Creating Dramatic Sky's with Filters

Recently I was out and about in the streets of Gurgaon doing some photography of architecture and wanted to create some images with nice dramatic sky's. As the sun started to set I did not get the beautiful deep reds you get at sun-set time. Anyone who has visited Gurgaon would know that the place is notorious for its ugly greyish blue sky's, sometimes even on clear days!. Solution - Filters. I had brought along my graduated sunset filter. Just put the filter in front of the lens and the sky goes from being boring and dull to dramatic pink or orange. Thought the below image could have be edited and created in post processing I was not keen on editing the images on my system.

What you see below are the same images with minor differences in white balance. The one with a pinkish shade has a florescent white balance while the one with the orange colour has a daylight white balance. (These images are strait out of the camera with only change of white balance in post processing.)

Photographing Sunrises and Sunsets

I am sure all of us have looked at a sunrise or sunset and picked up your camera and when click it and you see the final image it is nothing like what you saw especially if you shot it auto. For this you need to go to full manual. Before I give you the shot cut to shooting sunsets you need to know some thing about the camera. Your camera at the moment cannot see what your eye can see. It can either see the foreground or the background if you shoot directly into the light. It does not have the dynamic range. So make the most of what you get. You want to shoot the beautiful colours of the sky then just expose for that. This is where metering comes in. When your camera is in auto it is for the most part evaluating the whole scene and takes an average of the light coming in and then determines the shutter speed and aperture. Because the sun is so bright it throws the average off and what you get is an over exposed image. That one bright spot has moved the average up.


How to get around this. There is simple technique, you put the camera on full manual, put the camera on matrix metering. What ever reading you get for your exposure for the shutter under expose by two or three stops. So if you get a shutter reading for 1/50 for correct exposure just double or triple the shutter speed and you will have the exposure you want. Another way to go is to bracket the shots and create an HDR. This way you will get the beautiful light on the foreground and the great colours of the sky.


A few things you should keep in mind when shooting sunrises and sunsets is to be prepared. Try and scout the location in advance especially for sunrises. It's dark and you don't want to get hurt getting to the place to shoot. Having the composition in mind will help. Know what time the sunrise/sunset is going to happen. You don't want to be late. Carry a tripod and keep gear to a minimum. 


You don't need fancy equipment to pull this off but it would be nice to have. Some photographers use a tilt shift lens when they photograph sunrises so they can move the plain of DOF. There are some who use coloured filters to accentuate the colours. You can also use graduated ND filter. A graduated ND filter will give you a few stops of light difference between the sky and the foreground. This means less work in post processing (especially if you are doing HDR via bracketing). 


Most importantly once got your shot do take a moment to savour the beautiful scenery. Often times we photographers forget to enjoy the moment when trying to nail the perfect shot.

If you found all of the above stuff confusing check out what James Beltz from www.phototips.biz has to say. He really makes it simple in the following video

Here are some links you might find useful



12 Tips for Photographing Stunning Sunsets
SUNRISE AND SUNSET PHOTOGRAPHY

Ultra Wide Perspective...On A Budget

If you have a kit lens and look at a location and think to yourself "Damm!!! I wish I had a ultra wide lens but can't afford one." then this post is for you. What you are looking for is a Wide Angle/Macro Lens adapter or simply a Wide Angle Lens Adaptor for your camera. They come in all shapes and sizes. They are no substitute for the expensive and really awesome ultra wide lens or fish eye lenses. These lenses tend to produce a lot of vignetting on the corners especially at the widest the mm of the lens.

However, if you know the limitation of the lens then you can pull some spectacular looking results. If you are someone who has a point and shoot and wants to get this kind of perspective check out the video at the end. You can make yourself one for about $5. If you take a look at the two images below. The one on the left is without the filter and the one on the right is with the filter. I am standing in the same place but the perspective is much wider and the place tells a story. If you notice the corners have some vignetting. If you can live with this then it should not be a problem. If you don't you can crop it off. Even then you still have a great perspective. There is a bit of fringing as well in the corners. These tend to produce better images in black and white or some tone there of. Check out more images shot with this filter on.  These cost anywhere between Rs. 1500 to about Rs 7000 it depends on the quality of glass. If you are serious about wide perspective it is more advisable you save the money and get a ultra wide lens or a fish eye lens. However if you get this urge occasionally and feel its a passing phase this might just be the thing for you

Filters continued...

Last time when I wrote about filters I had mentioned about staking filters and neutral density filters, so this time it made sense to continue the filter theme. Before I delve into staking filters I'll give you a brief about few more filters. One of those are neutral density (ND) filters ( I had mentioned those in the previous post as well).


Neutral density filters, as the name suggest, when added in front of the camera, will have a neutral impact on the light i.e. to say there will not add any colour to the light which enters the lens. Think of it like a pair of sunglasses for your camera. The amount of light which is cut out is measured in stops (f-stops) so you have a 1 stop ND filter 2 stop so on. Some of the use cases are for when slow shutter speed is required like a waterfalls and in some cases for studio photography as well..


Let's start with the motion blur, say you are a water fall at mid day (sometimes life can give you such surprises...) and you cant wait till evening. So you do the you close the aperture to f16 and bring the ISO to 100 or 50 (if your camera goes that low) and the light meter in your camera gives you shutter speed of 1/50. Now you are reluctant to go to F22 but you want a shutter speed of 1/30'th or lower because that's when you start picking up the motion blur. Now that 1 stop ND filter is just the perfect answer. You use the filter and cut the light and you are done. Even if you have 1 stop filter you will cut the shutter speed to 1/25 and your task is done. Now lets say you want to get to 1 sec exposure have two a 1ND filter and 3 stop filter. You STACK the two filters and you have 4 stops less which is almost 1 sec and you are done.

Another use case may be to remove traffic from the road. ( You could use a 9 stops ND filter and remove moving traffic from a the road by giving an extended exposer, though you would need an awesome tripod which does soaks up the vehicular movement and does not move your camera during the long exposure)


I mentioned studios earlier so lets say you are in a small studio and you power down your strobes down but don't want to go lower or can't go lower because of various reasons. Your light meter measures f 5.6 at the lowest at ISO 100 and you wan't to shoot at 2.8 because you want a shallow DOF on your images. Add the ND filter and you have the F stop you want.


The other kinds filters are, Colour filters, Graduated ND filter and Graduated colour filters. You can use the Graduated ND filters have a stop difference between the top and bottom of the filter. These are perfect for landscapes when you an underexpose the sky and expose landscape well. This is an alternative to doing HDR. 

Another option would be add a sunset filter(aka tobacco filter) to get a sun set during the day. You can also saturate the colours of the sunrise/sunset by using the colour filters. 


However, every thing comes at a price. When you add a filter you reduce the quality of light and sharpness of the image (especially in case of cheaper filters) Some people are dead against adding any filter in front of the camera and prefer to add the colour cast in software. It's a personal preference. If you are like me who does not like editing too much. (every hour I am editing I not doing something else I like) What ever your take on filters they are certainly worth a try.