How can I expose blue skies and white clouds without blowing out the highlights?
Asked 8/26/2011
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When I photograph landscapes with a blue sky and white clouds, the clouds often come out overexposed. I’ve tried different settings but still struggle to get a correct exposure. What camera settings or techniques should I use to keep detail in the clouds, especially when the foreground is darker than the sky?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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If you are just pointing your camera at the sky and getting just sky and clouds in which are overexposed, you can increase your shutter speed to decrease the exposure, lower your fstop (make the aperture number bigger) or decrease your iso if it is too high to fix these problems. You will need to be in manual mode to control that properly.
If you are having problems where the sky is overexposed in relation to something in the foreground, the classic being a landscape photo. You have a couple of options:
- Graduated Neutral Density Filters: these have a dark section sort of like sunglasses that will allow you to balance the difference between the brightness in the sky to the land. http://www.flickr.com/photos/awfulsara/51300446/
- HDR - High Dynamic Range images when done properly allow you to get past the short comings of digital sensors and capture the whole range of bright and dark areas (dynamic range) of the image across multiple exposures. http://www.flickr.com/photos/farbspiel/4760195930/
- Don't expose for the foreground which will give you a dark foreground but will keep your clouds in check. http://www.flickr.com/photos/paslematin/3971343610/
- Watch the time of day you are shooting: A lot of landscape people talk about the "magic hour" which is the hour before and after sunset or sunrise which is when the sun being low to the horizon reduces its intensity, allowing more dynamic colours to show and removing the harsh sunlight from the sky. This still makes it very hard to evenly expose for the ground and the sky but is when it is easier to get a more pleasing photo. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thereal7/3498060183/
Originally by user6051. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user6051
15y ago
0
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To keep detail in white clouds, reduce exposure so the highlights aren’t blown out: use a faster shutter speed, a smaller aperture (higher f-number), and/or a lower ISO. Manual mode gives you full control.
If the problem is a bright sky and a darker foreground, the scene may exceed your camera’s dynamic range. Common solutions are:
- use a graduated neutral density (GND) filter to darken only the sky
- shoot RAW and recover highlights later if they aren’t fully clipped
- apply a digital graduated filter in editing software
- use HDR/tone-mapping from multiple exposures when the brightness difference is too large
In short: expose for the clouds/highlights first, then use a GND filter, RAW editing, or HDR if the foreground becomes too dark.
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