Question about skies

[PhotoDonkey]

This picture was taken close to sunset with a point-and-shoot.

That's generally the bluest sky I get unless I do some post-processing.

But I see these photos with bluer skies than I see when I look up at the sky on a given day.

I'm just wondering if the skies are actually bluer in different locations (due to elevation, etc.) or if there is something I should be doing with color balance to bring out the bluer sky.


I use a circular polarizer but my skies still look blown out compared to the next guy's. I have tried the 90 degrees to the sun at close to sunset, but I'm just wondering if my location is playing into it (as you can probably guess from the above shot, I live in South Dakota).

 

[Coldow91]

I would think that a polarizer should help but I would also make sure that your WB is correct and you can do some PP to get it how it looked when you shot. I really dislike shots where the sky is extremely blue, like there is no way the sky would ever be that blue. This may just be me but I find that skies get bluer the further north I go.

 

[Ben-71]

Please don't get insulted, I ask this because the sky
should be bluer:
Do you rotate the polarizer to its maximum effet?
Otherwise, it doesn't do much.

 

[PhotoDonkey]

Please don't get insulted, I ask this because the sky
should be bluer:
Do you rotate the polarizer to its maximum effet?
Otherwise, it doesn't do much.

I do rotate it (something I figured out not too long ago). Under the right circumstances I can tell when the polarizer is at it's maximum effect.

And, don't worry, I don't find that comment insulting at all. Hell, if you asked if I bothered to take the lens cap off I wouldn't find it insulting. I know you're just trying to help, and I really appreciate it.

Should I try playing with the white balance more?

 

[Joves]

I would think that a polarizer should help but I would also make sure that your WB is correct and you can do some PP to get it how it looked when you shot. I really dislike shots where the sky is extremely blue, like there is no way the sky would ever be that blue. This may just be me but I find that skies get bluer the further north I go.

Actually in the winter here and, when a cool front moves through, our skies here get very blue. Being in the mountains may make a diffrence.

 

[LateModelSedan]

what are you shooting with? try adjusting your settings.

 

[PhotoDonkey]

I've been using auto color balancing. Should I be trying other types of color balancing, or is it a function of being over-exposed?

 

[STICKMAN]

Rotating the cir. pol. filter to its max effect??? Can you explain furthur I have a D-40 which i use a cir. pol filter on. No one ever explained it to me I just threaded it and started shooting. I prob just made a a_ _ of my self but hay thats how we learn sometimes. So please feel free to spell it out for me. Like stated above nothing insults me at all I need to learn and no better place to here.........

 

[manaheim]

oooo... welcome to my personal obsession.

You can certainly do stuff post-shoot to help your skies, up to and including doing nasty tricks with overlaying your shot on an underexposed copy, but all of this is cheating.

The real trick is this:

- Underexpose blues!

Up to a certain point, the less you expose a blue sky the bluer it will be. This of course can be kind of complicated since, in reality, you're really focusing on your subject and the exposure of the sky is more of a background thing... so then you ask yourself... "well, how do I get my subject exposed right and underexpose the sky at the same time?"

There is really only one sure-fire way to do this, and that is to make sure the sun is on your subject (and generally this means the sun will be more or less at your back)

This end result of a bright subject is often an underexposed sky, or at the very least a properly exposed one. (which will give you the blues, just not the deep dark ones you sometimes see)

One of my favorite examples of this is a shot I did of a local hotel for one of my customers...

I've had a couple people accuse me of photoshopping this sky in, but it's real. You can see the sun is right on the subject building itself. and in fact the sun was so bright I had no choice but to underexpose the sky... poof. Deep blue.

In your particular pic, the sun appears to be off to the right there, so you got the "not too bad" light blue sky. Were the sun right on the flag and at your back? Deep blue.

Notice that LateModelSedans pics all have the sun right on them, and his skies are quite blue... though it also looks like he has the saturation tweaked a bit on at least one. (cheating!)

 

[PhotoDonkey]

oooo... welcome to my personal obsession.

You can certainly do stuff post-shoot to help your skies, up to and including doing nasty tricks with overlaying your shot on an underexposed copy, but all of this is cheating.

The real trick is this:

- Underexpose blues!

Up to a certain point, the less you expose a blue sky the bluer it will be. This of course can be kind of complicated since, in reality, you're really focusing on your subject and the exposure of the sky is more of a background thing... so then you ask yourself... "well, how do I get my subject exposed right and underexpose the sky at the same time?"

There is really only one sure-fire way to do this, and that is to make sure the sun is on your subject (and generally this means the sun will be more or less at your back)

This end result of a bright subject is often an underexposed sky, or at the very least a properly exposed one. (which will give you the blues, just not the deep dark ones you sometimes see)

One of my favorite examples of this is a shot I did of a local hotel for one of my customers...

I've had a couple people accuse me of photoshopping this sky in, but it's real. You can see the sun is right on the subject building itself. and in fact the sun was so bright I had no choice but to underexpose the sky... poof. Deep blue.

In your particular pic, the sun appears to be off to the right there, so you got the "not too bad" light blue sky. Were the sun right on the flag and at your back? Deep blue.

Notice that LateModelSedans pics all have the sun right on them, and his skies are quite blue... though it also looks like he has the saturation tweaked a bit on at least one. (cheating!)

If I could get a nice blue saturation in the sky like that, I'd be thrilled. I'll give that a try.

 

[jg123]

I had a similar shot as yours today and my sky looks even less blue.

But the truth is that this is how it looked to my eyes.....I think too much PP on the sky makes it look fake.

 

[PhotoDonkey]

That's essentially what I'm seeing. The sky I capture looks like the sky I see, but I know film (and digital sensors) "see" light differently than our eyes do.

 

[tirediron]

To get the maximum effect out of a CPOL, you need to have the optimum conditions. The sun should be at 90 deg to the axis of your lens (on one of your shoulders) and the lowewr in the sky, the better. Once you're set up, rotate the front element of the filter until you see the strength of the effect you want.

This

is an image with just about the maximum effect you will get with a CPOL; that's all filter, NO PP!).
The further you 'stray' from those conditions, the less effect your CPOL will have on skies. It will still be good for reducing reflection and glare (until you're almost pointing at the sun).
Graduated neutral density filters (Grad ND) are also very useful for clearing up those grey sky blues.

 

[Ben-71]

Rotating the cir. pol. filter to its max effect??? Can you explain
furthur I have a D-40 which i use a cir. pol filter on.
No one ever explained it to me I just threaded it and started
shooting. I prob just made a a_ _ of my self but hay thats how we learn sometimes. So please feel free to spell it out for me.
........

A circular glass polarizing filter is made of 2 ringed glasses.
The first ring screws to the lens, the front one is free to rotate.
Each of the two has a uni-directional filter grid.

Explaining it 'simplistically' -- When the 2 grids are parallel to each
other, polarized light is not blocked. When rotated, less and less
polarized light goes through, until the 2 grids are 90 degrees to each
other, and no polarized light can go through.
If roatted furher, the effect starts to be reduced again.

You can't always clearly see the change of sky color, but you see
at which tuning the sky is the darkest.

When a polarizing filter is used for eliminating reflections, it is rotated
until the reflection is at its minimum.
To eliminate reflections, the lens should point to the object at a much
smaller angle than 90 deg'.

Ther's more to it, and there's plenty of material on the Internet.

 

[Alfred D.]

To get the maximum effect out of a CPOL, you need to have the optimum conditions. The sun should be at 90 deg to the axis of your lens (on one of your shoulders) and the lowewr in the sky, the better. Once you're set up, rotate the front element of the filter until you see the strength of the effect you want.

This http://www.rthtg.net/john/crete/Buildings2_5x7%20(Large).jpg is an image with just about the maximum effect you will get with a CPOL; that's all filter, NO PP!).
The further you 'stray' from those conditions, the less effect your CPOL will have on skies. It will still be good for reducing reflection and glare (until you're almost pointing at the sun).
Graduated neutral density filters (Grad ND) are also very useful for clearing up those grey sky blues.

"The further you 'stray' from those conditions, the less effect": those conditions include atmospheric conditions. If there's a lot of dust or moisture/humidity in the air – minuscule floating particles – the sun's originally uni-directional light gets bounced around by a gazillion tiny little mirrors and lenses and so scattered in just as many directions. Ergo: nothing to polarize.
This is why polarizing often works so well at the beach/seaside, and at sea: it's always very windy there and that cleans the air of dust. So no tiny little mirrors floating in the air, to scatter the sunlight. It stays unidirectional until it hits your lens.

What about South Dakota, PD? Is there a lot of dust in the air there maybe?

And the ISO 320 setting on tirediron's photo amazes me, its excellence as a demonstration of polarisation notwithstanding (Yay! I've always wanted to use that word!). Even if handheld surely you could have gone down to a safe shutter speed of, say, 1/125th of a second with a 50mm focal length? Meaning you could have used ISO 100, and enjoyed its image quality. The weather was gorgeous, after all.