Colors flat

[butcher]

Hi, what do you think of this shot?

When I was there, the colors were very pretty and the whole scene looked a lot better than what I captured.

What do you think I should have done differently? Different Aperture?

Focal Lenght = 18mm
Exposure = 1/125
Aperture = f/14
ISO = 100

Thanks
Butcher

[oldwolf]

The human eye sees things differently than your camera. The human eye has a wider dynamic range.

To see some of the colors that you saw, you'd have to bracket your images and combine it in HDR later. You could also just under expose your image a little (faster shutter speed, lower ISO or higher f/stop) to get more saturated colors.

All that can change if you change your metering mode as well. Some metering modes might make your camera see things differently.

Since you didn't read the forum rules we really can't tell you what you should have changed.

Critique Forum Rules

[Krusty79]

When the sky is a lot brighter than the ground, a graduated neutral density filter is made for those situations and will reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the ground. You should still shoot RAW, use a tripod and bracket your shots. Since the camera cannot capture the dynamic range your eye can see, you'll have to use a filter and/or blend your exposures or use HDR to get an even exposure. I think the exposure blends look more natural than HDR.

Also, underexposing the sky usually produces more colors.

[Barbara V]

I've found that under-exposing by raising the shutter speed works for me in these situations.