Getting balance right...

[Palladius]

1/200 @ f5.6 ISO100 48mm


Took this shot in a cemetary around sunset. My intention was to contrast the cool dim cross with the hot bright sky. The chimney to the right was meant to be a secondary point of interest; one that, perhaps, you notice slightly later.

My question is, does it look like that to you? When I edited it in photoshop it seemed fine, but now it's on Flickr the whole thing looks too dark and the cross seems to get a bit lost in the background. Saying that, when I move my head around and look at it on the screen at a different angle it seems OK again!

Basically: Should I lighten the whole image? Should I maybe selectively lighten the cross?

[Sterling]

The shot is way too dark. I can make out the cross, but barely. Chimney to the right? If you say so. Your exposure here was obviously set for the brightest portion of the sky which has left everything else in darkness. Just a guess, but I'd say you'd need to bump up your ISO to at least 800 to get the exposure for the foreground in the ball park. Often with these types of shots it is impossible to get both the foreground and sky properly exposed. Often what is required is taking two shots, one exposed for the foreground and one exposed for the sky, and then combining them in photoshop.

[Palladius]

Is this better? Sorry to be so speculative, but I'm kinda shooting blind. The first one looked OK on my monitor and this one looks too bright. I want to keep the large swathe of black space, but still be able to distinguish the chimney and, hopefully, the smoke.

[navcom]

Still looks way too dark. You probably need to calibrate your monitor. It still appears about 2-3 stops too dark. I took the liberty of adjusting the exposure a bit in Photoshop. You might try to adjust your brightness so this version looks more normal. It won't be perfect but it will at least get you closer.

Keep in mind, when I updated the exposure, the colors went all funky due to post processing. I would recommend doing what Sterling recommends next time...HDR bracketing.