Avoiding blown skies at slow shutter speeds? (filters?)

[audrey-g]

hi
i hope i posted this in the right section. still learning my whereabouts in the site!

i am trying to shoot moving cars in the highway. the shutter speed is 1/10 and seems to work ok for the cars but the sky is becoming overexposed and this was sunset. the sun was behind the hills. i just purchased a polariser as someone told me it will help. i was thinking about a grey grad or ND. which is best for these kind of shots?
hey i know this is not the best looking shot in the world but i need some time to learn!!
fuji finepixS5600

thanks
audrey-g

[wulf]

This is the right place, although I've updated the title to make it a bit more technique focused (how do I get a good result with this type of shot) and opening up ideas other than filters.

The example shot you have given has a fixed background and a blurred car. I presume you have your camera on some kind of tripod or other stand? What I might to to get the effect I think you are after is to take a reference shot at a faster shutter speed (getting a good exposure on the sky). This could then be blended with the image containing the moving car. That would be the same effect as a graduated filter but with more control and without having to buy any more equipment.

Wulf

[fletch]

The poloriser will be useless for this shot I'm afraid. Polarising filters work best when used perpendicular to the suns rays so when shooting into the sun thet have no effect.

Your best bet for this shot is to avoid shooting directly into the sun. Either adjust you shooting position or shoot at a different time of the day.

If you need to shoot into the sun to capture a sunset you can either go for the double exposure/photoshop method as Wulf sugested or try using an graduated ND filter. However the GND may not be strong enough for this shot even. I tried shooting directly into the sun with a GND8 filter and even that wasn't strong enough to stop the sky blowing out.

[audrey-g]

hi wulf and fletch
thanks for your suggestions. i will try it with photoshop then. but i will still purchase some filters and try different things out.

thanks a lot
audrey-g