Motorsports under overcast skies

Anyone have any tips on shooting and processing motorsport pics taken under overcast skies? Colors of course don't pop the way they do in good light, but I have a hard time with the hoods and roofs of cars looking washed out.

I shoot RAW and PP with Lightroom and PS, but I'm not thrilled with the results from shots taken under overcast skies. In good light I'm perfectly happy with the results I get.

Wow. I'd much rather shoot under overcast skies than the bright midday sun.

KatManDEW wrote in post #16061352
Anyone have any tips on shooting and processing motorsport pics taken under overcast skies? Colors of course don't pop the way they do in good light, but I have a hard time with the hoods and roofs of cars looking washed out.

I shoot RAW and PP with Lightroom and PS, but I'm not thrilled with the results from shots taken under overcast skies. In good light I'm perfectly happy with the results I get.

Motorsports images from cloudy days.

I find a polarising filter to cut the glare on the windscreen/hood/roof helps the best (although i still havent got one for the 3/400mm f2.8)

Thanks for the replies. I'll gather up some comparable examples under both conditions (sunlight and overcast).

This isn't the best example of "overcast washout" but it's the quickest apples-to-apples comparison I could find. These are RAW's processed with DPP with zero adjustment. Just the default DPP settings and Standard picture style (pretty dull, in general).

Can you see the "flat, washed out" look on the hood of the blue car in the overcast pic (the second pic)? I get that effect to a worse extent most of the time with overcast pics. Sometimes much worse

With a little coaxing, the sunlight pic will pop nicely. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get the overcast pic to look anywhere near as good. I'm using a NEC PA301WSV monitor (calibrated).

No doubt a considerable part of the problem is that the overcast pic is two stops higher ISO, resulting in less dynamic range to play with.

Any feedback or suggestions anyone has would be appreciated.

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The hood on that 91 car in the second pic has the "overcast washout glare". It's visible in the first pic too. If I expose to minimize that effect, the "shaded side" of the car is a dark featureless mass, and even then, the would-be washed out sections do not look anywhere as good as a well lighted shot. No "pop".

Unless I have a shot list that specifies that I shoot at a specific place at a specific time, I avoid shooting backlit cars like the plague I work my way around and use the available light to the best advantage.

DC Fan wrote in post #16062059
Motorsports images from cloudy days.

Nothing special or overwhelming done to these images. The camera was set for evaluative metering and the body and lens handled exposures with no problems.

It' s hard to imagine any situation where any special exposure or metering approach is ever needed on a cloudy day. Typically, photographers have trouble when bright sun leaves cars backlit.

Your description leaves a hint that the overall frames are over exposed and possibly over processed.

Echo63 wrote in post #16062618
I find a polarising filter to cut the glare on the windscreen/hood/roof helps the best (although i still havent got one for the 3/400mm f2.8)

I think I will try that with some slow shutter motion blur shots. But I'll bet it will decrease auto focus reliability, and the light loss would be undesirable for high shutter speed pics, which are already hampered by lower light from the overcast sky

KatManDEW wrote in post #16064785
The hood on that 91 car in the second pic has the "overcast washout glare". It's visible in the first pic too. If I expose to minimize that effect, the "shaded side" of the car is a dark featureless mass, and even then, the would-be washed out sections do not look anywhere as good as a well lighted shot. No "pop".

Unless I have a shot list that specifies that I shoot at a specific place at a specific time, I avoid shooting backlit cars like the plague I work my way around and use the available light to the best advantage.

If that bothers you, then you'll never encounter a real-world outdoor situation that pleases you. From long experience, automobile hoods and bodies are unpredictable in the exact way in which they reflect light.

DC Fan wrote in post #16065110
If that bothers you, then you'll never encounter a real-world outdoor situation that pleases you. From long experience, automobile hoods and bodies are unpredictable in the exact way in which they reflect light.

Well, sunlight pleases me. Like the sunlight in my first example pic. So you're wrong on that count. And I've seen Nikon pics under overcast skies that look good.

I did some Google searching and found some ideas. I performed some considerably more radical adjustments in Lightroom and got some results which I like better. I saved a few "Cloudy Car" presets for future use as starting points. Which is good because the next four days at the track are looking gloomy

Still never going to look as pics in good light, but I like this better than previous attempts. They don't call it "good light" for nothing...

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KatManDEW wrote in post #16064854
I think I will try that with some slow shutter motion blur shots. But I'll bet it will decrease auto focus reliability, and the light loss would be undesirable for high shutter speed pics, which are already hampered by lower light from the overcast sky

People use CPLs to shoot BIF which require >twice the shutter speeds of most motorpsorts shots and quite often are harder on the AF system.

Your sample shots have such high shutters speeds that I can make out the Continental on the tires, the shutter should only be fast enough to freeze the car(with tires also froze it tends to make the cars look parked), you could have used a CPL easily in your sample shots.

Give a CPL a shot if you don't like then don't use it.

BTW, your latest PP on the overcast shot made a huge difference looks a lot better.

KatManDEW wrote in post #16065882
Still never going to look as pics in good light, but I like this better than previous attempts. They don't call it "good light" for nothing...

I like this one for color, but think it would benefit from a tighter crop. I'd get rid of the sky, & empty area at the right side to start. Maybe more off the bottom & left side after I saw it in PS.

clouds are awesome. i prefer cloudy or overcast conditions to bright sunlight.