Photos from Milowka

switchback · Jun 16, 2008

Hi,

I am currently staying with my girlfriend, in Milowka, Poland, i took some photos yesterday, and the foreground is really dark, how could i correct this in the future??
I'm really new to photography, and I'm still learning how to use my camera ( Nikon D50, with 18-55 lens)
What do you think of the pics? i know they are not great, they all seem a little dark

Alex_B · Jun 16, 2008

I think you captured a beautiful sky here, and on the last one the foreground is dark, but not too dark IMHO.

Anyway, the general problem you are facing, is that today's sensors have only a limited latitude or dynamic range when it comes to caturing bright and dark parts in the image. Slide fuilm is still slightly better here and negative film much better. But let us assume you are stuck to digital. what can you do? several things:

- Expose for the sky / the highlights and brighten up the foreground in postprocessing (photoshop or other software). This will introduce noise into the dark parts and will not work on the blackest of shadows.

- use a gadient neutral density filter, which filters light in the upper part and lets all through in the lower part. this way the contrast between sky and foreground is reduced. This usually works nicely with rather flat horizons but can be problematic in other cases.

- you could increase the dynamic range by taking several images of different exposures (one for the foreground and one for the background at least) and combine them into one by the use of software. Google for DRI (dynamic range increase, not to be mixed up with HDR shich is related but not the same) and you should find some useful hints. The disadvantage of this method is that you will need a sturdy tripod, and it does not work well with moving objects, since you combine two or more shots.

switchback · Jun 16, 2008

Yeah, i really like the sky, i did try to increase the blue in PS but i could only seem to increase the blue of the whole image, not just the sky

*Edit, ah, i just found out how to, i used the quick selection tool, then layer via cut! Now i have two seperate layers and can change the sky. But i will do that later!

I have taken so many pics recently, what i have been doing is taking multiple shots of the same scene, but with different settings, that is helping me understand how eash setting effects the image. I think i understand the theory but i find it harder to put into practice.