Mountains at Dusk - please help!

[englischdude]

Hi There,

I recently made the move to a DSLR Olympus E-510, but I think I underestimated all that needs to be learnt in orde to operate one of these wonderful cameras effectively. I live in the Alpine Region of Austria, and the view from my balcony is breathtaking. I have been trying to capture this, however as you can see from the attached picture the foreground is under-exposed. When I try and compensate for this the mountains and skyline become over-exposed. Any tips?

Please also any tips for some good learning materials on the web.

Thank you all in advance for your responses to my first post!

Regards from Austria
Martin

[Chip]

Welcome, englishchdude -

Very pretty setting.

In shots like yours where one part is much brighter than the remainder, the camera's sensor has a very hard time exposing both parts properly.

Two ways I know of to fix this are (1) get a neutral density filter - this is an actual, physical filter that attaches to the front of the lens and will let you darken the sky/mountains to bring it closer to the brightness of the foreground, or (2) take 2 shots - one exposed for the sky/mountains and the other exposed for the foreground, then combine then in post.

Hope that helps. Enjoy the view!

[fletch]

Try taking the shot at a different time of the day when you are not looking directly into the sun. If this shot is the evening then try it in the morning or vice versa. (Try to avoid the middle of the day as well). This will enusre the brightness of the sky is not so different to the rest of the scene and the camera will be able to capture the image better.

[Chip]

Well said, fletch. Thanks for pointing out the simple solution.

[Peyto]

What you can also use to even out the exposure is to use a Neutral Density Graduated filter, which essentially evens out the exposure from top to bottom. These filters are darker near the top and lighter at the bottom. You can get them in various stops, which is the difference in stops between the top and the bottom. Also, you can get them in a soft step or hard step, which refers to how sharp the gradiation occurs on the filter. For shooting uneven exposure horizons such as mountains, you'd generally use a soft step, and if you're shooting a shot where there's a distinct difference in exposures over a relatively flat line, such as a sunset over a prairie, you'd probably favor a hard step.

There's alot of good reading on the internet on these filters with some good examples also.

Good Luck