What should I have done?

[TexKen]

OK not sure if this is the right place for this, but here goes...

I took this picture at the Frisco Roughriders game last week. I was trying to get the sky, the lights and the game all in the same capture - mainly cause it looked great with the sun having set just before so there was a nice blue/orange light in the sky. Needless to say that three drastically different metering situations. So, I metered for the sky and not surprisingly got almost complete darkness on the field. The first pic below is straight out of the camera and the second is from just RAW edits - mainly pulling the Fill Light slider all the way up and playing with contrast. I think for the original I was set to average metering mode.

So my question is - should I have done something different with my initial metering strategy? of what could I have done better in post? Thanks.

[ngoduyviet]

Bracket it, and can you crank up your exposure in post instead of Fill light? Fill pulls a lot of dark pixels out and that creates undesired artifacts, exposure & overall brightness helps a bit more I think.

[Patti Edens]

I think that is a cool shot. I like the idea of getting the sky and the field and I've tried it at football games where my dh shoots. I always end up doing a lot of work in post.

I'm not sure what you could have done initially and would be curious to hear the solutions that others have used. I guess it depends on what you were most interested in having come out correctly - the sky or the field. I don't think any DSLR has the dynamic range to get both. I agree that as already mentioned, exposure bracketing could work. You could do that on a tripod. Blending the different exposures would have been a little difficult because of the activity on the field, but you could selectively just use the exposure for the field and then blend in a sky exposure. You just couldn't use an automatic program as easily since the ones I've used don't handle it very well when things move.

In post with just one photo adjusted for the highlights and shadows, you can use the Tone Mapping feature in Photomatix (or your HDR program of choice.) I took your original, darkened it in Photoshop (PS) Levels for the sky, saved that, lightened it in PS Levels for the field, saved that. Then I dumped all three into Photomatix. I didn't do much tweaking, but the defaults were fairly decent. If this was my shot, I would have done some tweaking in Photomatix and then pulled that output into PS and done a little bit more tweaking.

If you don't like this and would like for me to remove it, just let me know. I'll get it gone asap.

[TexKen]

Originally Posted by ngoduyviet

Bracket it, and can you crank up your exposure in post instead of Fill light? Fill pulls a lot of dark pixels out and that creates undesired artifacts, exposure & overall brightness helps a bit more I think.

Thanks. I suppose I could just use overall brightness, but I'm thinking that would effect the sky too much. Admittedly, I pretty uneducated when it comes to bracketing. I understand (I think) that it involves taking a series of photos at different exposures in an attempt to capture all possibilities, but does it also involve combining them in some way?

[TexKen]

Originally Posted by Patti Edens

I agree that as already mentioned, exposure bracketing could work. You could do that on a tripod. Blending the different exposures would have been a little difficult because of the activity on the field, but you could selectively just use the exposure for the field and then blend in a sky exposure. You just couldn't use an automatic program as easily since the ones I've used don't handle it very well when things move.

Thanks Patty - Yeah I need to educate myself on bracketing a little better.

Originally Posted by Patti Edens

In post with just one photo adjusted for the highlights and shadows, you can use the Tone Mapping feature in Photomatix (or your HDR program of choice.) I took your original, darkened it in Photoshop (PS) Levels for the sky, saved that, lightened it in PS Levels for the field, saved that. Then I dumped all three into Photomatix. I didn't do much tweaking, but the defaults were fairly decent. If this was my shot, I would have done some tweaking in Photomatix and then pulled that output into PS and done a little bit more tweaking.

If you don't like this and would like for me to remove it, just let me know. I'll get it gone asap.

And if I thought I knew nothing about bracketing, I REALLY know nothing about tone mapping. I like the sky in your version. Something funny about the field though - too saturated maybe. I'm not sure. No need to take it down. That's how we all learn!

[toverman]

This may not have worked in this case or solved the problem, but some landscape photographers use gradient filters ... darker on one part of the filter and lighter for the other ... mainly to get a proper exposure on the ground and still render the sky well (or vice versa, depending on which way the filter is mounted).

As for metering, I'd be more inclined to go for the field, where the detail is, and then try to adjust the sky later.

[canoflan]

With this shot, exposure for the park, then for the sky, could have been well blended in PS for a very natural looking shot vs trying to crankup the underexposed park. I admit, you really don't want all that sky to show up unless it is very pretty, however, I think compositionally, you get into a situation where you need to decide on what the subject is and perhaps live with less sky and more of the foreground (i.e. ball park activities). Photography in many many ways is a compromise to better emphasize your subject over other things that really should be secondary.

On blending in photoshop, since the sky isn't moving, you can take the shot of the park sky you like (you exposed well for it in the first photo above), then you can take the shot of the ball park from the same angle, same settings, but expose for the ball park and this would work well.

Just some thoughts to throw in,
Pat

[barP]

i think flan has the best thought. assuming you have the ability to work in layers, this is an easy shot to separate sky from foreground. since you didn't bracket (shooting one or two stops over and under), create two copies of the image, drop one on top of the the other, then adjust the brightness of the field. you can skin that cat several ways....exposure, curves, camera raw. then, just mask out the sky to pick up the layer underneath.

the other suggestion that was good is to use a grad nd (graduated neutral density) filter. there are various types, but all are basically dark one side and light on the other. cokin makes a great system - the adapter is screwed into the end of your lens, and you simply slide the filter plate up or down until you have the split you need. that allows you to expose for the foreground but still get good sky. you may still need to tweak a bit, but this will get you much closer.

wp.