sky is always white

[fromSF]

ok so i was just wondering how i can get bright blue skys in my photos. Every time i take a photo of my daughter on bright sunny day usually the sky will either look white to grey or if anything just slightly light blue, but im looking for the nice blue sky. sorry for the noob question still learning a lot here

thanks

[Karl Johnston]

A circular polarizer may be just what you're looking for.

[Bob_A]

You may want to get a circular polarizer :) I used one for this image:

http://bobanderson.smugmug.com/photos/504159392_xVGG9-XL.jpg

[blackcap]

The reason is the sky is overexposed due to it being much brighter than your foreground. A CPL will help darken the skies, or you could expose for the sky and use some fill flash to brighten your subject.

[tzalman]

You need to reduce exposure and, as said above, this will cause the foreground to be too dark. You can bring more light to it with a flash or reflector or you can post-process the shot, darkening a too light (but not entirely white) sky and brightening the darker tones. The extent to which this can be done to a jpg is limited, but by shooting in RAW you will be able to do much more.

[DStanic]

As mentioned a circular polarizer can help a great deal

Also it depends what time of day you shoot. If you are shooting at noon when the sun is directly above you then you will get harsh shadows and bright highlights. You may want to try and shoot in the morning or later in the afternoon. Also make sure that the sun is not behind your daughter but facing her so that it lights her up and you don't get an overexposed background.

[lukeap69]

ok so i was just wondering how i can get bright blue skys in my photos. Every time i take a photo of my daughter on bright sunny day usually the sky will either look white to grey or if anything just slightly light blue, but im looking for the nice blue sky. sorry for the noob question still learning a lot here

thanks

If you do not have the CPL yet, try shooting with the sun behind you.

[gjl711]

If you do not have the CPL yet, try shooting with the sun behind you. Yup, even with a CPL, if your shooting into the light it will blow out the sky. Keeping the sun to your back will help a lot. You can also fix the problem a bit in photoshop assuming that the sky is not totally blown out by using the GND trick. If you really want fix the problem, think of investing in a set of GND filters. It will reduce the exposure of the sky to match the exposure of you subject.

[chauncey]

Or you could do like I do...put all of those filters in a drawer and use the new version of LightRoom.

[nphsbuckeye]

Or you can use HDR.

[Bob_A]

Or you could do like I do...put all of those filters in a drawer and use the new version of LightRoom.

A circ pol is about the only filter that can"t be reproduced by photoshop.

As mentioned above though it's not going to do much for certain situations, but with the sun at the right angle the results can be very good.

[dpds68]

Or you could do like I do...put all of those filters in a drawer and use the new version of LightRoom.


Can you post some before and after examples I am also having trouble with this ? ( I have Lightroom 2.0 Now learning how to use it )

[mattograph]

As a side note, CPLs do not make sky blue. They eliminate reflections that mask the blue in the sky. A CPL works on angles of reflections (bobs point re: angles being on target.)

So, a CPL does not guarantee a blue sky, but can help saturate the colors throughout your photo.

Also, if a sky is TOTALLY Blown, no amount of exposure adjustment will bring back the blue.

The common pro solution for this when shooting portraits is lighting via strobe or reflector. (You'd be surprised what you can do with a $5 piece of white artboard.)

[chauncey]

Check this out

http://www.layersmagazine.com/category/tutorials/lightroom/

Which I found here

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=using+gradient+mask+in+LightRoom+2&FORM=MSNH11

[acousticvibrations]

the AV button on your camera, try going +.75-1 or -.5

and dont forget the WB to set sunlight.

Image # 1 Shooting into the sun direction

Image #2 sun to my back (WB Sunlight, AV +.75)

#1 was taken 15 mins before #2.

hope this helps.

[rdenney]

#1 was taken 15 mins before #2.

The point is that the photo on the right received substantially less exposure. The key to the exposure was the skin tones and the bride's dress, which were much brighter in the photo on the right because they were sunlit rather than in shadow. That required less exposure, and that reduced exposure brought the sky down.

No matter what tool you use, the key is to decrease the exposure so that the sky is exposed for color without the subject falling into deep shadow. You can do it with fill flash, a reflector, a different arrangement with respect to the sun, a filter, or by trying to compress the tonal range with software. In my opinion, then less you have to do it software, the better the result will be.

Rick "thinking the Zone System would make this easy to understand" Denney

[Tee Why]

The reason the sky is white is b/c it's overexposed. You mentioned that this happens on bright sunny days. This is b/c if you expose for the face, which isn't as bright as the sky, the sky will be overexposed and hence white. If you expose for the sky, the face will be very dark. The camera cannot see the range of light that the human eye can see.

Probably the best solution is to shoot during the golden hours when the sun is rising or setting where lighting is more even and makes for much nicer pictures.

If you are stuck shooting mid day, an option is to use fill in flash either with the pop up or a flash that mounts to the camera. So basically, you meter the light for the sky and let the flash fill in the light on the face.

A flash is a better idea as a pop up flash is limited to 1/250 sec exposure, meaning it will not work if the shutter speed needs to be faster. In bright days, the exposure is often close to 1/1000 or so. A flash unit can have a high sync speed feature which will allow you to use higher shutter speeds.