Overexposed sky; portrait shot; would ND filter fix this image?

[greybeard]

Hi,

I'm using a Canon 5D w/ 16-35mm f/2.8 II I'm trying to take some portrait photos of my dog that also capture the landscape background but the sky is always blown out. I'm taking the photos about 6:30am before she is in direct sunlight.

My goal is to capture this type of photo but have the sky also properly exposed. I generally need a pretty fast shutter speed (min of 500 second) in order to capture a sharp photo as my dog doesn't sit perfectly still.

I have never used a filter. From my research it sounds like a graduated neutral density filter might be what I need. Seems like there are so many different filter configurations; how can I figure out which filter would be ideal for this type of composition where the subject is close to the camera and the sky is much brighter?

Thanks!

I attached an example photo; it was shot with:
Shutter speed: 750
F/2.8
ISO 640

Lightroom has a descent graduated filter that works pretty well on this type of problem. Here is a quick and dirty fix. The banding you see is just a jpg compression artifact.

Rainy day along the creek by TOM STRAIGHT, on Flickr

 

[Braineack]

honest question: how did that help?

the sky is blown out, who cares? it was probably close to what it looked like in real life.

 

[D7K]

Expose for light...... lift the shadows..

 

[bribrius]

 

[bribrius]

This all went so far technically over my head i just asked the doggy to help me crayola the sky

 

[Strodav]

Actually, I think it's a pretty nice shot after just a bit of a crop.

Seriously, since its a picture of your fur baby, a tighter crop would better highlight your subject. It is a stop or two over exposed and like you said, the sky is blown out. Letting in less light will bring more color and texture out of the fur as well bringing the sky in. Since there aren't any real shadows in the picture, you have room to reduce exposure. How do you have your metering set? If your metering was set for full frame then the sky should have told the camera to let in less light avoiding the over exposure. Don't confuse metering with AF, which should have been set to a single point focusing on an eye. Something else I find very useful is to look at the histogram on the camera. This one would have been very right biased.

Oh, I almost forget, on bright days around water a circular polarizer is a good filter to have in your camera bag.

 

[Braineack]

Ew. What are you doing?!

That looks awful.

Tight crops aren't always the way to go, you lose all information about the setting.

Expose for the subject. If the sky blows out oh well. I'd rather have a well exposed subject than a blue sky. Skies are not always that blue to begin with.

 

[RonAlv]

Used the Healing Brush in Light Room CC to get a bluer sky.

 

[bribrius]

Used the Healing Brush in Light Room CC to get a bluer sky.

Nice. Maybe just a little more blue..

 

[Ysarex]

Used the Healing Brush in Light Room CC to get a bluer sky.

Nice. Maybe just a little more blue..

....and more blown highlights in the clouds!

Joe

 

[Braineack]

Used the Healing Brush in Light Room CC to get a bluer sky.

Skies don't look like this.

You took an image that looked accurate and well exposed, and completely underexposed just in order to make the sky look an unnatural blue.

WHY?

what's with everyone's obsession with fake-blue skies? it's like you have body dismorphia, but for our atmosphere.

I equate editing photos to give them fake-blue skies like this to a magazine reshaping the body of a model and retouching the skin so poorly it looks like a plastic sex-doll on the cover and telling us this is what sexy looks like.

 

[greybeard]

Used the Healing Brush in Light Room CC to get a bluer sky.

Skies don't look like this.

You took an image that looked accurate and well exposed, and completely underexposed just in order to make the sky look an unnatural blue.

WHY?

what's with everyone's obsession with fake-blue skies? it's like you have body dismorphia, but for our atmosphere.

I equate editing photos to give them fake-blue skies like this to a magazine reshaping the body of a model and retouching the skin so poorly it looks like a plastic sex-doll on the cover and telling us this is what sexy looks like.

Because RonAlv likes the darkened sky. I personally like the darkened sky as well. RonAlv is using his camera as a tool for artistic expression and not as a copying machine. The OP expressed an interest in finding a way to darken the sky in his/her picture of the dog and I think some of us put forth some valid ideas. I don't see what your point is in scolding people for giving answers to the OP's questing and for taking an artistic approach to their photography.

 

[RonAlv]

Used the Healing Brush in Light Room CC to get a bluer sky.

Skies don't look like this.

You took an image that looked accurate and well exposed, and completely underexposed just in order to make the sky look an unnatural blue.

WHY?

what's with everyone's obsession with fake-blue skies? it's like you have body dismorphia, but for our atmosphere.

I equate editing photos to give them fake-blue skies like this to a magazine reshaping the body of a model and retouching the skin so poorly it looks like a plastic sex-doll on the cover and telling us this is what sexy looks like.

Because RonAlv likes the darkened sky. I personally like the darkened sky as well. RonAlv is using his camera as a tool for artistic expression and not as a copying machine. The OP expressed an interest in finding a way to darken the sky in his/her picture of the dog and I think some of us put forth some valid ideas. I don't see what your point is in scolding people for giving answers to the OP's questing and for taking an artistic approach to their photography.

Greybeard,
Thanks... I see it this way, "Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder". As you said, I was just pointing out another way to correct the OP's question. Some people just don't get it.

 

[bribrius]

Used the Healing Brush in Light Room CC to get a bluer sky.

Skies don't look like this.

You took an image that looked accurate and well exposed, and completely underexposed just in order to make the sky look an unnatural blue.

WHY?

what's with everyone's obsession with fake-blue skies? it's like you have body dismorphia, but for our atmosphere.

I equate editing photos to give them fake-blue skies like this to a magazine reshaping the body of a model and retouching the skin so poorly it looks like a plastic sex-doll on the cover and telling us this is what sexy looks like.

What do you have against plastic sex dolls? And the smurfs are blue. How do you feel about smurfs?

 

[Braineack]

OP expressed interest in being able to exposure for the sky as well as the subject, this suggests, to me, OP wants to capture a realistic looking scene.

Nothing wrong with trying to recover missing information up in post, but there's really no post-processing cure for zero information besides swapping in a new sky or paint-by-numbers.

It has nothing to do with not "getting" art. It has everything to do with looking at a photograph and wondering why it looks completely unrealistic and inaccurate while not any adding net positives to the image. The above aircraft image: we've darkened the B-25 to the point where it's no longer the subject of the image; the eye is drawn to the overtly assertive sky with biblically-insane cloud formations. What's to get?

Look outside right now. At this time of year you're probably seeing a very pale-blue sky that's almost white at the horizon line with clouds that blend right in -- especially the closer towards the sun you look.

There's only so much DR a camera's sensor can capture, and often exposing for the subject means you lose out on sky information. Turning the sky/clouds BLACK in post doesn't add redeeming value to the image.

The best approach for this situation is exposing for the sky [even underexposing the sky] and lighting the subject to match the exposure -- be it a pop-up flash or off-camera flash. Or just deal with a blown-out sky. Unless we are missing-out on an incredible sunset I just don't see where the problem is.

Too many people have been taught that blown-out skies are inherently wrong/bad to the point where we've accepted insanely unrealistic skies as the alternative. Hell, we've been told the pop-up flash is inherent bad too and so far from the truth -- It's a useful tool that can really help here.





quasi-related by an important non-sequitur: grass is not neon green.
related: I like colorful language.