new photographer

[beechie91]

hi am a amateur very new to photography i have taken a winter landscape it looks ok to me but is spoilt by a very bright sun behind the clouds i was wondering if there was away to dull the brightness of the sun with out wrecking the picture?

[wavemachine]

So what you are saying is you want to preserve the foreground detail in which case there are two solutions.

Solution 1

Shoot from a tripod using a graduated filter, these go from dark to light top to bottom and come in different strengths.

Solution 2

Bracket you photos, ideally from a tripod take 2 shots one exposed for the sky and the other for the land and then combine them in photoshop.

I prefer solution 2 as this gives more flexability with unlevel horizons etc and you don't have to buy filters which can also be fiddly to use

Here is an example of a bracketed shot:-

[donoreo]

Solution 3:

Exposure for the land (spot meter or otherwise on the land) and adjust using software that supports a graduated filter tool like Lightroom. You want to expose for the land as it is darker, and it is easier to recover highlights (bright) than it is the darks. Lightening the dark areas tend to introduce noise into the photo.

[Edmack]

Why did you use Shutter Priority, giving 1/640 at F29 with ISO 800.
Nikon set on Auto, would probably have coped. Worth taking several camera settings, and evaluating results, how much did you do in CS6. Ed.

[donoreo]

I just looked, yes, those are odd settings. A low ISO and no more than f16 or f22.

[markgozz]

Originally Posted by beechie91

hi am a amateur very new to photography i have taken a winter landscape it looks ok to me but is spoilt by a very bright sun behind the clouds i was wondering if there was away to dull the brightness of the sun with out wrecking the picture?

Unfortunately once the detail has been lost in the blown high lights you can't get them back , as stated with an image like this you really need to bracket the exposure and combine the images for best results because even the most expensive camera can't capture a wide enough dynamic range in one shot .
Most of today's image editing software has some kind of shadow and high light adjustment which might help , what software do you use .

Mark

[Edmack]

I don't subscribe to that Mark?? Ed.

As you will see from my post above, uses, CS6.

[markgozz]

I'd love to be wrong Ed but with such a massive contrast like shooting directly into the sun something has to give with one shot , shadows or highlights . I'd agree that if you expose for the sky you stand a better chance of recovering the detail in the shadows but in doing that you start to introduce a lot of noise , for the best results I still think bracketing is the way to go .

Mark

Mark

[Edmack]

Not saying you are wrong, just don't agree. I have never used bracketing/combining on any digital shot, pleased with my results. The image has an overall sameness look to me, just had a very quick attempt in Photoshop, file size, 147Kb, and satisfied with the result. Never ever used any filter other than Polarizer, then only on Shop window displays. Ed.