Why is my sky blown?

^Joe

^Joe

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Joe
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This is just a test picture.

Out for a walk and wanted to tog this church, but no matter what I tried, i was getting a blown sky. Is it because the church needed that level of exposure, and thus the sky was blown? The sky was a lovely blue with the odd cloud.

I tried all four metering modes. and data is below.


Harold_9_68 by ^Joe, on Flickr

f7.1
18mm
iso100
1/50

Aperture priority.

Appreciate any help

Joe
 
As the building is so dark compared to the sky there is a large difference in the exposures needed to show both off.

I would guess that you would need to have two shots. One exposed for the building and one for the sky and then blend them in post processing. Obviously a tripod, or means of retaining the camera position would also be required.

Was the light source, sun, behind the subject as there does not seem to be any direct light on the building.
 
I thought that may be the case. How would I expose the sky seperately if I was on a tripod? Is it a case of using the metering modes?

Thanks for your response.

edit, thinking about it, I would just use manual wouldn't I - to darken the exposure.
 
The dynamic range of the scene is greater than the dynamic range that the sensor can handle. That is to say, the difference between the darkest areas and the lightest areas is too much for the camera.

The classic solutions are to either reduce the dynamic range by using a graduated nuetral density filter to bring the lightest areas down closer to the darker areas (this is the standard nethod for landscapes but awkward with an uneven horizon line) or to use a multiple exposure technique (e.g. HDR or exposure blending) to combine shots taken at different exposure settings.
 
what p&p software do you have,
heres a quick adjustment, should be able to do better from the original.
6251763116_5cc264c34c_z.jpg
 
^Joe said:
I thought that may be the case. How would I expose the sky seperately if I was on a tripod? Is it a case of using the metering modes?

Thanks for your response.

edit, thinking about it, I would just use manual wouldn't I - to darken the exposure.
Click to expand...

The only way to get the desired results straight out of the camera would be to use a graduated filter. This will reduce the amount of light coming from the sky whilst retaining the exposure of the building.

Either that or as said above, take 2 pictures and photoshop them together.
 
My sony has in built HDR where it takes 3 shots in a row. For normal exposure times where you wouldn't normally use a tripod it produces perfectly reasonable results, so it should be possible with photomatix etc using bracketed exposures from your camera.
 
glennk said:
Would he not be able to shoot the picture with the sky exposed and the building underexposed and then bring out the detail in the building afterwards.
Click to expand...

Better to go the other way, expose as high as you can without blowing the sky and then drop the exposure and apply recovery to the sky.

If you want to know why underexposing and increasing the exposure in post is a bad idea, read this article and look at the data distribution.
 
Alastair said:
Better to go the other way, expose as high as you can without blowing the sky and then drop the exposure and apply recovery to the sky.

If you want to know why underexposing and increasing the exposure in post is a bad idea, read this article and look at the data distribution.
Click to expand...

I find it harder to pull back sky than shadows but accept there is more noise this way. However doing a bit of both gives good results especially if applying noise reduction. Therefore a check of the histogram and exposing to the right is my prefered option. (I don't have filters to use)
 
By the look of things the sun is on the opposite side of the building, albeit obscured by thin cloud. As a consequence you are shooting into the shadow side of the building while the clouds are brightly backlit by the sun. That's causing the problem with the dynamic range being too much for the camera to handle.

Maybe if you had stepped over to the right and shot the building from the other side you would have had an easier time of it, with a less violent sky in the frame and more light on your side of the church. Of course, that side might not have had as much visual appeal, but sitting here at home I couldn't possibly know. I'm just thinking about the light direction and its impact on the scene overall.

As an example of the impact it can have to simply change the shooting position, here are two shots taken just 2.5 minutes apart. No change to the light supplied by nature, but by moving to another side of the building my job suddenly got a whole lot more difficult....

20111017_201415_211415.jpg


In both examples the histogram is nudging up against the right hand edge, but in the first example getting a good exposure was effortlessly simple. By moving to the "wrong" side of the building I gave myself a bit of a nightmare to deal with. I have a suspicion your church shot poses a similar challenge.
 
Thanks for all your replys. Tim that's an excellent example, thanks for taking the time to reply.

I definietly see why it's blown now - it's simple exposure! I do have the unfortunate tendancy to get excited and rush the shots without thinking about them. In the future I will plan before I head out and take my time to compose the shot.

Any decent apps for this ? re: where the sun will be :lol:
 
There are apps - look for something with "ephemeris" in the title. But usually the sun will be behind a cloud. :D

More seriously, there are many facets to photography, but one key aspect is that it's all about capturing light. The light is kind of important. Don't just see a subject and point at it and shoot. Consider where the light is coming from and how it affects the appearance of the subject and scene. Some subjects benefit well from soft light or back light. Others from side light and others from front light. Back lighting can work well for people, not least because it stops them screwing their faces up and prevent ugly shadows, but for buildings not so much. Shooting into the shadow side of a building gives you very flat light that robs the scene (or the subject at least) of contrast and reduces clarity of detail and can even give the illusion of not being quite sharp.

You also really need to pay attention to the background, especially if it includes the sky, and more so still if the sky includes backlit clouds. Whenever I'm out, even without my camera, I will often look at things around me and evaluate the light and consider where I would want to be in order to take a shot. If you want to emphasise textures, which you may well want with a building, then side lighting can really enhance the apparent detail by casting micro-shadows across the face of the structure and picking up little sparkles of highlight too.

A classic example of this is the moon. With a full moon it is very hard to see texture because the light is filling in every nook and cranny. With a half moon, caused by the sun lighting it from the side, suddenly the craters acquire visible form, with highlights and shadows, and the detail you couldn't really see before stands out. See in this example that the details only emerge where the light is glancing across the surface of the moon relative to the camera's viewpoint....

20090812_003105_1552_LR.jpg
 
Thank you, that's very useful, as I am doing a project of churches, so that helps. If I can get the light on the side of the church then, I should picture that 'side' and the front?

What if the light is behind the togger and shining straight onto the front of the church? Would this possibly darken the sky, as the church wouldn't need as much exposure?
 
The vision for the picture is yours to decide. There are no set rules for "how to photograph a church". But now you have a little more knowledge with which to experiment. If you need a certain look then you might need to think about the time of day to shoot and what sort of skies (weather) you want. If there is one position from which the church really looks its best then decide for yourself how you want the light to look and work out when you need to be there for it to be shown off to its best. You might not want every shot to look so similar in terms of lighting.

On your second point - yes, exactly. If the church is fairly front lit (doesn't have to be square on) then you will find the contrast extremes to be greatly reduced and capturing the sky should be much easier, just as in my castle example. Just consider that often the shadows in the scene can be just as important as the highlights. For practice pick a sunny(ish) day and just walk around a church and try photographing it from all angles and then see how the outcome differs and what you like and what you don't like. Don't worry so much about the features of the church for this exercise, but rather how the light and shade work together.
 
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