Strange sunset results

[takoateli]

I hope this is not the wrong place for this post. Yesterday we had a unique condition. Local fires had made the air very smokey and an already yellow setting sun appeared even darker and more reddish. It seemed like an interesting shot as the sun was starting to go behind some trees and a hill. Using a D70 with a Nikon 18mm-200mm VR lens on a tripod I took a number of shots in the program mode, basically auto but without the risk of the flash activating. What surprised me is upon viewing the photos on my computer the picture was almost without color. I first thought I had mistakenly shot in b&w. The sun is a very light yellow though where it's partially blocked by trees it's much redder which I can see if I zoom way in. I've taken around 45000 shots with my D70 and a number of sunsets and I usually find that what I get is pretty close to what I see. Though this was my first sunset with the 18mm-200mm VR lens. In the past I shot the 18-70mm or the 28mm f2.8.

Does anyone have an explanation why this happened, or any tips to get better shots in the these conditions. Would this have been a good time to use a neutral filter or should I have taken manual control and underexposed the shot a bit?

Thanks!
Greg

[Nicole]

What metering mode was your camera set on at the time?

One thing I can think of would be that the fact that you were shooting at the sun might have confused your camera's light meter. So, while the sun was properly exposed, the rest of the shot was very underexposed. Might be a good situation to use manual metering. Just a thought.

[takoateli]

Nicole,

Thanks for the reply. The camera was on the standard multi point metering. So you would recommend controlling where in the composition the metering takes place (and I'm assuming meter the background in a spot other than where the sun is) or just manually control the exposure?

Is there anyway to capture the appearance of the sun without underexposing the background?

I still don't understand why the exposure of that shot is so strange. I've shot other sunsets on clear days where the sun wasn't filtering through smoke so it was even more intense yet the exposure of the sun and scenery were fine. I'm wondering if the smoke does something to the light (polarization?) that throws the camera's sensors off.

One other point possibly worth noteing is I always have a UV filter on to protect the lens. I don't know if that has any effect here.

Thanks!

Greg

[Nicole]

I agree that the exposure does seem strange. I've never had that happen to me before and I often use matrix metering... but then again, I've never had the sun directly in the shot the way you do. Again, that's why I'm thinking the camera basically decided "There's a really bright spot there, if this isn't going to overexpose, it needs a fast shutter speed, etc" and magically, the image was exposed to make the sun properly exposed, sacrificing everything else. Though it's also *very* possible that the smoke played a part in how the light was being diffused.

If you have the time (which I know isn't always possible in sunset situations), you can always try P mode, see how it looks, look at the settings then switch to M and make the necessary adjustments. Or, meter the background rather than the sun. A neutral density filter may also be helpful in this situation since it will decrease the amount of light getting to the camera, but I've never used a ND filter, so that's only a maybe.

Another point is that your shot is pretty salvageable in Photoshop if you lighten the shadows. So, maybe with a bit of work, it's not a loss at all.

Hopefully someone else can shed some more light on the situation

[jiminyClickit]

takoateli,

Even clouds will do this. I have that "ball" effect from shooting into sun slightly covered by incoming storm, outer clouds are gray turning to black. This was at 10 AM, so no doubt sunset covered with smoke would create a filter.

[takoateli]

Guys,

Thanks! The weather here is the same each day and the fires continue so I shot again another day. Here's what I found. Auto mode and P mode came out the same as the original photos. If I took manual control and intentionally underexposed using either by stopping down the aperture or faster shutter speed then the sun color was accurate but the background was extremely underexposed. As I progressively opened the aperture or slowed the shutter speed the sun became whiter and whiter as it got blown out and the background became more properly exposed. So it seems like under these conditions (hazy smoke) it's impossible to get the nice sunset shots I get in clear weather.

FYI I'm located in the Amazon region of Venezuela. The smoke is from the Indians' gardens (slash and burn gardnening).

Thanks!

Greg

[Nicole]

What about putting two shots together in post processing then so that you can get the better exposed background without the sun being blown out?

[takoateli]

Yeah, I thought of that. But I feel like if one makes a cool photo with a lot of editing there's something phoney about it. Though I love using Lightroom to correct photos to bring them to how it would look with the human eye.

I guess if something about the sunset that was breathtaking maybe I'd go through the effort to put the two photos together, but it isn't really a spectacular shot. I was just curious why I couldn't get an image that appeared to the camera as it appears to my eyes.

Anyway, I was just wondering if there's something I was doing wrong. I thought maybe under those conditions I could get a better shot with the right settings, but I think I've learned something about photography, and about the amazing qualities of the human eye and brain, basically the huge dynamic range of our vision - to be able to see bright and dark regions at the same time with good "exposure" in both.

I'm still wondering if a polarized filter might not allow a better shot in those conditions. I'm also curious to try my other lenses (Nikon 18-70mm and Nikon 28mm f2.8) with and without UV filters to see if there's any difference.

Thanks!

[jiminyClickit]

takoateli,

If your eye tells you a scene looks a certain way (hue, contrast, color value) and you find settings or filters to "correct" the camera into seeing it that way, how does that differ (ethicly) from finding settings or filters in post-processing to correct the recorded pixels? Why "phoney" in editting behind camera and "okay" in front of lens?

www.dg28.com/technique/index.htm has solutions for so many difficult situations, he may have answers for smoke as well.

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by takoateli

Yeah, I thought of that. But I feel like if one makes a cool photo with a lot of editing there's something phoney about it. Though I love using Lightroom to correct photos to bring them to how it would look with the human eye.

No worries... It's not really something I do myself, so it's definitely not like I'd take offense to the comment Hopefully you do manage to find a solution, it's a hard situation to try to get all the colours, etc that we see with the human eye without lots of editing.