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By Driusan (Sun Nov 19, 2006 at 11:31:54 AM EST) photos, switzerland, fun loving cowqqas. (all tags)

To submit this as an FFC entry, but a picture from Switzerland and somewhat related question about photography inside.

Luzern at night

Now the question: I've taken a few photos like this (not necessarily of mountains, but anything with a blue skyline and some clouds) on my poor little Canon Powershot. Inevitably, the skylines come out entirely washed out and white. Why does that happen? And is there anything I can do about it, either while taking the picture or with postprocessing?

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I suppose it's too late.. | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

looks overexposed by clover kicker (2.00 / 0) #1 Sun Nov 19, 2006 at 01:42:10 PM EST

Can you manually adjust the exposure with your camera?

Overexposed or white balance by LinDze (2.00 / 0) #2 Sun Nov 19, 2006 at 02:33:24 PM EST

would seem the most likely culprits. Is it possible to put a polarizing filter on your camera? That would darken up the sky a bit. Also looks a bit foggy in that pic, mush moisture in the air?

-Lin Dze
Arbeit Macht Frei

What everybody else said. by greyrat (4.00 / 1) #3 Sun Nov 19, 2006 at 03:26:16 PM EST

Plus, photo 101: With my cheap-ass camera, I move the camera to expose for what I want (look up and expose for the sky) and then (holding the silly little button half-way down) re-frame for the picture I want. You will find that the mountains are underexposed then, but you'll get the sky you want.

Use the same technique for focusing on what you want too.

: fiendishly clever -nt- by clover kicker (2.00 / 0) #4 Sun Nov 19, 2006 at 05:11:16 PM EST

[ Parent ]

I'm with LinDze by MostlyHarmless (2.00 / 0) #5 Sun Nov 19, 2006 at 07:15:15 PM EST

on the exposure thing.

It's tricky when you have a relatively dark thing in the foreground and a fairly bright background (like the sky). You can't really expose it such that one or both won't look like crap. In this case, it looks like your camera exposes for the mountains, and you get a washed out sky. You could fiddle with the exposure, but it's really hard to get a balence between not under-exposing the dark areas and not over-exposing the light ones

The main way to deal with it is to use a Graduated Filter, but not many of the point and shoots are able to take those...

-mh
--
[Mostly Harmless]

I suppose it's too late.. | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback