landscape photos, can bluesky/bright mountains these be achieved by single shot?

[dRebelXT]

Like this photo,
http://www.pbase.com/pschia/image/69149847

I have never been to the location, but in Sentosa, when sky is blue, i get either
bright ground + white sky, or blue sky + dark ground.

 

[Yatlapball]

With a single shot? Yes.

1) Use a neutral-density (ND) graduated filter.

or

2) Shoot in RAW. And post-process the raw image twice, once for the sky and the other for the ground. Then merging both photos together.

 

[yyD70S]

I have never been there either but the climate in temperate countries do "favour" such nice tones.

If we get a good sky to start with, "such effect" is very possible with the help of a polarizer cum grauated neutral density.

I'm assuming no HDR as I have not tried it and am not sure if HDR is possible on "moving objects -- a la your attached link pic".

 

[patch17]

a circular polarizer will do the trick.

 

[Hoky]

a circular polarizer will do the trick.

Yes, agree on that.
In fact, you get good pictures w/ Singapore skies... Not too much blue though as there are too many clouds.

 

[megaweb]

Try morning and late afternoon

 

[ExplorerZ]

yup CPL will do... imho when you are able to fully polariser the sky, dynamic range normally ain't much of a problem liao (other than some clouds detail lost, others should be fine), but adding a GND will make it very dark blue.

 

[dRebelXT]

I tried GND and blue ND filter before, but it tend to cause unwanted blue clouds/buildings
due to irregular landscape.

maybe megaweb's morning/afternoon idea can work, think about the lighter sky at that time.

 

[ExplorerZ]

I tried GND and blue ND filter before, but it tend to cause unwanted blue clouds/buildings
due to irregular landscape.

maybe megaweb's morning/afternoon idea can work, think about the lighter sky at that time.

afternoon can work as well, maybe not so well.

here a sample i took with my CPL only, yes no GND... etc, only CPL alone on the lens. Taken at 12:11:33 PM from the Exif.
I bumped the saturation a little, so a little unnatural here. :embrass:

 

[dRebelXT]

afternoon can work as well, maybe not so well.

here a sample i took with my CPL only, yes no GND... etc, only CPL alone on the lens. Taken at 12:11:33 PM from the Exif.
I bumped the saturation a little, so a little unnatural here. :embrass:

that's nice. and judging from the shadows, the sun must be vertically down.
CPL works well at this angle is it?

 

[tomcat]

Like this photo,
http://www.pbase.com/pschia/image/69149847

I have never been to the location, but in Sentosa, when sky is blue, i get either
bright ground + white sky, or blue sky + dark ground.

That's a photo I had taken during my trip to Yunnan.

I have observed that the sky in photos seems to come out bluer in those places of high latitudes and/or altitudes.

That said, it is possible once in a while in Singapore to get bluer than blue skies if lucky to be in the right time and place... for example this was taken with a Fuji F30 without the aid of a polariser, ND or GDD. :dunno:

 

[Azure]

Try morning and late afternoon

Megaweb has given some good advice. To add - know the time of the year as well.

Another thing required is to get your basics right. Use of aperture, shutter, exposure, metering. I shudder to hear some jokers claim that they need wide-open f5.6 on a bright sunny afternoon at 4pm, 1/125 at ISO400... without using filters.

Adding equipment is a stop-gap that may work for limited conditions, knowing your basics can get you good pictures almost all the time.

This link has photos which are exclusive from Singapore. No filters were used. Some were even taken with circa-2002 digicams. No PSing either. All are out-of-camera shots, whether you wish to believe it or not.

 

[dRebelXT]

cool! i guess azure's circa-2002 does better than me carrying DSLRs.

 

[Azure]

My "circa-2002" means the digicam was what I was using in 2002/2003. I usually do not bother to mention the make/model of the camera nor the lens used because those are minor and non-consequential factors in producing a decent photo. At least IMO.

 

[microcosm]

Pray for good weather.

Clouds aren't our best friend unless they come in small cutesy fluffy packages.

Polariser will work to a certain extent, but good PS skills usually gives you a better controlled results.
And of course, good lens and photography skills. (Don't hit me!) :sweat: