Blown out skies

[somar]

I'm the newbie, so forgive me if this is beating a dead horse. I try and shoot during the early morning or early evenings, but regardless of the light, I always blow out the sky. I was shooting in Krause Springs this past weekend and it was a beautiful bluebird sky, but in all of my shots the sky was blown out. Even in full auto. I know that I need a circular polarizer filter, but what else should I be doing to avoid this?

Danny

[evil4blue]

Originally Posted by somar

I'm the newbie, so forgive me if this is beating a dead horse. I try and shoot during the early morning or early evenings, but regardless of the light, I always blow out the sky. I was shooting in Krause Springs this past weekend and it was a beautiful bluebird sky, but in all of my shots the sky was blown out. Even in full auto. I know that I need a circular polarizer filter, but what else should I be doing to avoid this?

Danny

There are a few things you can try. First a CP or and graduated ND filter can help a lot in evening your exposure. A cp will darken everyting, but the Graduated ND will only reduce the light coming from the sky. Secondly, you can meter the sky and meter the land, then split the difference in manual mode. This isn't normally a good option unless you are willing to "fix" your exposure in post processing. Lastly, if you're okay with post processing, just bracket your shots and combine them to create a high dynamic range photo.

[Holly]

Or if shooting portraits, meter for the sky and have your flash expose the subject properly.

[engstrom]

somar, perhaps you can post a few examples so we can determine what is happening. Typically you shoot a subject in the foreground that is much darker than the sky and the camera exposes for the subject therefore the sky gets blown out. In that case you can either try a graduated ND filter like evil4blue suggests or expose for the sky and use a fill flash for the subject like Holly suggests. If the subject is too far away or too reflective a fill flash won't work - that's why it'd be nice to see the pictures.

[Scott-Tx]

what type of film were you shooting?

slide film has much less latitude than print film. i would say start with a nice negative film and a graduated nuetral density filter.

failing that, meter for the sky, open up two stops, and let everything else fall where they might.