Sky Photography

[akshatrathi294]

Is this a well taken picture?



The sky was so beautiful that day, yet I feel I was not upto the mark to take a good picture.



The rest of the set can be viewed at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akshatr...7601801522941/

Do give suggestions on how I could captured it better. As always I clicked all these pictures on AUTO. What else could I have tried?

Cheers

[Caine]

I love the water in the top shot, but the sky, shore and trees look washed out. Deeper more vibrant tones are needed. Easily fixed, I think in photoshop. I don't know what kind of camera you have, but I would have chosen to shoot this manually, and taken several different shots at different settings, such as exposure.

I think I would have framed the second shot differently. I like the water and the reflected glints, however the massive cloud on the left is just too overwhelming to me. I think I would have concentrated more on the overall scene and given it more of the photo space, and not so much space given to the sky and clouds.

[akshatrathi294]

Originally Posted by Caine

I love the water in the top shot, but the sky, shore and trees look washed out. Deeper more vibrant tones are needed. Easily fixed, I think in photoshop. I don't know what kind of camera you have, but I would have chosen to shoot this manually, and taken several different shots at different settings, such as exposure.

I think I would have framed the second shot differently. I like the water and the reflected glints, however the massive cloud on the left is just too overwhelming to me. I think I would have concentrated more on the overall scene and given it more of the photo space, and not so much space given to the sky and clouds.

I use the Canon S3 IS. I am learning to use the various exposure settings. Will give it a try next time for sure.

For, the second pic, I think your comment is well put. The big cloud does somehow destroy the delicacy of the whole photo. Yet I would not have been able to avoid it. Just have a look at the other pictures in the set where I have zoomed in on the smaller aspects of the sky. Do let me know how you find it.

[Caine]

Okay, in this 3rd shot you have wonderful cloud/sky drama. I think there's still too much sky and not enough ground. My camera is set to shoot images at 2304 x 3072. A lot of times, I find it helpful to look at my image full size and crop to give the right emphasis. In this shot, I *might* have looked closely at the lower right side, cropped and tweaked the levels a bit. (I say might, because it's not my shot and I don't know which bits of it you find particularly appealing). Something else I might do would be to crop the top of the shot to right above the black clouds and bit of visible sky. That would have tightened the focus and lose some distraction I think.

[RexK_Cozumel]

Your second shot is the best of the three IMO. However there are some things I would do differently first your horizon is not straight. Secondly while in this photo you managed to get the sky/water line on the third line the sun is smack in the middle of the frame. If you had framed it so that the sun was in the lower left you could have avoided that massive cloud in the top left of the frame. Other than that the second photo looks good. You should not trust your camera's auto setting when shooting sunsets because there is such a vast difference in lighting from the sky/water/foreground it is very easy for the camera to get confused and meter incorrectly. You end up with shots like the first one where it blows out the sky but gets the water exposed correctly. I have a ton of sunset shots on my flickr site if you would like to check some of them out.

[akshatrathi294]

Originally Posted by RexK_Cozumel

Your second shot is the best of the three IMO. However there are some things I would do differently first your horizon is not straight. Secondly while in this photo you managed to get the sky/water line on the third line the sun is smack in the middle of the frame. If you had framed it so that the sun was in the lower left you could have avoided that massive cloud in the top left of the frame. Other than that the second photo looks good. You should not trust your camera's auto setting when shooting sunsets because there is such a vast difference in lighting from the sky/water/foreground it is very easy for the camera to get confused and meter incorrectly. You end up with shots like the first one where it blows out the sky but gets the water exposed correctly. I have a ton of sunset shots on my flickr site if you would like to check some of them out.

Thank you for your comment. When you say in the first pic the sky is overexposed, do you mean the picture is not good? The water has come out really well but I think the overexposed sky somehow helps the overall picture. Don't you?

[akshatrathi294]

It is a little bright, but I did not wish to alter with the contrast because the brightness has a different meaning altogether. Am I right?

[daylebo5]

I think the second shot is the best of all the above.. the blue in the sky really adds to the pic...
I dont like the last one... the sky is too plain...

[RexK_Cozumel]

I am not saying that the picture is no good. I am saying that the sky is over exposed in the first shot. Yes the water did come out well but the bright sky serves as a distraction drawing the eye to the overexposed sky. This will happen to you a lot if you just leave the camera on full auto when shooting pictures with such a large difference in exposure levels in the frame. There are lots of different techniques you can try to overcome this (if you are interested just ask) but the most important thing is to get your camera off the full auto setting so that you can actually start to have some control over the photos being taken.

[jiminyClickit]

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