How to avoid blown out skies

[Captain Kidd]

I use a leica m6 with a summarit lens and hood, more often than not i notice my sky is blown out or alot whiter than i recall on the day. Id love to know any tips you might have on avoiding this, is a filter lens the only way to go or is this a sign im over exposing? I use fuji pro 400 generally.

Thanks for any tips

 

[CMur12]

How are you metering?

- Murray

 

[aizan]

try vaguely tilting the meter upwards.

 

[philosli]

Negative films have some dynamic range that may actually capture the highlights. Since your film is C-41 processing, there isn't much you can do in the developing to reduce the contrast and preserve the highlights. So your option is when you take the photo, control the zone placement of your highlights and shadows. And then in the post processing, reduce the highlight exposure values.

After scanning, you can use some tricks to do some post-processing to bring in the highlights. The easiest will be using the highlight bar to reduce the exposure values of only the highlights. Or try reduce the global contrast, reduce the overall exposure and then bring up the shadows. Or if your post-processing software allows, use the dodge-burn tool to burn in the highlights (selectively reduce exposure values on different parts of the photo.)

 

[michaelwj]

I use a leica m6 with a summarit lens and hood, more often than not i notice my sky is blown out or alot whiter than i recall on the day. Id love to know any tips you might have on avoiding this, is a filter lens the only way to go or is this a sign im over exposing? I use fuji pro 400 generally.

Thanks for any tips

My underline. You're overexposing the sky.

You've only got a fixed dynamic range. It is your choice where you want to place that dynamic range on the dynamic range of the scene. Would you prefer to have blown out skies or empty shadows? A lot of the time you can't have both, so you have to choose. I typically overexpose the sky on film as I think it looks better than underexposed shadows, but there are times I do the opposite.

A polariser can help in some circumstances, but they're a PITA on a rangefinder. Likewise a yellow/orange/red filter will reduce the sky values with b&w film. Also, check your negatives, are they black? Maybe you could change the exposure when you scan them assuming you're scanning.

 

[dufffader]

Adding to the excellent answers... there are other options.
If you're processing you could either switch developers, try stand development and so on to improve sky details.
Another option that cost money is to try an older low contrast lens with single or no coating, I find that the ones from the 50s or modern single coated voigtlander lens may work.
But before you commit yourself I'd try to shoot either in an overcast day when the scene is flatter, or reduce exposure from whatever your M6 is telling you.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

This is how I do it with TTL camera. I measure bottom (ground), middle (trees) and top (sky). Exposure is going to be very different. 1/180-1/350-1/1000. If sky is important, I'm taking it in the middle. It works with any TTL camera.

 

[michaelwj]

Adding to the excellent answers... there are other options.
If you're processing you could either switch developers, try stand development and so on to improve sky details.
Another option that cost money is to try an older low contrast lens with single or no coating, I find that the ones from the 50s or modern single coated voigtlander lens may work.
But before you commit yourself I'd try to shoot either in an overcast day when the scene is flatter, or reduce exposure from whatever your M6 is telling you.

C41, not really options unfortunately...

 

[Swift1]

How are you ascertaining that your sky is blown out? From scans?
In my experience it is quite difficult to blow highlights with color negative film unless you're overexposing 4 stops or more.
Blown highlights in film scans is usually the result of clipping in scanning.

 

[Swift1]

Here's a good example.

This was taken using FujiPro 400H, on a very bright sunny day. I started with Sunny 11, then opened up 3 stops for open shade.I may have opened up another stop just to be safe because I was in the forest, but can't be certain.
Regardless, the blue sky is 3-4 stops overexposed from what I would normally expose for sunny blue sky.


Untitled by Colton Allen, on Flickr

 

[David Murphy]

You might consider using a linear polarizer

 

[splitimageview]

Bracketing

 

[Sid836]

What Ko.Fe. said. Meter the shadows, then the highlights. Now consider what is the most important for you. If the shadows, then from the midpoint of the two metered values give a +1 stop. If the highlights are the most important part of it, give it a +1.
Of course, if the two metered values are too far from each other, i.e. during a very bright noon, there is no way to have them both. In that case you have to decide what to keep within the film latitude and what to throw out of it (extreme highlights, or shadows).
For this, partial, center-weighted or spot metering is a must.

 

[David Hughes]

Years ago we used a negative of the sky and sandwiched it on top of the landscape's negative; both correctly exposed. Or else exposed the paper twice with a bit of dodging.

So with editing software it ought to be easy to make one shot of the clouds and one of the main subject and blend them...

Regards, David

 

[FujiLove]

As you're using a modern colour negative film, you will almost certainly have captured the detail in the sky but the scanner can't extract the information due to the negative being so thick in those areas (assuming you're scanning). A grad filter is probably the best solution, but awkward to use with a rangefinder.

I would either:

1. Use an SLR with grads
2. Invest in a high end scanner with high dmax, such as a drum scanner.
3. Wet print and burn in the sky

1 & 3 are easy and relatively cheap options...2 not so much!

 

[teddy]

For black and white, use an Y/G or Orange filter. Meter the sky if blue. If not meter the ground. For colour, the same.

If your in snow, meter the snow then over expose by 3 stops. The same if anything close to white as snow.

Sometimes the sky looks like snow. Over expose. If the whole scene is washed out with glare, meter your subject, then click the shutter. You'll just have to accept what is there - not what your mind thinks is there.

More detail in the sky? Use grads or a polariser.

 

[Captain Kidd]

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I use a sekonic L308S, and meter by facing the subject and pointing the meter directly at the camera position, I scan the negatives using a plustek 8200i. Silly question but how do I meter the sky, point the light meter to the sky and take a reading?

 

[michaelwj]

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I use a sekonic L308S, and meter by facing the subject and pointing the meter directly at the camera position, I scan the negatives using a plustek 8200i. Silly question but how do I meter the sky, point the light meter to the sky and take a reading?

Use reflected rather than incident metering. On the 308, slide the dome out of the way and point it at the sky. Easy.
Depending on the scanning software you may be able to get a normal exposured scan and an underexposed scan and blend the two.

 

[michaelwj]

If I were photographing that scene the I would do one of three things.
1) Take the photo you did but reduce the exposure one of two stops (the rock is a bit bright for me)
2) Move position (likely higher) so there was no sky in the frame - problem solved!
3) Take the same photo you did and except that the sky is going to be blown.

 

[FujiLove]

Silly question but how do I meter the sky, point the light meter to the sky and take a reading?

Yes, but that will basically give you a mid-grey sky and leave the rest of the photo very dark. As I said before, there's no need to worry about blowing the highlights with colour negative film because it's dynamic range is massive. You generally only have to worry about how to get at the image data. The lower end scanners like the Plustek probably won't cut it in this instance. A lab scan using a Norita or Frontier scanner will do a better job, and a drum scan the best job of all.

If you want to reduce the contrast of the scene (i.e. bring the brightness of the sky closer to that of the ground) grad filters are the answer. They will allow you to expose the shadows of the subject properly whilst stopping the sky part of the negative becoming too thick for the scanner. Hard to use with an M6 though, and fiddly if you are using the Leica as a compact walk-around camera.