Photography Exposure Definition
photography question?
need a bit of help. whats the best way to aleviate over exposure when taking shots of tall buildings where your shooting alot of sky aswell. i went out yesterday taking building shots and i wanted to get the definiton of right exposure of the building but the sky was coming out over exposed and i couldnt get the definition of clounds i tried Apature F8 and shutter 400 at iso 200 was closest to what i wanted
The best solution is to shoot in the early morning, shortly after sunrise, or late in the afternoon/evening shortly before sunset. This has a number of advantages ~
1) The sky is not as bright at these times unless you are shooting with the sun in the picture.
2) The lighting for architecture is usually better at those times because there are more defined shadows that are not as harsh and more interesting or dramatic lighting is possible.
You could also wait for an overcast day where the contrast will not be so intense..
If you want to preserve the details of the clouds you may need to over expose the image somewhat anyway and then adjust the "levels" in Photoshop or a similar program to achieve the desired balance.
Look at these two photos to get an idea of what is possible (this is a fairly extreme case to get a dramatic result).
Before -
After -
Email me if you want more information on how to do this...
What is Exposure ? | Photography | Camera | Michael Andrew