Blown skies and silhouettes?

[TiCoyote]

How do I avoid blown skies and silhouettes?

#1

1/200
f/2.8
ISO 400
50mm
EOS 300D
It was a beautiful blue sky. Why is it blown?

#2

1/200
f/13
ISO 100
50mm
I could see the bridge and the buildings clear as a bell. Why can't the camera?

Do I need a lens hood? A filter? A different angle? Do I need to adjust the meter? All help is appreciated!

 

[Big]

HDR (multiple exposures) might have worked in the first shot and then merged them together.
A Grad ND filter might have helped in the second or you could have metered the closer foreground, exposure lock and recompose the shot.

 

[KmH]

The camera doesn't work like your eye does, not even close, and you, through lack of experience and knowledge, don't yet understand how your camera actually works.

The difference is the "dynamic range" (google it) your eye's can perceive and dynamic range the camera can perceive.

You could have used flash in the first image so you could balance against the bright sky. Looks like all of your subject is shaded. you can control 2 different exposures at the same time, in the same image.

With flash, shutter speed controls the exposure of the background and aperture controls the exposure of the foreground/subject.

Since most DSLR's have a shutter flash sync speed of 1/200 second or so, there is a shutter speed limit using the normal flash mode. But on a scene like this you don't need a lot of flash power to illuminate the subject here but you do need a faster shutter speed to tone down that bright sky.

Many camera have what is known as FP flash sync. FP sync fires the flash many times during a single exposure and can't take the time to fully discharge and re-charge the flashes capacitor. But, it allows shutter speeds faster than the normal flash sync speed.

For a shot like you had FP sync is perfect. We don't want full power anyway, but we want a fast shutter speed to limit the amount of ambient light (the bright background) reaching the sensor.

In the second Big hit it right on the head that a GND filter (or 2) would have helped by darkening the sky so you could expose for detail in the foreground.

 

[inTempus]

With the first pic, you can get away with using a flash to brighten the subject after you've set your exposure for the sky. Something like this:

On the last shot, as others have suggested, a ND filter would help you expose both the sky and the foreground properly.

 

[Big]

Intempus: I hate you...
Just kiddin, I love your shots!

 

[TiCoyote]

Okay, thanks for the info. I'll try that with the flash and start looking for filters.

 

[inTempus]

Intempus: I hate you...
Just kiddin, I love your shots!

Hehe, thanks man.

 

[fiveoboy01]

You could have also bracketed the second shot and merged the images.

 

[NateS]

I'm not sure what your intended subject is on the first one, but one way around the issue on it would be to expose for the background and then use an off camera flash to light the tree/leaves.