i'm so sick of white skies - Page 2

Skidz · 10-07-2005, 03:49 PM

Yeah that's an awesome feature. We use it in the studio at work. You can get perfect detail for both shadow and highlight.

fuzzybabybunny · 11-06-2005, 02:49 AM

The problem you're talking about is dynamic range, and the fact that your camera's photo sensor doesn't have much of it. Dynamic range is the ability of a camera's photo sensor to accurately record extreme differences in light and dark regions in the same scene, and is also defined as the actual difference between the extreme light and dark. If you focus on darker regions in the scene highlights like the sky will be blown out. If you focus on light areas of the scene the dark areas will be way too dark. This happens with all cameras unfortunately, and only by creative photoshopping or moving on to a DSLR can get you better dynamic range (but still not great).

If you have PS CS2 (must be CS2), first do at least 5 shots of the same scene on a tripod, with exposure compensation dialed at -2/3, -1/3, 0, +1/3, +2/3 for each of the five shots. Then merge the five pictures with CS2 using the Merge to HDR function. Your camera will have exposure compensation, and you can do exposure bracketing but that only does +/- 1/3 and 0, not enough to make a good enough HDR merge.[/i]

ilikemittens · 11-06-2005, 12:49 PM

hehe thank you fuzzy! i tried doing a couple shots of the same scene and then putting them into cs2, but i realized i don't know what to do after that. i figured a dslr would give me a LITTLE more control as far as this dynamic range thing goes because i've seen lots of pictures taken by 20d people who just take sort of snapshot pictures, but i noticed even without proper composition and settings their background skies are still blue or at least not white.

the thing that has been saving me from white skies recently is... say i have a pretty fall-coloured tree with a blue background. if i focus on the tree and have it framed how i want it, chances are the sky will be white, and if i focus on the sky, it's blue but the tree is really dark. so i just focus near the top of the tree, hold the button in halfway, and bring the camera down to take the pic. i don't know if that is the most professional thing to do but it has been workin for me!

thanks again

fuzzybabybunny · 11-06-2005, 01:40 PM

Yup, there's really nothing you can do to get it perfect other than use a circular polarizer or Merge to HDR.

I do what you do (focus near top of tree) when I don't have the time or inclination to post process that much. It's not perfect, but it's better than the other two alternatives.

To get to HDR in CS2 just go to File -> Automate -> Merge to HDR, and you select the files you want to merge. They must be shot on tripod though, or else the end result is really misaligned.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml