Not so much a technique as a ???

[vawitt]

Hi, everyone. I have an Olympus UZ500 (not a D-SLR, but has some cool features).

I enjoy shooting sunsets by pointing into the setting sun and capturing all the gorgeous oranges and reds that result.

I had a strange phenom this summer while visiting Crater Lake. We were up on a watch tower watching the sun set. The sun was goregous, glowing bright red...the sky was very pale orange. In the resulting photos, the results were exactly reversed...white sun, red sky.

How come? My cam doesn't swap any other colors around like that.



Here's the snap, straight out of the camera, no touchups. The sun, in reality, was close to the color of the sky, and the sky was still quite pale orange/pink.

[JulieM]

Really interesting result! I hope someone knows the answer to your question...

[Larop]

My best guess would be your camera uses or may have been set on center weighted metering. In that case the meter would have caused your exposure to be off because it was trying to read the pale sky as 15%/18% Gray and it was probably much lighter than that. This exposure error might account for the color shift in the sky and the sun?

[vawitt]

"In that case the meter would have caused your exposure to be off (over) because it was trying to read the pale sky as 15%/18% Gray and it was probably much lighter than that. This exposure error might account for the color shift in the sky and the sun? "

Hmmm...I have a "sunset" setting on my camera that selects (I'm pretty sure) f-stops, speed, etc. Probably does some kind of metering as well. I don't think I took any pix with it in pure "auto" (have to go back through the Exif data and see what I can figure out from there). This picture was taken in July and I honestly have been wondering about it on and off since then.

Your explanation makes sense...thanks!

[lexcell]

The problem was that the range of exposure was beyond what your camera (or any camera) could capture. The meter read that bright orb of light and underexposed which gave you the rich, red colors in the sky.

The only way to capture what you "saw" would be to take two photographs....one exposing for the sun which would render the rest of your image black and exposing for the sky which would render the sun white (which is what you have here) and blending them in Photoshop.

This is assuming you have a camera that has manual control or enough exposure compensation to dial in that much range which I don't believe your camera can do.

[RobertSchuldenfrei]

Originally Posted by vawitt

Hi, everyone. I have an Olympus UZ500 (not a D-SLR, but has some cool features).

I enjoy shooting sunsets by pointing into the setting sun and capturing all the gorgeous oranges and reds that result.

I had a strange phenom this summer while visiting Crater Lake. We were up on a watch tower watching the sun set. The sun was goregous, glowing bright red...the sky was very pale orange. In the resulting photos, the results were exactly reversed...white sun, red sky.

Hi,

Laurie probably has the answer nailed. There is one other factor to consider. If the white balance (WB) is set to "Auto" the camera is probably trying to "improve" your picture. I would take the two shot approach as Laurie suggests with a WB setting of "sun light." Another approach with post processing is to take the original as posted here, Select the sun and place it on a Layer. Then make it any color you want.

If you want to experiment with what the early photographers did, you might want to make the sun jet black! That duplicates in PSE what "reciprocity departure" did to film. Ansel Adams did one called dark sun if I remember correctly.

Happy post processing,

Bob

[vawitt]

I don't think it can, either...but I can mess white balance, etc (not that I know when, yet, but I think I've seen those tools in there).

Something to play with! Thanks for the explanation, Laurie, and the suggestion, Bob. Heading to Bryce Canyon for the turkey holiday...hoping the weather will cooperate for some sunset/sunrise pix. I'd better read my camera manual on the flight out!

Originally Posted by lexcell

This is assuming you have a camera that has manual control or enough exposure compensation to dial in that much range which I don't believe your camera can do.

[lexcell]

Have a wonderful time in Bryce...it's one of my favorite locations!
And if you get to the visitors center take a look at my Rainbow poster they have for sale there (Shameless plug)

[LiaL]

re lexcell's post #5 - how do I blend two photos? Can you link me to instructions or provide here?

I am very new to this forum, to DSLR, to PE5. Everyone here is so helpful - thanks to all.