Replacing 'lost' colour

[Vee]

Regularly browse this section but have never posted before

Had a really busy weekend there with the camera, Leuchars Air Show was on saturday and spent sunday at Knockhill for the Scottish French Car Show. Plenty excuse to use my 70-300mm lens for the first time.

The weather at knockhill was pretty dire so had no problems with light there but at Leuchars it was a different story... The runway is pretty much east/west facing and at the air show you're positioned on the North side of the runway. On a gorgeous day, like it was yesterday this is a bit of a pain for newbies with cameras

I'd read up that using shutter speed priority (TV mode on my Canon) was best for moving objects that i'd be shooting this weekend. Problem is that facing into the sun has meant that most times when the picture is bright enough to show the north facing part of the plane, the sky is washed out

These pictures aren't edited to show what I'm on about, also the reason that they're quite big. Seem to have some variation :S Is there a way to give the sky some colour again? Or is that just unavoidable and you pick the best?

Plane is a bit dark in places or just me?

About right

Washed out sky

Ground and plane are fine but 'lost' sky again

Sky has colour but plane is too dark

Nice balance imo

 

[Zmaster2k]

What metering mode you on?

 

[Vee]

The metering was just evaluative I'm sure - I've not moved on to playing about with that kind of setting yet.

I've got the manual in my hand and cant make up my mind which would have been better? Centre weighted?

The spot metering looks too specific in my mind for varied air shots where planes are coming into the image from left or right. Partial metering would be slightly better i suppose...

 

[Zmaster2k]

I might of chosen center weighted.

Did you shoot in raw? Did lightroom help?

 

[Vee]

Righto, every time out is a new learning curve

I was having to adjust the exposure compensation which might have washed out the sky while making the object bright enough to see

They were shot just in high quality I think. I didn't specifically change it to shoot in raw or raw+High quality

Lightroom? Is that editing software? No i haven't edited these at all, have only cropped the second picture.

 

[Habitual]

Yeah, Lightroom is Adobe's answer to editing RAW pictures. Amazing piece of kit. Being a user of Photoshop for over 8 years now, I didn't want to bother... But it's effortless if you shoot in RAW. You'd clean those pictures up in no time.

 

[Vee]

So is Lightroom a package you buy or download?

Will keep in mind to shoot in raw from now on

 

[Habitual]

You can do both, one is just less legal.

 

[Vee]

Haha :lolup:

Any recomendations on which copy to get?
A quick look around amazon for example there shows the original Lightroom then 2, 3 and 4. You also get complete and upgrade editions.... :S Best maybe to start with 1 and get to grips with that first before moving on?

 

[Habitual]

I started with v.3.4 and had no major issues getting to grips with it.

 

[Andy.]

Download the v4 trial from Adobe to try it. It's free for 30 days IIRC.

 

[Vee]

Superb, cheers guys