Blown out skies...

[ooo]

So how do you exposure for a picture that will end up being too dark or having a blown out sky? ND filters? Three exposures and HDR?

[JakPot]

So how do you exposure for a picture that will end up being too dark or having a blown out sky? ND filters? Three exposures and HDR?

or you could expose for the sky & use fill flash on the subject.....depending on what you were shooting.

[ooo]

Umm, I was trying to take a picture of a church today around the evening, when the sun was setting. So I guess it was a back lit situation. I ended up just doing a bracket exposure, but I find its a hassle to HDR it.

[eddarr]

You can use GND filters for that. But you may have a problem with the steeple being too high and getting into the darker part of the filter. For something like that it may be easier to just do two exposures and blend them in PS. Post a sample.

[JakPot]

Umm, I was trying to take a picture of a church today around the evening, when the sun was setting. So I guess it was a back lit situation. I ended up just doing a bracket exposure, but I find its a hassle to HDR it.

HDR would probably be the best bet in that case...

[ooo]

Well, heres the picture of the church I took, exposing for the church, hence the skies are all blown out now.

[JS4KIKZ]

I believe in this case it would be best to have two exposures, one for the sky and one for the church....although an HDR pics would look good also.

[JakPot]

yeah i agree... i think an HDR of that church would be niiiice.

[eddarr]

Definitely two exposures. HDR during daylight would be way to much work and the results would not be very good. I would suggest taking the picture of this during twilight, about 20 minutes after the sun goes down. There will still be a nice blue in the sky and the building will be glowing from the surrounding building lights. I remember the church well from our NYC trip. The best picture you will get of this church is inside. Don't miss out on the best part.

[JakPot]

Definitely two exposures. HDR during daylight would be way to much work and the results would not be very good. I would suggest taking the picture of this during twilight, about 20 minutes after the sun goes down. There will still be a nice blue in the sky and the building will be glowing from the surrounding building lights. I remember the church well from our NYC trip. The best picture you will get of this church is inside. Don't miss out on the best part.

why do you say HDR be too much work?

[eddarr]

Work without benefit is always to much work. I'm just lazy that way. There is only a 2 to 3 stop range in the church and the sky is probably about an 8 or 10 stops faster exposure. That's just not what HDR does best. The same picture taken during better lighting conditions could be processed with just a little work in curves and the end result would be better than most HDR's.

[cosworth]

ooo - was the sky overcast? If so you are going to get white skies.

Here is a classic example of choosing the right metering mode and shooting M to get what you want. Granted if you are camera are good buddies.

Set metering to Center weighted average. M. Meter the scene and understand that a bright wintery sky will throw any metering off, and I'd expose maybe a 1/2 stop under.

Or just chimp in what ever mode you've got going playing with exposure comp until you got it right.

Or, get it right with M.

[tzalman]

Personally, I'd spot meter the brightest part of the sky and add about a stop and a half. That would retain enough data there which can be enhanced in post and with a 30D and ISO 400 the shadows can be brought up without fear of excessive noise.

[ooo]

Skies were not overcast. First, I took the shot in aperture and I noticed the church was too dark. Then I switched over to manual and spot metering and metered for the church and bumped up the exposure by 1. I took about 20 shots and nothing of them came out right, either sky was blown out or the church was in shadows. I've deleted all of them since. The shot wasn't really important, I was just walking around until it was time to go to a meeting. I just remembered that when the skies are setting my skies are often blown out or the subject is too dark.

[SkipD]

The best solution I could think of is to shoot it in the morning. The shot you posted was done late in the afternoon and the base of the church is in deep shadow. Shooting it in the morning would probably make a very significant difference.

[JakPot]

Work without benefit is always to much work. I'm just lazy that way. There is only a 2 to 3 stop range in the church and the sky is probably about an 8 or 10 stops faster exposure. That's just not what HDR does best. The same picture taken during better lighting conditions could be processed with just a little work in curves and the end result would be better than most HDR's.

makes sense, thanks!

[tdodd]

The best solution I could think of is to shoot it in the morning. The shot you posted was done late in the afternoon and the base of the church is in deep shadow. Shooting it in the morning would probably make a very significant difference.
+1 here.