wideangle question - in regards to taking landscape pics with sky

Verty:
Something is way too funky with your images. Contrast is too excessive to be captured nicely. AU is supposed to have beautiful primary colors of earth and sky. If you look at your histograms in PhonyShop, they look like a barbell; like the contrast and/or the saturation were increased to tease out color, and the image went to hell. Either that or the WB is wrong.

I mean photography is all about the three - exposing light, composition, and subject matter. I do find these ultra wide zooms on APS-C sensor cameras "invite" composition errors, so I use a Sigma 15mm fish for shots like these:
http://aesop.rutgers.e​du …s/BlewFamilyFar​mSolar.htm http://aesop.rutgers.e​du …des/Blueberry_D​uke_05.htm and get nice "volume" and color out of the clouds.

I get nice cloud 3-D volume under exposing the background -2/3 stop and popping flash on the foreground like this:
http://aesop.rutgers.e​du …s/IPM_Fruit_Tie​tjen_2.htm to get color and volume from the clouds when doing people wide angle. Hell, I live in crappy New Jersey and get these colors without a polarizer.

If you are shooting from a tripod, and like PhonyShop, a GND filter is less fun than just shooting for highlights, shooting for shadows, and then using any ONE of three "contrast masking" methods to enhance dynamic range.
I wrote them down, and put them in my personal high-contrast scene crib sheet here, see page 11 (right-click download):
http://postit.rutgers.​edu …5FContrast%5FOu​tdoors.pdf

Make sure your white balanced is correct.
And finally, maybe just go out at a much better time of day, when the contrast range of the scene is less. Maybe you are shooting at the time of day when the contrast is excessive. See tactic #10 on the crib sheet, page 4.

Have fun. Jack

Hitech makes nice, affordable GND filters. See B&H.com!

arrrg this is all getting so confusing now...

Nah. Not confusing. You're out there in the midst of beauty.
Just:
- Make sure your camera settings are not over contrasty-over saturating-over sharpening the image if shooting JPEGs. Ideally shoot RAW.
- Choose a different time of day when there is less contrast - less exposure difference between the foreground and sky - less total f/stops in the scene between shadows and highlights.
- Make sure White Balance is correct.
- Choose a different viewpoint and angle to the sun to avoid excess contrast.
- Choose a different metering strategy that does not over expose the clouds nor underexpose the foreground. Learn to judge a histogram.
- Make tripod mounted under exposures (protecting highlight detail), then over exposures (revealing shadow detail) then sandwich these in PhotoShop.
- Make sure your workflow is not mucking up the image.

On the two images you linked in your original post, it appears the contrast, saturation, and/or sharpening were "pushed" too hard. That barball histogram (excess contrast) was a give-away the image would lack appeal. The Q is was it the scene, camera settings, or workflow. You've got to figure that out. Did you glance at the file I linked? Think through every step in workflow before believing that GND or Polarizer will save your butt.

Jack

Thankyou so much...
just to let you know im 100% a RAW shooter...
the images i posted have been adjusted quite abit in Photoshop, however the original caputre in RAW did not show nice rich full clouds which i am trying to achive...

I guess i never realised capturing overall good exposure was so hard... because of the sky and the forground giving off different light meter readings... i am only new to slr photography and am learning the ins and outs quite abit... even tho i can take a good image, i am not fully up there skill wise...

Also i am not aware of how many people actually take several shots on a tripod and then sandwich them up in photoshop.. is that common?? like do alot of people who take landscape shots do that to get good overal sky and land shots all in one??

Too much of this attitude does alot for the destruction of photographic skill.

The issue is exposure. Finding the right exposure is key to images like this. "Understanding Exposure" is a wonderful book that is helpful no matter what your skill level is. In this case, I would have started out by metering the grass and gone from there.

Hahh. Successfully capturing an exposure within the subject brightness contrast range of the medium is THE challenge for those of use doing on-the-go outdoor photography. Gear is less important. Meeting high contrast exposure challenges affects how and what we decide to compose.

If you can't change your viewpoint, your composition, your time of day, or your metering strategy, then yes, sandwiching exposures is a solution. In film days it was GND. In film days Ansel Adams systemized over exposing scenes and under exposing prints to make a scene contrast fit paper contrast. Sandwiching images is nothing new compared to those beautiful efforts. Jack