over exposed skyline

ro1798

how do you compensate so a bright skyline and really dark foreground??

eg http://www.flickr.com/photos/ro1798/2087788762/

leaning the basics so be gentle

thanks

ronan

oshead

Get yourself a Neutral Density Graduated Filter. The top is dark, bottom is clear. Check out Cokin. They make a filter system. It attaches to the front of the lens and you slot in the filter you require.

Hope this help.

Dave OS

ro1798

thanks for help

think the pic had potential but it was a bad night last night with the wind spitting rain etc...

beans

It's possible to achieve photoshop results using adjustment layers and the gradient tool.

This is new territory for me, I'm slowly picking my way through photoshop, but it seems to work well. This isn't as extreme an example as the night-shots you took, but I used this technique to bring out the detail in the foreground while keeping the background exposed correctly.

ro1798

is this from the raw file you did the edits?

ro1798

duplicate

beans

is this from the raw file you did the edits?

Nay, from a 16bit .tiff - I convert from RAW to .tiff to do all my ps work

Edit - if those shots were taken on the Bull Wall, then mine was taken on the beach on the Howth side of it

PopeBuckfastXVI

First off... those are some incredible pictures... I really like them, over exposed or not.

Second you could bracket 3 shots and use HDR to balance them.

ro1798

ok HDR? will have to google that, thanks for the compliment, was a nightmare last night , the wind was a joke... but i like the foreground

PopeBuckfastXVI

I use this program (took me a while to find it because it's not the easiest name in the world to remember!)

http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/

and I produced these:

ro1798

really nice... will check it out.. think you would need to be thinking hdr when taking the photos....

will keep trying

PopeBuckfastXVI

Yeah you need to be, but it's not much hassle if you've got a tripod, just set up a +1ev to -1ev 3 shot bracket and you have the base images.

A caveat though, I've found excessive noise in the shadow regions after doing the HDR tone mapping, but it cleaned up pretty well using Noise Ninja in Bibble

Alun

If you haven't got a tripod with you, and usually I don't, then generally you're better off slightly underexposing (-0.5 to -1.0) to avoid any blown highlights in the skyline and then adjusting the foreground afterwards.

leinsterman

I'm a bit old fashioned when it comes to things like taking pictures ... so for tricky landscape exposure I use ND Grads to get the best I can ...

If I can, I prefer to get exposure right in camera ... not because I have anything against using photoshop ... quite the opposite ... it is more because I think you learn more by doing every step of the photographic process as well as your abilities will allow and continually trying to improve your results at each step ... So this means try to get exposure perfect in camera, do the best you can in photoshop is a better philosophy for me then firing off hundreds of shots in the hope of getting it right ... that said ... I do bracket my shots if I think the scene before me is worth it ...

I have a full set of Cokin P series Neutral Density and Grad filters ... I bought them after Rymus and I were out shooting one day in Valentia Kerry and he got a great sea shot ... mine was just about average, rymus on the other got an excellent shot ... they viewable in both of our flickrs ... I'll let Rymus post his or you can check out his flickr ... here is my average one -



...and here is Rymus taking his better version of the same shot -



The shots were taken with a stack of ND4 and ND4 Grad soft filters ... I think ... Rymus can comment, since I borrowed his ... I'd get the soft ones the graduation is better for landscapes ... though you'll need both versions ...

One other comment ... the Cokin P Series holders are great but there are better filters that will fit P series made by these guys -

hitech filters

Their neutral is more neutral than Cokin's in my opinion ... for only a little more money ...

ro1798

thanks for help guys... loads of reading and shots ahead

oshead

I've just taken delivery of the Cokin P system and some hitech filters. If you want to shoot wide angle it is better if you use the ND soft gradient. Two stops should be enough. For telephoto lens use the hard gradient. Also two stops.

isadub

What are you trying to achieve?

In the flickr photo you point to, the exif data says it was taken at 9.30pm, iso800, 20 sec, +0.3Ev. Changing any of these will help.

There's a lot of light pollution in Dublin as well so if you expose for, I dunno, more than 5 secs, the sky is going to get lighter.

Try messing with your settings before you think about buying filters.

This is one of yours with a 4sec exposure.