Member
Wondered if anyone can help me figure this out! I have been trying, on Manual setting, with my D3400, to capture the gorgeous blue of the sky and, the deep colors of the sky during sunset.
Despite changing aperture and ISO settings, I can't seem to get the colors. I had an old "idiot box" and would focus on the sky, and then lower the camera and click, and get the colors I wanted. Doesn't seem to work with my D3400 - any ideas?
What picture control do you have set on the D3400? If you shoot in raw, you will either have to use Nikon's own software in post to make use of the Picture controls or use Adobe's approximations in Lightroom. Both [LS] Landscape and [VI] Vivid have higher colour saturation than [SD] Standard. If you prefer .jpg, this setting is baked into the file.
As long as you don't shoot directly toward the sun, a polarizing filter will help in capturing these vivid colours in nature.
I suppose the point-and-shoot had some kind of vivid colour enhancing algorithm baked into the settings for landscape photography.
The editing exercises for the last three weeks have been mostly about manipulating the sky to enhance a rather dull rendering straight out of camera. It might be worth taking a look.
Senior Member
Merco brings up good points, but another issue to consider is that your D3400 is going to meter the light in a very different way than your old P&S. One of the keys to getting more vivid color out of the sky is err a little on the side of underexposure. You might try dialing in an EV value of -0.7 and see if that gets you closer. Adjust to taste from there.
Active Member
Shoot in RAW, meter on the mid-tones in the sky, under-expose by a stop and edit in post processing.
Member
Ah, Got it! That's the one thing I did not do, change the light meter. I was working only with Aperature and ISO and sometimes even went into Auto (and neglected to look at the settings it used). I just got so frustrated because I had a beautiful blue sky and the photos often were overexposed, despite the settings I used. Peter - thanks for those exercises, I will check them out!
Oh, and I was shooting in raw mode, and haven't gotten round to editing software...
Nikonian
Conditions vary as well. It takes a very small amount of particulate matter in the air to result in "muddy" exposures.
As long as you're not shooting into the sun... as Peter said, a polarizer can be a big help in cutting through haze and deepening the blue in skies. However, I think you're going to find that the best way to create the photos you want is through the use of post processing software. In fact, unless you're using some type of PP software, shooting in raw is probably working against you. You might want to switch to jpeg and turn on vivid in your camera's picture control mode menu.
Nikon has a help page devoted to picture controls here.
--Ron
As an old slide film shooter, I try to get things as close as possible to right in-camera to minimize post-processing. That is one reason I use Picture Controls extensively.
The meter tries to even things out to mid-tones, which is seldom exactly what the photographer wants. If you are unsure, bracket your shots with exposures both over and under what the meter and your experience tells you to do.
Member
Only just seeing these comments, THANK YOU! Wow, you have really taught me something and thankfully I saw it before my trip, will check this out thanks so much!
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