Finding the gold under a sky of grey can be a challenge but let me show you how to get the most from your camera in overcast conditions
Technical info:
Camera body: NIKON D300
Lens: 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6
Focal Length: 20 mm
Focus Mode: Auto
AF-Area Mode: Single
VR: ON
Aperture: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100
Exposure Mode: Aperture
Exposure Comp.: +0.0EV
Metering: Centerweighted-Average
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 200
Film Emulation: VIVID
Sharpening: 0
Contrast: 0
Brightness: 0
Saturation: +2
Hue: 0
So, you’re cameras stuffed into your travel bag because you think that dull days produce dull photos? Think again!
Believe it or not, grey is your friend. No matter how expensive the camera is, it’s never going to be able to see or capture all the information your eyes can.
Strangely enough on super bright days, yes, the ones that you thought were ideal for taking cool biker action shots, your camera is going to struggle. Bright days mean high contrast. This is when your camera has to guess whether you want all the detail in the bright areas of the image (sky, high gloss areas of the bikes, shiny asphalt) or the detail in the dark (engine in shadow, looming mountains etc). Bottom line is, that it can’t capture both. Shooting in duller conditions means that your camera can capture more photographic data (detail)
Camera Set-Up
We all want to capture sharp images, which means we want to freeze the moment. For that we want as much light to enter through the lens as possible.
Set your camera to aperture mode. This is usually denoted by the letter ‘A’ on a dial or a button.
“What The F-stop!”
Now go ahead and set your lens to f2.8, f4 or f5.6. Don’t worry, even though you're now controlling how wide the aperture on your lens is the cameras still going to do all the other stuff to make sure your images turn out great.
If you're wondering what those f numbers on your lens are well, the smaller the number you select, the wider the diaphragm on your lens will open. Think of the lens as the pupil of your eye. Your pupil narrows when it’s bright and widens when it’s darker. So, in low light conditions, we need the diaphragm of the lens to open wider to let in more light.
It’s Not The Self Destruct Button!
Next, find the button that reads ISO, yeah the one that you thought was the ‘self destruct button’, which you’ve never touched. Increase the ISO to around 400-600. Increasing your ISO level can be crucial in low light conditions. The ISO setting controls how sensitive your camera's sensor is to light. The higher the level the more sensitive it becomes allowing for us to take a faster exposure. Remember the faster the exposure the more we're able to freeze the moment. This is especially important if you are photographing moving objects like motorcycles when you don’t want the bike to look blurry.
TIP: There is a price to be paid for increasing your camera's ISO level. The higher you dial in the ISO level the more you increase the chances of digital noise being introduced into your image.
Between A Rock and ‘Any’ Hard Place
If you have a tripod now’s the time to pull it out and put it to work. Adjust your tripod so that you can still pan (swivel) the camera. On dull or low light days we want to minimize the chance of blurring in your photos. With your cameras on a tripod or even stabilized on a small bean bag or even just lodged against something solid, we’re working to remove camera movement from the equation and increase your chances of capturing the moment perfectly.
If there’s no way to stabilize your camera make sure that ‘VR’ (Vibration reduction is turned on, in either the lens of your camera or in the camera body itself. This will minimize blurring caused by camera shake.
In-Built Camera profiles
Now, if your camera has profiles (most cameras do these days) find the profiles in your camera's menu and select a profile that reads, ‘vivid’ or high ‘contrast’. Different camera manufacturers use different names for these profiles, so yes, you might have to do the unthinkable and read the manual or look it up on YouTube. Selecting one of these profiles allows your camera to make several changes to how it processes your photographs.
Using profiles like 'vivid' will add more contrast to the image, ensuring your image has some visual wallop.
The sharpening of the image will be increased in images taken in these profiles.
A little extra saturation (colour) will be added to images taken in these profiles.
Put these three changes together and I guarantee your images aren’t going to be dull.
Final touches
Almost every published image you see these days has had some minor or major editing applied. Why shouldn’t your travel shots get some extra TLC? Although your photo has some great detail, we still want to make sure it doesn’t look dull. In this example, I’ll be using Adobe Photoshop. But almost any purchased or free image-editing program will offer a ‘contrast adjustment’ feature.
So, open the images you want to adjust the contrast of. Go under the image menu and choose Adjustments, then choose Brightness/contrast.
In the grey dialogue box that appears, move the contrast slider to the right.
TIP: make sure the 'preview' box is in the contrast dialogue box is checked.
If moving the slider all the way to the left provides too much contrast just back it off until you’re happy with your image. Next, select save as and save your image with a new name to your preferred location and you’re done.
Tip: If your camera has the option to shoot in RAW mode then select it. Raw images are exactly what your camera saw through the lens. Whereas jpg images are essentially a compressed watered down version of what the camera saw. Sure, the images are smaller but to make something smaller you have loose something and in terms of your images what you’ll loose is detail, colour depth and impact. If your using a DSLR and shooting in jpg mode, well it’s a little like driving a Ferrari but fitting the re-tread tyres and never changing out of first gear.
Tip: If your camera has the option to shoot in RAW mode then select it. Raw images are exactly what your camera saw through the lens. Whereas jpg images are essentially a compressed watered-down version of what the camera saw. Sure, the images are smaller but to make something smaller you have to lose something and in terms of your images, what you’ll lose is detail, colour depth and impact. If you're using a DSLR and shooting in jpg mode, well it’s a little like driving a Ferrari but fitting the re-tread tyres and never changing out of first gear.
Good luck and have fun.
Please leave a comment or a like if you found this article useful.
Professional photographer and motorcycle adventurer based in Wales, United Kingdom, and founder of LIVING LENS PHOTOGRAPHY and 2 Ride The World. Simon, with his wife spent 17-years travelling the world by motorcycle, exploring some of the most remote and beautiful location on earth across 6 continents. His editorial and photographic work has been featured in publications all over the world, and his commercial clients include brands such as, BMW Motorrad, Adobe and SENA.
A great article but I do have a point to add on widening the lens with a low f-stop. A wider aperture reduces the depth a focus and, using your image above as an example, you run the risk of either the bike or the horizon being out of focus (though the important bit (bike) is sharp). This would be even more of a problem, the closer you are to your foreground subject. Personally, I would risk a little extra noise and shoot at f8 or above, to ensure sharpness throughout the image or accept limited depth of field and use creatively. 😀
Getting your left and right mixed up again? No wonder it took you 18 years to circumnavigate the World... ;-)