Help my skies!

PopeBuckfastXVI

I never manage to get skies like this one, I consider it one of my worst failings:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hippyepotamo/4540225552/

Love the dramatic effect, beautiful contrast. I've seen some super b&w skies on boards... anyone willing to share how it's done??

Thanks!

Fenster

Red filter or polariser and a willingness to abuse the contrast settings.

Thecageyone

The sky in that pic does little for me tbh, one thing I don't like in sky shots is loads of noise, intentional or not. Like 'em smoooooth, just a personal thing.

Been struggling with landscapes myself, my biggest problem is usually exposing for the sky and neglecting the foreground. Reading up on it seems I always use too fast a shutter speed and too wide an aperture. Should be doing it other way round.

Narrow aperture like f/18 - f/22 and as slow a shutter speed as I can get away with, without over exposing the sky, seems to be the best advice I've come across.

Gr1f

Exposure blending, Shoot one shot for sky, then another for foreground then blend in photoslop. You can also use exposure bracketing.

I tend to go for the sky drama myself :-)
http://www.markjgriffin.ie/portfolio/photography/landscape/

Thecageyone

Some of those are gorgeous.

Any simple tutorials about for exposure blending, I'm a bit crap when it comes to layering in PS. I usually just dodge & burn or use the adjustment brush in LR.

Gr1f

thanks :-)
Simply open the 2 shots, copy one to the other (it will be on a separate layer if you simply drag it over) Then hit the 'mask' icon at the bottom of the layers palette and paint out the areas you don't want in the top layer with the paintbrush. Use layer adjustments accordingly. you'll find loads of tutorials via google. :-)

Later version of photoshop also have built in exposure blending and HDRi generation. Better off doing it manually 1st imho.

Thecageyone

Latest version, hmmm, must ... buy that ... some time

Cheers for the tip, definitely must try it this week. Landscapes are something I would love to do more of. When I look in magazines it makes me feel so inferior at times, thinking I'll never capture beautiful scenics like them.

stabo

Get yourself a polariser filter and some ND gards. Never tryed a red filter myself.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Thanks all... have polariser, have ND grads... I guess I don't use the grads enough, bit awkward to use the cokin system with a cpl, I suppose I should get over that!

A red filter you say? hmmm... time for a trip to ebay maybe!!

PopeBuckfastXVI

Gr1f wrote: »

Exposure blending, Shoot one shot for sky, then another for foreground then blend in photoslop. You can also use exposure bracketing.

I tend to go for the sky drama myself :-)
http://www.markjgriffin.ie/portfolio/photography/landscape/

Cracking gallery, I can't directly link but your 46 of 83 (the tower in the wood) is incredible!

sunny2004

I must say the opening shot linked in the op is over processed for my taste.
Have you considered HDR or Tonemapping to keep the sky intact and then adjusting it gently in PS ?

PopeBuckfastXVI

sunny2004 wrote: »

I must say the opening shot linked in the op is over processed for my taste.
Have you considered HDR or Tonemapping to keep the sky intact and then adjusting it gently in PS ?

Not really a HDR/Tonemapping fan to be honest, I prefer to do as much as possible in camera anyway, I don't have photoshop.

I've been looking into red filters and maybe this might be something to try!

Gr1f

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Cracking gallery, I can't directly link but your 46 of 83 (the tower in the wood) is incredible!

Thanks, Appreciate that :-)

Borderfox

Thecageyone wrote: »

The sky in that pic does little for me tbh, one thing I don't like in sky shots is loads of noise, intentional or not. Like 'em smoooooth, just a personal thing.

Been struggling with landscapes myself, my biggest problem is usually exposing for the sky and neglecting the foreground. Reading up on it seems I always use too fast a shutter speed and too wide an aperture. Should be doing it other way round.

Narrow aperture like f/18 - f/22 and as slow a shutter speed as I can get away with, without over exposing the sky, seems to be the best advice I've come across.

An aperture this large will see some degradation in the image quality, better off finding out the sweet spot of the lens you use.

Ballyman

All you need are ND grads and a tripod.

For a landscape like you posted then I'd recommend using an aperture of f14.

Take an exposure reading for the foreground and another for the sky and see what the difference is and use the appropriate ND grad.

Take the photo using the correct exposure for the foreground and the ND grad should ensure that you have the correct exposure of the sky. Forget about using a polarizer for this kind of thing as you can simulate that in pp afterwards by reducing the blue luminance.

Also using small apertures requires the use of a tripod. I wouldn't even bother pressing the shutter button if the camera isn't sitting on one!

I.design

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hippyepotamo/4540225552/meta/

If you click on the above link, you'll be able to see all the camera and photoshop settings that were applied to the photo. Its called the Exif data, its on some photos in flickr.

swingking

the fact that micro-contrast and micro-smoothing were applied to the image in question, suggests its a tonemapped image; perhaps a HDR.

PopeBuckfastXVI

swingking wrote: »

the fact that micro-contrast and micro-smoothing were applied to the image in question, suggests its a tonemapped image; perhaps a HDR.

Interesting... maybe I'll have to look into it, or maybe I'll take the lazy way out and not bother!!

Thecageyone

Borderfox wrote: »

An aperture this large will see some degradation in the image quality, better off finding out the sweet spot of the lens you use.

True in most cases I guess, the mag's always suggest f/11 - f/18 for landscapes. They would say the sweet spot is somewhere closer to f/8, but for backgrounds that stretch way back a narrower one can work well. Though, in saying that, I'm a complete and utter n00b when it comes to scenics. I can never get them like I see in those mags! One of the mistakes I now at least know I was making was using much too high shutter speeds.