Photography in The Sun

[Aneela]

Ive been shooting using the rule of 16 for the sun, but this doesn't seem to five the quality i require or either the sharpness, is it best to widen the aperture and reduce the shutter speed?

I seem to lose the blue and vibrancy from the sky too

[LaPistola]

What filter and metering mode are you using?

[Aneela]

Im using partial metering modeon the camera and i have a UV filter on the lens

[LaPistola]

Try evaluative metering and play with your white balance prefixes, try daylight and cloudy. Auto white balance don't always give you the best colours. I take it by losing the blues and colours there becoming desaturated? Are you using the landscape profile? maybe posting a picture may help id the issue

[greenwing]

I'm lost. The Sunny 16 rule is used to set a manual exposure without a meter. Using Partial or Evaluative metering eliminates both the need and the opportunity to use Sunny 16.

Chris

[LaPistola]

Which only leaves centre weighed which surely will desaturate the sky more?

[greenwing]

Originally Posted by LaPistola

Which only leaves centre weighed which surely will desaturate the sky more?

CW will also eliminate the need and opportunity to use Sunny 16. Sunny 16 replaces metering. It's a way of estimating a manual exposure without using a meter.

Chris

Edit: it's probably bettter to say that metering replaced Sunny 16. But either way, use one or the other.

[wavemachine]

If memory serves me correctly you set the camera to f16 and if you are at ISO 100 shutter speed to1/100th of a second.

If the sky is blown out or not as vibrant is suggests to me it is over exposing the sky so you could try going to the next fastest shutter speed to see if that improves things.

As lapistola says it could be the white balance so if you shoot in raw you could try tweaking this.

[Aneela]

Thank you guys, been really helpful :-)

[jet_kit]

Hi Aneela,
Forget the UV filter (unless you're worried about scratching your lens) it won't help your shots at all.
Can you try to upload an example of what you're getting so we can have a look at it?
From the sound of it the sky is getting blown out and the only solutions to that is: 1) Use a Graduated Neutral Density filter, or 2) Take 2 (or 3) shots, exposing for the sky, mid tones and shadows then run them through the HDR process in Photoshop