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#51
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Please, why is sky washed out?
Ottawa? Isn't that the place that the Canadians use to separate Quebec
from Ontario so they don't throw down their gloves and go at it? Before I comment, an off-topic aside. I am just outside of Buffalo, ie, Toronto, so our weather forcasts are in both Far. and Celcius (or as we say, Canadian). I was at Christmas mass. "Gloria" was on the song list. So I say to my mother "what exactly does "In Excelcius mean"?" Before she could answer, my 11-year-old (who was sitting between us) shot back, "That how they measure the temperature in Canada". Here's what I guess happened. First, you shot into the sun. In that circumstance, the sky is really a light source, so you were shooting into a light. Now look at your other picture. Sun was behind you. For whatever reason, either your, your camera, or your software took the image and adjusted for the shadow (the house) and did a good job burning out the sky. To compound it, somewhere the image adjusted for the blueness and took out some blue, leaving the sky a slight gray. There is a fairly easy fix. Just delete the sky and put in a cloudy sky, like in your other picture. Clouds can add interest. Otherwise, consider shooting on a cloudy day when the sun puts the whole area into the shade, but you'll still lose part of the sky. Otherwise, filter will help. Shooting in late evening as the sun is setting will also help. Celcius wrote: "Pat" wrote in message ups.com... King Sardon wrote: "The house and trees are in bright sun" No they are not. Are we looking at the same picture? http://celestart.com/images/publiques/15.jpg The house is in TOTAL shadow. Look at the driveway. You have bright sunlight and shadow where the tree is. Then you have a distinct shadow line right next to the garage door, maybe a foot out from the door, and the shadow line crosses the concrete slab that makes up the porch. The only part of the house in bright sun is about a 1 foot strip across the edge of the room that separates the brick above the garage door from the vinyl as well as the primary roof. Further, you can see through the crank-out window on the second floor. If it was bright sun, that would almost definately have glare. Notice the light next to the garage door. No shadow -- because it is IN a shadow. I don't know what time of day it was taken, but it appears to be mid-day because the shadows aren't too long. Assuming the house is in the northern hemisphere, then if the OP had waited a little bit, most of the house would have been well lit, but they he would have had to deal with shadows across the house. Finally, look athte trees, esp. the more distant ones. Notice the distortion of the leaves as the light wraps around them. The house is definately backlit. The OP is shooting into the sun. That's why the sky is burned out. His best bet, other than some filters, would be to wait for a semi-cloud day. Wait until the house is in shadow and there's some interesting clouds in the sky. But still, filters would help significantly. Hi Pat! Thanks for your answer. Actually, I live in Ottawa, Canada. The front of the house is facing the river (North). The right side of the house, when you look at the photo is west, and of course the back side is south. The photo was taken at 14h38 (2:38PM). The sun must have been overhead, slightly right if you look at the shadow of the tree. I thought the sun was immaterial since I was shooting in the direction of the house and wanted mostly to show the house and trees. I never thought the sky would look that way. I took some photos in Cuba in the sun by the swimming pool and it never turned out that way: http://celestart.com/images/publiques/pool.jpg Marcel |
#52
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Please, why is sky washed out?
On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 07:34:13 -0400, "Celcius" wrote:
"Jack Mac" wrote in message .. . On Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:48:16 GMT, "JohnR66" wrote: The solution in a situation where the subject was dark on a sunny, clear day was to use a polarizer filter and dial in -1 of exposure (under expose by one stop). Using RAW too would have helped as the sky was still not as blue as I wanted. John "Celcius" wrote in message ... Hi everyone! Why is the sky washed out while my wife with a point and shoot gets blue skys? It seems to me the sky was quite blue when I took this photo: http://celestart.com/images/publiques/15.jpg Any ideas? Recommendations? Thanks, Marcel You say your wife's point and shoot camera gets blue sky. Why not just use her camera? Is the DSLR really worth all the extra effort? Jack Mac Good question, Jack. However, I bought a DSLR to use it and to learn photography. Otherwise, I would have bought a P&S. This is also why I come to this forum as well as alt.photography, rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, to learn and to seek help from more knowledgeable than I. I find this pastime quite interesting. It also allowed me to work with Photoshop (7.0, CS1 and now CS2). When I think that so many retired people hang around shopping centers for lack of something better to do.... Take care, Marcel Marcel, My post was really intended to be tongue-in-cheek meaning that if the wife's point and shoot camera can capture a blue sky, your Rebel XT should be able to do it too..... and without all the filters etc. It will be a learning experience for you. I also have a Rebel XT and still have a lot to learn about it. This has been an interesting thread! Jack Mac |
#53
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Please, why is sky washed out?
"oj" wrote:
Celcius wrote: Why is the sky washed out while my wife with a point and shoot gets blue skys? .... While everyone is intent in pointing out the sky is overexposed, they For a reader with sufficient experience, pointing out that the sky is over exposed tells pretty much the whole story. Of course if the whole significance of a washed out sky is *not* understood, then it isn't half enough of the story! However, you have pointed out something that, at least to techie types, is even more interesting. Newer cameras might use computer analysis of the data to automatically adjust exposure in much the same way that a photographer would... or not, depending... :-) That confuses the issue, because instead of getting the results one would expect from a simple metering system, the results are what one would expect when the photographer chooses some rule of thumb to compensate for a simple metering system. missed the point of the question, and I've thought the same thing sometimes. I can point my old Canon Powershot P/S at a scene, and the sky is blue and white shirts aren't overexposed, but my DSLR doesn't seem to be able to capture the same range. Either the sky is blown out, or the subject is dark. Weird, huh. Nah, just the expected results of the toys we like to play with! Back in the good ol' days, Through-The-Lense light meters were simple and there were just three kinds. It was either 1) average a reading from the whole screen, or 2) from a small spot on the screen, or 3) use a weighted response that gave more emphasis to some known area, like the center. With that kind of a meter we can set the exposure for the whole scene, for example, but the bright sky will skew the average and cause the desired part of the image to be in deep shadows. That will still work /if/ the photographer manually sets Exposure Compensation to +1 or +2 in order to cause more exposure. Hence you get your "Either the sky is blown out, or the subject is dark." Another way is to use a spot meter or weighted area to eliminate or greatly reduce the effects of the bright sky on the metered value. This is essentially just another manual method of correcting the exposure as above, and the results are typically the same. Given the above, an older or less complex camera when simply pointed at the scene and the shutter released, will under expose the shadow areas and allow for at least some texture in the sky, which would allow it to be blue. (The OP's wife's P&S...) However, a modern DSLR might well have a much more complex light metering system, and will make the manual corrections described above automatically! Instead of averaging the entire screen or just a spot or some set weighting pattern, the meter might take readings from several spots in the scene, do a computer analysis to decide what is appropriate, and then adjust the weighting pattern to match what it assumes the image most likely is. In this case it can tell that 1/2 of the upper part of the image is very very bright (it might even know it is blue!), while the rest seems to be just the right amount less to be a shaded area. In particular the center appears to be a shaded area. The camera's computer program decides this is a sunlight scene with bright sunlight and deep shadows with a lot of sky. So it compensates by calculating the exposure based *only* on the lower half of the image... which results in totally washing out all of the sky, but providing a fairly good exposure for areas in the shadows in the center of the image. Don't want that? Use spot metering or turn off the "multi-segment" metering mode to get a full scene average, and use your own Exposure Compensation to get the exposure desired. -- Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) |
#54
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Please, why is sky washed out?
"David Harper" writes:
In the picture at: http://celestart.com/images/publiques/15.jpg ...the general consensus seems to be that the sky is blown out. When I do that in "AUTO" mode the sky is 255,255,255 (pure white). This picture shows the sky at a uniform 239,239,239. Why is that? What in-camera or post-processing did this? I have never seen that before. To me "blown" is 255 all the way. It does seem a little odd. There are points on the path where it goes up to (for instance) 242,239,234. Though I notice the mean of that triple is nonetheless still below 239. Perhaps whatever converted it to JPEG included some poor decisions about the maximum? -- http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/ |
#55
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Please, why is sky washed out?
wrote in message
oups.com... King seems to be wrong. Washed sky is usually the result of open aparture. Nonsense. Aperture alone has nothing to do with this case. Stopping down does not extend the range of sensor sensitivity. Aperture and shutter speed together determine correct exposure. There are only two applications of aperture which effect exposu 1) when one opens wide enough to cause flare (in a lens so susceptible), and that's generally not considered a good thing and 2) when focusing close enough to throw the brighter background far out of focus because a focused image is (generally) less bright than a focused one. In this case the range is too great for the sensor or the image was underexposed. |
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