I am a beginning amateur, absolutely no knowledge about photography but i know when to appreciate good pictures. i made a convinving reason to buy an slr over a P&S camera to my wife when we bought our first camera. BTW, this site makes me choose to buy an slr because of the opinions i learned from most of the posted answers. There was a promo then with the EOS 30e at discounted price and it comes with a free EF 28-105mm lens. I love the equipment but my photographic style really stinks, because whenever i shoot a scene that includes the sky i always get an almost washed-out sky, though the skies were perfectly blue i took the shot.

I set to AV priority at f/11 to f/22 to get a longer depth of field, correct me if iam wrong. set my metering to partial, don't use eye control. no hood or filter used. most shoots are taken around 5 in the afternoon.

there must be something wrong with the metering i guest. any suggestions would be highly regarded and thank you for any answers. sorry for the somewhat long and amateurist post here.

-- ferdi (ferdi_rd@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002

Answers

Washed out skies are usually the result of over-exposure--but your camera has told you the exposure was correct. You need to intentionally underexpose by a stop or two, by setting the aperture or shutter speed differently.

The long depth of field won't affect the sky--DOF determines which details of the picture will be in focus, which doesn't really apply to the sky. Sky is generally at infinity, anyway.

If you want blue skies, use a polarizing filter, which cuts down on glare, saturates colors, and darkens the image somewhat. Set up your shot, then turn the wheel on the polarizer and you will see the sky turn bluer.

There are other colored filters that will help, but I think the polarizer will give you the natural blue you are looking for.

Also, if you have an enlargement or additional print made of the washed-out sky scene, tell the lab you want the skies to be blue-- even if the forground and other details will be underexposed. You'll begin to see how the camera makes its metering decisions and how you can compensate for the effects you want.

-- Preston Merchant (merchant@speakeasy.org), March 04, 2002.

washed out skies usually result from the sky being much brighter than the ground. when the sky is much brighter, an exposure that properly exposes the ground will render the sky white, even if it looked blue to you. to even out the exposure difference between the sky and ground, some people use graduated neutral density filters. before resorting to filters, you might just experiment with different exposures (e.g., shooting photos after exposing for the ground, then shooting some while exposing for the sky, and then maybe trying to shoot some intermediate exposures) for a scene and check your results. experience is a great teacher, and you should treat each bad shot as learning opportunity. however, washed out skies can also be caused by your local lab if you are using print film and they don't know what they're doing. you could ask them to reprint some of your shots to darken the sky to see if that helps.

-- AC Gordon (cgordon@stx.rr.com), March 04, 2002.

You didn't say what type of film you were using, but I'll assume it's print film.

Try using slide film first to see if there's really a problem. With print film, the quality of your images is down to the person printing them. With slide film there's no chance of that happening - what you see is what you get.

For starters, just use something like Fuji Sensia II and see how your pictures come out. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised! Also, the filter suggestions from other posters are worth noting as well. I use a polariser extensively as I love the deep blue skies we get here in Australia this time of year, or should I say did - summer's over here :-(

Nik

-- NikB (ndb_letters@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002.

A graduated neutral density filter will help with the sky by holding back exposure in that area. These filters are very expensive, however. The best ones I have found are optical plastic by Singh-Ray and cost $99 each. Tiffen also makes some in glass which are a little cheaper. Both styles fit the Cokin "P" filter holder. Don't substitute the cheap Cokin graduated grey filters which are of poor optical quality and not truly neutral.

A polarizer can help, too, but it depends on the angle of the sun. A good polarizer is less expensive than a graduated neutral density filter (depending on the size) so try it first.

Another point to look into is to shoot photos without including the sky. My favorite lighting is under a totally white overcast sky. Colors are more saturated, contrast is lower and exposure is consistent. On these types of days, you don't ever want to include the sky.

-- Lee (Leemarthakiri@sport.rr.com), March 04, 2002.

Glad to hear that u buy slr instead of p-s CP-L filter works the best when the camera is perpendicular to the direction of sunlight.But u will 1.5-2 stops of light.CP-L darkens the sky and makes the shape of cloud more clear. Or try to use a blue-graduating filter.That gives u true blue sky.

-- legnum (legnum212@email.com), March 04, 2002.

Hi, the given advices are ale usefull but i'ld rank them as follows : -1st: consider to keep the sky out - most time it's not interesting enough and you avoid the problems caused by high contrast. ('Colors are more saturated, contrast is lower and exposure is consistent') -2nd: Try slide film - what you see is what you get - and it's cheaper to test the bracketing function to find out the right exposure -3rd: Use a Pol.filter (must be a circular)when oyu're abele to meet the right angle to the sun. It can deliver a wonderful blue sky (more than it really was in some circumstances -Don't Use the full range.) Also the Colors are more saturated. (The best ones are from B&W and Heliopan (Europe)- prefere multicoated ones) -4th: If the contrast is to high, between sky and landscape, use a gradiated grey filte(chromatek,cockin).But not the round one - must be relocatable to meet the horizont line there you want it to have. Apologize my english - regards and good luck, Thomas

I

-- Thomas (th.wagenbreth@gmx.de), March 05, 2002.