Shooting in overcast/cloudy conditions

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What kind of settings/approach is advisable for shooting under cloudy and overcast conditions. I took my new 40D and nifty fifty out for a spin at lunchtime and everything came out so dull looking.
 
You took some shots in cloudy/overcast conditions and your shot came out dull.

What did you expect?
 
Ditto. The camera captured what you saw. Dull, grey light leads to a lack of contrast and dull, grey images.
 
Any shot with sky in it is going to be a real problem!
It's the bright featureless sky and dull lighting on the subject.

However, the diffuse light really suits some subjects and hunting them down can be very rewarding.
It's a really good time to head into a conifer plantation and try for some spooky woodland shots or fairy glade type shots.
Also the best time to shoot abstract macro of rocks at the seaside.
Just a case of being flexible with you subject matter and trying something different!
 
Do you mean dull as in dark or underexposed or do you mean dull as in drab and dreary looking?

If the former then you need to work on your exposure technique. How are you metering - which mode? What part of the scene are you metering from? Are you using exposure compensation? Are you shooting in manual exposure mode? Are you checking your histogram to make sure the exposure is good? What settings do you have in the camera to jazz up the image? If you could post an edited image with EXIF intact it would make it easier to offer more precise advice.

If the latter then you should understand that the light from an overcast day is very even - the whole sky works as a gigantic softbox - and casts almost no shadows, produces almost no hotspots or bright spots and creates very low contrast, flat looking images. That is the nature if that sort of light. You can pep up a dull photo by editing it to brighten the highlights, darken the shadow areas, boost the contrast, increase saturation and sharpen to add punch, but ultimately you won't get a dramatic looking picture from boring, flat, even light.

The camera is not a magic wand. A dull grey day will always look like a dull grey day. you can help it along a bit but it will never look like a sunlit scene. Here is an example, shot today and processed just as was, out of the camera, and then again with some tweaks to cheer it up. It still doesn't look like a sunny day though. Never will.

IMG_0412_DPP.JPG


20090721_093852_0412_DPP_edit1.JPG


Here we go - sunny day vs grey day. The sunny day has no edits except WB. They grey day has +2/3 exposure and WB...

20090221_161053_1036_LR.jpg


20090222_133844_1128_LR.jpg
 
Well, Graham, you have proved me wrong. It does look like a lovely sunny day. I'll get my coat. :coat:

:D
 
hsuffyan said:
What kind of settings/approach is advisable for shooting under cloudy and overcast conditions. I took my new 40D and nifty fifty out for a spin at lunchtime and everything came out so dull looking.
Click to expand...

As already said, dull light = flat pictures, BUT it depends on what you pointed your camea at. I find that kind of light best if doing street candids as no extremes of light and shadows, or maybe try a few mono conversions and contrast tweaking to pep things up a little.
 
Yv said:
As already said, dull light = flat pictures, BUT it depends on what you pointed your camea at. I find that kind of light best if doing street candids as no extremes of light and shadows, or maybe try a few mono conversions and contrast tweaking to pep things up a little.
Click to expand...

Well said, certainly more useful than this:

Twentyten said:
You took some shots in cloudy/overcast conditions and your shot came out dull.

What did you expect?
Click to expand...
 
Chris, you right of course, it was quite a negative response, I posted with the intention of getting more info on what the OP was expecting from. Dull lighting.
Whether the shots were dark because there was too much sky in the scene or other wise.

Sorry
 
thank you all for your replies. One can only learn by asking.

I will post some sample pics tonight. I had my WB set to cloudy, my metering mode is set to evaluative, and I was using aperture priority mode. The EV was set to 1 or a bit below. Most of the time I metered of the center or part that I wanted to be in focus. I presume I should meter the brightest part of the shot (other than the sky?), recompose the shot and dial the exposure in manually?
 
Twentyten said:
Chris, you right of course, it was quite a negative response, I posted with the intention of getting more info on what the OP was expecting from. Dull lighting.
Whether the shots were dark because there was too much sky in the scene or other wise.

Sorry
Click to expand...

Sorry, it sounded like a sarcastic 'what did you expect?' lol, the wonders of reading rather than actually talking :LOL:
 
hsuffyan said:
thank you all for your replies. One can only learn by asking.

I will post some sample pics tonight. I had my WB set to cloudy, my metering mode is set to evaluative, and I was using aperture priority mode. The EV was set to 1 or a bit below. Most of the time I metered of the center or part that I wanted to be in focus. I presume I should meter the brightest part of the shot (other than the sky?), recompose the shot and dial the exposure in manually?
Click to expand...

If your camera has -1 EV, it is going to underexpose, also in evaluetive metering its reading the whole scene, including the sky, better to use spot metering to pick out parts of the scene you want correctly exposed.

Better still take reading in spot allaround the scene, and balance the exposure using ND grads, or take several different exposures and create a HDR, I hear they're quite popular.(now there some sarcasm).
 
If a bright sky is causing a problem then, as an alternative to a graduated or split ND filter you can simply shoot to save the highlights and then PP the rest, like this....

20071130_112150_0405_LR.jpg


to this....

20071130_112150_0405_LR.jpg


but that still won't create shadows where there are none.
 
tdodd said:
If a bright sky is causing a problem then, as an alternative to a graduated or split ND filter you can simply shoot to save the highlights and then PP the rest, like this....

20071130_112150_0405_LR.jpg


to this....

20071130_112150_0405_LR.jpg


but that still won't create shadows where there are none.
Click to expand...

That bloke at the front wearing the beige t-shirt and a watch on his left wrist looks like me! :eek:

I don't recall that scene, though. Must be my doppelganger.....



By the way, good advice as always Tim (y)
 
You can also use a cpl filter to help... alternatively HDR, Contrast Masking and converting the pic to B+W sometimes helps.
 
post up an example pic... as if its just a boring sky but you can still see detail in it, you can "pseudo hdr" it. Not true HDR (as you only have one exposure) but it can help bring out a little colour and detail, example:

3736065401_30ae9068a7_o.jpg


sadly the flickr rotate option only rotates the photostream pic :D so you can all turn your monitors on there sides ;)
 
When you find the answer mate, let me know ;) :D I choose to crave the best light. If it's crap, put the camera away. I am coming from a landscapes perspective. I remember doing street and outdoor portraits, I had ZERO care for the light. Saying that, Kerridge took some excellent golden hour street shots which as expected, proved to be much better in terms of wow factor. People can bang on until they are blue in the face about not needing the golden light. I personally struggle to see how at the moment, which sucks.

Gary.
 
tdodd said:
If a bright sky is causing a problem then, as an alternative to a graduated or split ND filter you can simply shoot to save the highlights and then PP the rest, like this....

20071130_112150_0405_LR.jpg


to this....

20071130_112150_0405_LR.jpg


but that still won't create shadows where there are none.
Click to expand...

thats really cool. id love to be able to do that to some of my photos that I thought were just unrecoverable.
 
i always shoot in raw+jpg, but because i am no nothing about lightroom/ps/dpp i tend to use the jpg's instead :(
 
hsuffyan said:
i always shoot in raw+jpg, but because i am no nothing about lightroom/ps/dpp i tend to use the jpg's instead :(
Click to expand...

I still do shoot in raw+jpg but most of the time I delete the jpgs and only use the raw files.
I'm still stumbling around with the likes of lightroom but it's very worthwhile.
 
Hey Gary, I have a shoot at Queensferry to do sometime soon...that beach you shot your bridges from.....would you PM the way to get to it please, not for pictures, I will have had enough of photography after hanging off the railway bridge for a day and shooting the safety boats...don't ask, but it pays.
No, that looks just the spot for a few hours fishing before heading home!
 
Lensflare said:
Hey Gary, I have a shoot at Queensferry to do sometime soon...that beach you shot your bridges from.....would you PM the way to get to it please, not for pictures, I will have had enough of photography after hanging off the railway bridge for a day and shooting the safety boats...don't ask, but it pays.
No, that looks just the spot for a few hours fishing before heading home!
Click to expand...

No worries :) Would be silly not to take photos though! :D

I will try and show you on a map:

You can drive from the lightboat house along a road next to the coast. Park when you see the big black star with a yellow border, close to the floating white text in the sea.

Once there, walk along the coast and have a look for another big black star with yellow border, and again keep an eye open for that white text!

mapdoa.jpg


:D

Gary.
 
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