Blown out sky.... what to do?

E

Englischdude

Senior Member
If the title does not say it all, then the picture will. This shot was taken with my new 85mm 1.8D which arrived today. Absolutely stunning lens. Could also have got the AFS, but I like the solid feel to the AFD lens.

The sky was so clear and blue today, why is the sky so blown out on this shot and what can I do to avoid this in the future?
Thanks for your help.

17345370dl.jpg
 
P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Sometimes, if you spot meter for the subject, you'll still get a blown out sky, so you can meter to the scene you want twice, once on the ground/structure/person, once again on the sky, then try to manually set in the middle.

OR... you can take two shots and layer mask. This works well with a tripod and remote shutter release. Get a good pic of your person, then have them step out, reset metering for the background and shoot the exact scene again.

OR... you can use a graduated ND filter, or reflector, or maybe even fill flash.

It would help if we knew more of your settings, though.
 
Last edited:
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
With the girl backlit like this it's going to be near impossible to expose for both. So unless you want to go strobist or use a reflector then you are going to have to pick what you meter for. Spot metering on the girl will likely blow out the sky even more. If you have a RAW file and you work it you may be able to pull out more color in the sky in LR or PS. The dynamic range on the D7000 isn't bad and you should be able to get some color out of it. Replicate the image in Photoshop as a separate layer, adjust level curves for the sky only and then mask out the girl. Create a virtual copy in Lightroom and expose the second at -2EV to -3EV and merge them. Use the brush tool in ACR/LR to darken the sky. Lots of things you can do with the RAW file, but not a lot outside of manipulating light at the time of the shot if you want both the girl and the sky straight out of the camera.
 
M

Mike D90

Senior Member
Think about your shot before snapping it. You might could have turned her around with the light coming from over your shoulder or slightly more from her profile side.
 
P

Pretzel

Senior Member
...or use a reflector. Thought about that after I posted and edited my response to add in a few options to help light up the subject a bit so the sky doesn't make for such a stark difference too.
 
V

Vincent

Senior Member
How much post processing have you done? The sky does not seem "blown out" to me on the top part.

Supposing you have a raw file, I would put the exposure a lot down to get the colour of the sky and then brighten up your subject with shadow protection.
One way to work with this ideally is to look at the histogram when you have taken the picture and make certain you do not blow out elements, so no high peak against the right side of the histogram. Manually adjust if you have this (so you do not miss data) and work on corrections in post processing afterwards to correctly show your subject.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Vincent said:
How much post processing have you done? The sky does not seem "blown out" to me on the top part.

Supposing you have a raw file, I would put the exposure a lot down to get the colour of the sky and then brighten up your subject with shadow protection.
One way to work with this ideally is to look at the histogram when you have taken the picture and make certain you do not blow out elements, so no high peak against the right side of the histogram. Manually adjust if you have this (so you do not miss data) and work on corrections in post processing afterwards to correctly show your subject.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering this as well. There is a LOT of light information available to you in a well exposed photo that may not be apparent at first glance. I have an example here somewhere of how much I was able to pull from a long exposure I took with a D800, and while that camera has about as much dynamic range as any of them, I suspect that if you have the RAW file that there is plenty of blue in the "blown out" sections. Provided your histogram isn't heavy on the right I think you can tone it down. First thing to do is to drag the Exposure slider left and see just how much sky there is to recover. Once you get it all the way left you'll know. From there, it's all a matter of tweaking and tweezing.
 
S

ShootRaw

Senior Member
I edited it..But read you don't want images edited..Stay with matrix metering..I would have metered to middle then 3 to 4 clicks to left of center...Of course a small reflector back towards the face would be best..
 
Top