Advice please for dull day photos

[ladysue]

I went out today and took lots of non railway photos ( boats and stuff) and it was a very overcast day. http://susan.picturebook.org.uk/c1665633.html

As I expected lots of the pictures came out dark. I had my little Canon Ixus 950IS on auto. I have photoshop elements on my computer and could use the fill flash command to lighten them but it looks quite artificial and I left many of the pics as they were showing the dark clouds. Is it better to lighten them in this way or is there another option to make them look better? For another time can anyone suggest the best setting on my camera that I could use for a dull day?

Thanks
Sue

 

[Rebus]

On a dull/grey/murky day the cameras meter can tend to underexpose, particularly if there is a lot of reflections from water or the sky is brighter than the subject.
Some of them have fairly bright skies, and this in itself will lead to underexposure of the rest of the image as the camera tries to expose the sky perfectly!

Most of the images I looked at would simply benefit from a slight 'levels' adjustment in Elements to bring them back to 'normal', but the best thing is to set the camera to overexpose by about 1/2 to 1 stop when you take them under these conditions to expose them properly at the point of taking them, but I'm not sure how you'd do this on your 'auto' camera.
Also adjusting them afterwards will lead to an increase of visible noise in the images.

 

[Teaboy1]

Low light means a tripod and longer shutter times Im affraid to say. Select manual and give it 1/2 >1 F stop more exposure. But the shutter time now becomes too long to hold it by hand, try it by all means but you will see the slightest soft image if you move !!:roll:
Otherwise not that bad a set of photos considering the sort of day.......your waves look OK from a distance! Experiment.......theres no film to worry about!

 

[ladysue]

Thank you all for your advice. I must admit I have been a bit lazy using auto most of the time. I am staring to experiment and gradually reading some of the long camera manual I downloaded. I will look up how to set longer exposure in manual.

I dont have a tripod except an ancient one that is no good so I will have to get one. I have seen one that folds up to handbag size.Unfortunately because of disability I cant stand long so I'll have to take a fold up stool with me if I am setting out to get some better shots. When I went out linesiding the other week I ended up sitting on a fire hydrant. Quite an amusing sight

I used to have a SLR camera many years ago ( pre digital) so I was used to setting it manually.I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again
Sue

http://susan.picturebook.org.uk/

 

[thefab444]

One thing to remember, a photograph is just an interpretation. The exact lighting conditions etc. are never going to be exactly the same as you remember it.

With regards to sky, it's a no win situation; you can either have correctly exposed sky and underexposed foreground, or correctly exposed foreground and a "burnt" sky. Choosing which of these scenarios you would like is a case of changing the metering mode on the camera.

 

[Richmond]

A gradient filter helps on these occassions, a grey filter can alter the brightness of the sky allowing you to have an image exposed correctly.

 

[Mike McCormac]

Agree with all the above. One idea you could try is to turn the pictures into black & whites. It can be a great way of rescuing a dull day. Check out my blogpost on the subject 'How to create beautiful black and white pictures with your digital camera'.

Enjoy...