Happy medium. How to??

Themadwelshman · Sep 5, 2013

As you can see from the two photos attached I manged to get a picture of the sky on its own and the ground underneath on its own. But for the life of I couldn't get a picture showing both the same time. The ground always turned out black.

What am I doing wrong??

I'm a newbie so be gentle. Haha

Tony

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SCraig · Sep 5, 2013

It's called "Dynamic Range" or the difference between the darkest value in a scene and the lightest. In this case the dynamic range of the scene exceeded the capabilities of the camera. Your best bet in situations like that are to shoot multiple shots at different exposures and combine them using HDR (high dynamic range) software.

Themadwelshman · Sep 5, 2013

Thanks for that scraig.

Forgot to say I was using a nikon d3100 with 18-55 lens. So are there no settings I could adjust to get it right straight from the camera???

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SCraig · Sep 5, 2013

Themadwelshman said:
Thanks for that scraig.

Forgot to say I was using a nikon d3100 with 18-55 lens. So are there no settings I could adjust to get it right straight from the camera???

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Not something with that much dynamic range, no way. You can get the sky OR the foreground in one exposure, but not both.

Braineack · Sep 5, 2013

If you used a GD filter or even a flash on the foreground possibly.

but you're either exposing for the sky or the foreground; but this is what photoshop is for. I will quite often take two of the same shot, exposing one for the sky and one for the subject and replacing the washed out sky for the properly exposed one.

I have a similar example, just been too lazy to actually do it.

I have shots of this that look exactly like your two images, and I'll combine them one of these days. The above was heavily processed to bring out both the sky and the barn with a "in-the-middle" exposure.

Themadwelshman · Sep 5, 2013

Thanks again scraig. And Braineack I never bloody though about the filters. I had all mine with me. What a dck !!
I'll try again next sunny day. Thanks for everything.

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Designer · Sep 5, 2013

Your camera will do "active D-lighting" see page 85 in your user's manual.

The camera will perform a bracketed image containing both areas of the composition. Probably not as high-tech as using HDR software and 9 exposures, but it should be worth a try.