skies also means a great time to shoot interior architecture, like a cathedral or something like that, no having to battle the massive variation in light levels between light and dark.

Waterfalls are good too.
 
Forgive me if anyone thinks I thought you could just go out, point your camera at some ‘stuff’ and end up with something great.

That’s not what I meant at all.

I’m just wondering how people deal with flat skies. And the answer seems to be that they don’t. Not in the traditional sense anyway.

The link to the thread with the solo tree proves that something can be done, but that’s a very specialist situation.

As it happens, I didn’t waste much time trying to do something with those shots other than, as mentioned, make record shots.

But I did do *some* of what was suggested above. When I took the first shot below (which would have been s*** even with a nice sky because it wasn’t very considered) I thought ‘well that’s not very good’ so looked to see if I could do something different and still feature the castle.

F1E22DF5-29E4-4C9A-962E-B11D2A9FD1D9.jpeg


So I moved sideways and shot this:

080C6522-5161-48E9-9F62-C6C21BCC3AAC.jpeg

Still not great, but better.

Simarly, I tried a shot down one of the side streets that lacked any real cohesion.

37F3D7EC-0F1E-4CAD-A628-4FAC9D4B0C63.jpeg

So I picked a doorway and shot that instead.

E22B38F6-8EFF-4923-AD65-3FA6F3981471.jpeg
 
Last edited:
simon ess said:
Come up North and photograph dull people in dull towns.

It'll be perfect.

If you want yet another f*****g mountain reflected in a f*****g lake at f*****g "blue hour", whatever the f*** that is, you're f***ed.

Sorry....I get a bit ranty about what is considered "good" landscape photography.

Oooh now... to press "post" or not to press, that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the.....

Aah what the hell.
Click to expand...

North Staffs isn’t North. Not when you’re from Ashington.

You’re positively Southern.

;-)
 
You did get some nice skies when the skies were nice.

As someone said, it's often possible to recover a bit from a flat sky. Base image, step 1, step 2.

FaM examples-09147-2.jpg FaM examples-09147.jpg FaM examples-.jpg

In this case for the colour image I dropped the blue luminance and raise red, orange and yellow, then boosted saturation of all those colours. The mono conversion (silver Efex) dropped blue luminance a lot and used a graduated filter at the top. Not stunning, but made the difference between the bin & not.

And when I posted that link to a 'how to swap skies' tutorial it wasn't entirely in jest.
 
Last edited:
Kell said:
i
Most of the time i’m Shooting handheld too, so can’t really do multiple exposures.
Click to expand...

Why not?

As long as you have a steadyish hand you should be ok. Just get your HDR program of choice to align the images. The 3,5,7 or whatever shots will all be within a second or so, start to finish of the bracketed set, and if you are shooting in daylight you should be fine.
 
When people talk about bracketed shots, is this something the camera does for you, or something you're doing manually?

Not sure I've seen a button/menu option on mine to do bracketing automatically? (Canon 600d), which would mean lifting the camera up and down each time - that 's what I meant about being hard to take multiple of exactly the same scene.
 
I've scrolled through the posts and don't think anybody has mentioned doing some more minimalist long exposures. They certainly don't suit every subject but can look decent with a plain sky (in these cases combined with a graduated filter in Photoshop to add some fake interest):

Monoliths by ian marsh, on Flickr
or
Notre Dame Cathedral by ian marsh, on Flickr

And if you don't like shots like this then just cut out most of the sky. Your first three in post 23 are all from low down shooting up so lots of blank sky. But get high and shoot down like you did in post 24 and even with those nice moody skies almost cut out of the shots there are some decent compositions available.
 
Kell said:
When people talk about bracketed shots, is this something the camera does for you, or something you're doing manually?

Not sure I've seen a button/menu option on mine to do bracketing automatically? (Canon 600d), which would mean lifting the camera up and down each time - that 's what I meant about being hard to take multiple of exactly the same scene.
Click to expand...
You should be able to put the camera into bracketing mode and just hold down the shutter to take 3 photos in a quick row and job done. If you're in quick fire shutter mode, it should rattle off the shots quickly with little movement between them even when hand holding.
This might help with the setup:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyH9sQcXOe4
 
Flat skies = minimalist coast or intimate shots, maybe in the woods. I prefer a bit of light in woodland though unless it’s misty. I’d generally rather use dull grey conditions for scouting
 
simon ess said:
Come up North and photograph dull people in dull towns.

It'll be perfect.

If you want yet another f*****g mountain reflected in a f*****g lake at f*****g "blue hour", whatever the f*** that is, you're f***ed.

Sorry....I get a bit ranty about what is considered "good" landscape photography.

Oooh now... to press "post" or not to press, that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the.....

Aah what the hell.
Click to expand...

WOW.....
 
If the sky is a blank grey nothingness then there is no way in hell to make that look good, lets be honest....

You have to take good opportunities when the present themselves.
 
Living up north and not having a lot of free time and not being able to choose when I take it I have the same problem, skies are often just a bland nothingness and the light is often rubbiush.

I find that the detail extractor and contrast and colour range filters in Nik color efex pro can help to rescue something, what I get may never be a diamond and always a polished you know what but it's better than not taking the picture at all, IMO. The same results could be achieved in PS but Nik makes it easier for me.
 
If the sky is flat but you find yourself out shooting I would typically remove the sky from the frame by shooting intimately. Had a full 4 days on this earlier in the year at glen Coe and come away with some OK shots that didn't include the sky at all!.

I have also just added a drone to the setup and that can certainly open up opportunities to remove the sky from the frame as below.

The view from above by Richard Smith, on Flickr
 
simon ess said:
Come up North and photograph dull people in dull towns.

It'll be perfect.

If you want yet another f*****g mountain reflected in a f*****g lake at f*****g "blue hour", whatever the f*** that is, you're f***ed.

Sorry....I get a bit ranty about what is considered "good" landscape photography.

Oooh now... to press "post" or not to press, that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the.....

Aah what the hell.
Click to expand...

That is good landscape photography - some of us like this sort of scene and crave being out in it and plan our lives around getting images just like the ones you do not like :D

The problem with flat grey skies is the lack of light, shadows that often come with it. I'd rather take the pictures I like rather than ones that I don't because the weather isn't delivering the conditions I don't like.
 
Last edited:
I'm absolutely delighted for everyone to pursue whatever floats their boat.

For most people photography is a wonderful hobby that provides great personal satisfaction in achieving whatever they want to achieve.

Good luck to you and everyone else.

But pretty, chocolate box cliches, repeated millions of times, and that is not an exaggeration, is good landscape photography?

We have very different ideas of what is meant by good

Very different.

Still, there is room for all opinions, I suppose.
 
simon ess said:
But pretty, chocolate box cliches, repeated millions of times, and that is not an exaggeration, is good landscape photography?
.
Click to expand...

Absolutely yes. In my view anyway. Give me the work of Ian Cameron and such like over the B&Ws of Billie Currie. Ian Camerons works appeals far more on an aesthetic and emotional level.


simon ess said:
We have very different ideas of what is meant by good

Very different.

Still, there is room for all opinions, I suppose.
Click to expand...

True and I would hope so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top