How to avoid \"whitening\" on the background??

[AcesHigh]

Hello folks, I am newbie to photography, and I recently bought a CanonA60 on my trip to Europe. Some of the pics that I took would get "white" in the background, althought obviously to my eye that wouldnt happen. That would usually happen for example when I would take pctures of long streets... to my eye I would see the street to infinity, until the street is blocked by houses and buildings and such. But for the camera, the first 200 or 300 meters of the street would appear, and the things very far away would disappear in a "whitening", like if there was a bright FOG on the background (like in some 3D computer games, which use fog to make things far away disappear)

In all cases where this happened, the sky also lost the original blue color and was white.

I guess this is some problem regarding contrast...?

Well... I am posting some pics so you guys can understand and give me tips to avoid that.

http://rogerpenna.brturbo.com/100_0021.JPG

http://rogerpenna.brturbo.com/100_0023.JPG

http://rogerpenna.brturbo.com/101_0126.JPG

[henkbos]

No pics. Guess the site you linked to is very, very slow.

[AcesHigh]

yeah its slow... :P
its not slow to OPEN the pics... its slow to access them!! Kinda like... it takes a long time to start opening the pics, but once it starts, its very fast.

Anyway, if you can, just open this thread in a new window and browse other threads and such. THen return again to this one. THe pics will probably be already open by then...

[henkbos]

OK, can see one now. From a camera perspective it's not that bad. Don't know your settings but the exposure seems to have taken a good average of the scene. Remember that cameras are not as flexible as our brain. We know the sky is blue and so most of the times we see blue even if the sky is less blue!
The camera has certain limitations bridging a large range of contrasts, something our brain can do effortlessly.
One way to solve this is to bracket your exposures: one like normal and one focussed on the middle (in this situation, landscapes might be different). After that combine them in Photoshop. Obviously this technique requires a tripod.
You might still be able to make this pic better in PS though.

[AcesHigh]

ok, but this would solve the white sky problem. What about buildings fading in white mist in the background?

The camera settings I used?? Hmmm... auto :)

[CyberDyneSystems]

Can you put a polarizer on an A60?

[AcesHigh]

maybe, if i first get to know what a polarizer is... :P

I know you can put extra lenses and teleobjetives and such on it.

[CyberDyneSystems]

A polarizer is a screw on filter. If the front of your lens has threads on it (which it may if it can take accesory lenses) then you can use a threaded "Circualr polarizer"

A polarizer is no magic bullet for overexposed skies but it can do wonders and solve problems in many circumstances. If you don't have ANY filter on your lens now I suggest you get two filters.

1: Get a UV filter. This will have no visible effect on your images but will protect the front elemnt of your lens from damage like scratches.

2: Get a Circualar polarizing filter.

You will need to find out the thread size for your cameras lens (proably somewhere between 37mm & 49mm)

[CyberDyneSystems]

Just read Canon's spec here;

http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a70-60/specs.html

Unfortunaely it makes no mention of filter threads :(

This may mena that it does not have any,.. but not necesarily.

[CyberDyneSystems]

O-kay,. you would need an adapter like this;

http://www.bugeyedigital.com/product_main/ckc-a60a70m.html

(canon makes one too...)

And then the filter... makes it a bit more of a handfull,. but you could just use it when you anticipate a problem.

[henkbos]

Finally see all 3 of them. I commented on the 2nd one. First and third are worse, but there is quite some sun in the background, judging from the harsh shadows.

[stopbath]

The only problem in the shots is the expanse of exposure values. These shots have breached the latitude of the CCD sensor. The street level area is sheltered from the strong sunlight by the tall buildings, and the camera exposed for this. The daylight is much more powerful, and it overexposed (beyond the capabilities of the CCD to record the data.)

Since these are hand held, you need to compensate your exposure to the highlights, and allow your shadows to go dark. Then in photoshop, play with curves and levels to regain the shadow detail.

You could expose half way between the two extremes and have a slightly over exposed sky, and a slightly underexposed shadows and modify both. It is a personal choice.

The human eyes are much more forgiving than the camera is.

Recording in RAW (if your camera can handle it) may help by storing more data than the JPEG file can hold.

[neitherside]

I see that one poster reckoned that it was a good average exposure for a scene with a wide range of light levels, so I think I can already guess the answer to my question. Other than a polariser, was there a best combination of F-stop, shutter speed and film speed he could have used at the time to allow his camera to read the full range rather than having to work on it in photoshop later?

[AcesHigh]

i was wondering that also Neitherside...

[stopbath]

In digital expose for the highlights (you want to show detail in) and print (edit) for the shadows.

In digitial, you can use curves to add detail to the dark shadows but you can't get detail from overblown highlights.

This is best done with RAW images which store more detail (but it is more complex process than JPEG).

Alternatively, expose mid point (your preference) between the over exposed section and the under exposed sections and cut your losses or edit both highlight and shadows (though again you'll may loose some hightlights.)

In these sample shots, perhaps a faster shutter speed or smaller aperture could have saved the sunlight portion, but the people would have been very dark indeed. The picture would be scrap without editing to save it.