Bushveld Road

[AB26]

Shot this one over Easter in a Game Reserve with a Sony DSC HX100V.

[kdoc856]

Not certain what you were aiming for here, Andre. There's a lot of detail in the underexposed area you can bring out if you wish, and bringing down the highlights will make the sky more dramatic. I'd probably crop along the top at abut the level of that tiny cloud tuft at the right edge. There's quite a bit of red/orange in that road soil that has a nice hue. This would be a nice time to have had a Grad ND filter on hand.

[AB26]

Thanks Kevin.
The aim was to depict a tranquil late afternoon Bushveld scene.
With the sun low and the sky still blue it was not easy not to blow out the sky, still having some detail on the road and surrounding bush.

[Dave Humphries]

With the sun low and the sky still blue it was not easy not to blow out the sky, still having some detail on the road and surrounding bush.

Hi Andre,

This is one of those scenes that I believe is impossible to portray using an in camera jpg, or judging exposure by the LCD alone.

Ideally from RAW (if the camera can), but even from jpg, this kind of shot needs the contrast range 'managed' in PP to bring up shadow detail to match what the human eye achieves when viewing such a scene. However, you must also not allow the sky to blow.

Looking at the histogram; while the blue channel isn't quite clipped, the red and green have blown on those clouds.
The EXIF says 1/2000s at f/2.8 and 500iso. (I suspect 1/2000s maybe its fastest)

That choice of aperture and iso wouldn't have been mine for this shot, if say f/8 at 200iso had been used, this would have given plenty of scope to reduce the exposure by not slowing the shutter speed by the same number of stops, and hence avoid blowing any channels, while increasing the dynamic range (if RAW) or reducing the noise floor (in jpg).

This would then allow the detail in the shadowy road to be brought in PP - but yes, when shot, if viewing on the LCD, it will look 'too dark', just be guided by the camera RGB histo (if it has one) to set exposure on the highlights.

It's late and I'm not sure I have worded that as well as I might, but I hope the general idea comes across, together with the reasons.

Cheers,

[AB26]

Thanks Dave. I do not use the Sony that often and had it in Program Auto mode. I never checked any settings on the camera. Checked the camera now and ISO was fixed on 500. OOPS beeg mistake. Should have used in in Auto.
I agree, I would not have used the same settings using the Nikon.
Moral of the story - stick to the camera you know.

[pasusan]

Andre - do you have any PP software? I worked on your image in Lightroom for just a couple of minutes and selectively raised the exposure in everything but the sky and then recovered some shadows and now you can see that which you couldn't.

Hope it's OK to post it so you can see...