Why Are My Blue Skies Coming Out Stark White Rather Than Pleasant Greys

[relistan]

A lot has been said about skies and filters on this thread. Referring back to the original question. If you shoot a film with the right sensitivity and expose and develop it properly, you don't need a filter to get a darker sky with clouds. You definitely can use filters to good effect but they are not required unless you want a super dark sky.

No filters on any of these, first two Ilford Delta 100, last ADOX Silvermax. Leica M2, Summarit-M 2.3/35mm and Voigtlander Super Wide Heliar 4.5/15mm. First developed in one of my experimental PC one bath developers, second in XTOL, 3rd in my 2B-1 two bath (PQ).



Lighting here is: Ireland in June, Estonia in July, southern France in July.

 

[grain elevator]

A lot has been said about skies and filters on this thread. Referring back to the original question. If you shoot a film with the right sensitivity and expose and develop it properly, you don't need a filter to get a darker sky with clouds. You definitely can use filters to good effect but they are not required unless you want a super dark sky.

No filters on any of these, first two Ilford Delta 100, last ADOX Silvermax. Leica M2, Summarit-M 2.3/35mm and Voigtlander Super Wide Heliar 4.5/15mm. First developed in one of my experimental PC one bath developers, second in XTOL, 3rd in my 2B-1 two bath (PQ).

View attachment 278014 View attachment 278015 View attachment 278016

Lighting here is: Ireland in June, Estonia in July, southern France in July.

Sorry but exposure and development have little bearing on it as long as they're in the ballpark because it's a about the brightness relationship between sky and stuff, any change in exposure or contrast will affect both, one can of course blow out the clouds, but blue will remain gray unless something extreme happens.
But I do agree one can get nice gray skies if they're blue and one shoots with the sun behind one's back, without filters, and I too find it hard to believe that the OP just did everything as usual and got a vastly different result. Shooting contre jour and light cloud cover are the usual reasons my skies blow out.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Brian and Brad - I rarely actually put anyone on Ignore, and only for a good reason. I just said, I should do so. No anger, no blood pressure issues. That's in your own imagination. Had a great day in fact. Or do I need to I say, "Pretty Please" every line. Some thin skins around here. Is there still any snow on the pass?

 

[relistan]

Sorry but exposure and development have little bearing on it as long as they're in the ballpark because it's a about the brightness relationship between sky and stuff, any change in exposure or contrast will affect both, one can of course blow out the clouds, but blue will remain gray unless something extreme happens.
But I do agree one can get nice gray skies if they're blue and one shoots with the sun behind one's back, without filters, and I too find it hard to believe that the OP just did everything as usual and got a vastly different result. Shooting contre jour and light cloud cover are the usual reasons my skies blow out.

No, as you just yourself said, they have everything to do with it. If you blow out your sky (exposure tradeoff) or you increase development time to harden contrast (tradeoff) then you often lose clouds and get a white sky due to density.

Or do I need to I say, "Pretty Please" every line. Some thin skins around here. Is there still any snow on the pass?

The problem could be everyone else’s “thin skin” or it could be your behavior?

 

[grain elevator]

No, as you just yourself said, they have everything to do with it. If you blow out your sky (exposure tradeoff) or you increase development time to harden contrast (tradeoff) then you often lose clouds and get a white sky due to density.

Take the pictures you posted. In all of them, the blue of the sky is rendered about the same tone as larger areas of stone in the buildings or the cobblestones on the ground. If you were to overexpose or overdevelop so drastically that the blue sky was gone up the shoulder irretrievably (takes quite a lot with most films), the stone would be blank white, too. That would be beyond typical pictorial processing and what I meant by something extreme happening. In these pictures, as long as the scene on the ground is rendered more or less with a full tonal range, the sky retains tone. That's what I meant.

 

[relistan]

Take the pictures you posted. In all of them, the blue of the sky is rendered about the same tone as larger areas of stone in the buildings or the cobblestones on the ground. If you were to overexpose or overdevelop so drastically that the blue sky was gone up the shoulder irretrievably (takes quite a lot with most films), the stone would be blank white, too. That would be beyond typical pictorial processing and what I meant by something extreme happening. In these pictures, as long as the scene on the ground is rendered more or less with a full tonal range, the sky retains tone. That's what I meant.

I think we're saying the same thing. In a high contrast scene you often have to trade off the sky for shadow detail in your exposure. Shadow which can sometimes be a large chunk of a scene. If you are losing your sky and the rest of your negative retains the detail you wanted, this was the tradeoff you made.

 

[grain elevator]

I think we're saying the same thing. In a high contrast scene you often have to trade off the sky for shadow detail in your exposure. Shadow which can sometimes be a large chunk of a scene. If you are losing your sky and the rest of your negative retains the detail you wanted, this was the tradeoff you made.

Then we agree. I guess I understood you differently because your pictures are not of such scenes.

 

[foc]

Shooting contre jour

It is a long time since I heard that expression and it put a smile on my face.

I have followed this discussion and it is very interesting. It would have been nice if the OP had posted examples of the negatives in question.

I personally think that you will get blown out skies if you have a high lighting ratio in the shot and you are trying to expose for the middle. Remember a ratio of higher than 1:4 was considered Film Noir look.

Here are two of my own shots.


Bright sunshine, exposed for person, blue sky had some clouds but rendered white.


Bright slightly overcast but sunshine (note shadow on water) exposed for person. Some cloud detail.

 

[relistan]

Then we agree. I guess I understood you differently because your pictures are not of such scenes.

Take a look at the third shot. This clearly trades off shadow detail.

 

[relistan]

It is a long time since I heard that expression and it put a smile on my face.

I have followed this discussion and it is very interesting. It would have been nice if the OP had posted examples of the negatives in question.

I personally think that you will get blown out skies if you have a high lighting ratio in the shot and you are trying to expose for the middle. Remember a ratio of higher than 1:4 was considered Film Noir look.

Here are two of my own shots.

View attachment 278070
Bright sunshine, exposed for person, blue sky had some clouds but rendered white.

View attachment 278071
Bright slightly overcast but sunshine (note shadow on water) exposed for person. Some cloud detail.

Yes, I agree. If there is a high ratio and the middle needs to be in the shadows, you lose the sky. In your first shot the person would have been shadowed heavily by the sun. So to capture that you have to give up the sky. In the second shot I think you are getting some filtered light because of more cloud cover and it's just enough to not blow out the sky.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Brian - There is ZERO, ZERO, ZERO digital work, hybrid or otherwise, in any imagery I do except for cataloging or secondary web applications. Everything on that old website was copied at faithfully as possible from actual optical prints, and the whole point is that the web is a ridiculously poor vehicle for assessing the quality or presenting the nuances of that. Very few people even owned digital cameras back then; and personal or amateur slide-scanners were themselves relatively new to the market. Am I dealing with some illiterates? Apparently so. Please try to expand your reading capacity to more than three lines. But thank you for making it so apparent which two people now belong on my Ignore List.

If you bothered to learn how to do it, that is completely false. The images on my own website are pretty much exactly how they appear in real life because I know how to do it. Granted other people looking at them on their computer if their monitors aren't calibrated and profiled is a different thing but everything is relative, so in the scope of what they see, it will be accurate. Computers and monitors these days are all pretty accurate out of the box anyway and the eye is a wonderful instrument.

I am not attacking you Drew. You claim you are dealing with illiterates to hide your own illiteracy it seems. Showing your images on the web is not an issue anymore. I know you may feel that people will mock you if you do it, but it might be liberating for you. Imagine the people that will be able to look at what you do. You will always have naysayers, but in the end it is worth it I think. If anything it will overwrite your old website with something you can actually be proud of. Your old website makes you look terrible frankly since even though you say it was state of the art back then, the color management of the process you went through was pretty awful. Again, not attacking you, just putting it out there to open your eyes. I think it would be worth your while to put something up even if it is small. Imagine the satisfaction you will get from that.

 

[grain elevator]

Take a look at the third shot. This clearly trades off shadow detail.

A bit, but certainly not just for sky tone; the façade of the building is the same tone as a lot of the sky. Looks to me like you wanted overall contrast, it would certainly have been possible to get more shadow detail and keep the sky and façade grey, had you wanted that - but I think the shadow detail is perfectly sufficient and I prefer it contrasty like that.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Patrick, if you don't know the dramatic distinction between viewing real REAL PRINTS, especially subtle ones, and the VERY BEST the web is capable of even today, then maybe you need to invest in a white cane. Yes, the web has improved a lot, but due to it, the "standard" and expectation of what people find acceptable and defining just keeps sinking lower and lower. I've already got current digital tools and an especially deluxe copystand setup to do web image presentation in an up to date fashion. Scanning directly from negs or chromes for sake of web image presentation in an entirely different ballgame. I've turned down free drum scanners because that's NOT the way I want to go.

As a far as I'm concerned, a photograph is never really completed until its personally printed, precisely cropped, and even mounted by me, my own specific way. Anything else is half-baked. I AM a printmaker. That IS the name of the game. With a helluva lot of work and expense, fine book presentation is potentially a distant second option. The web is still way way off behind the left field fence out in the cattle pasture, as far as I'm concerned.

But like I already stated, web presentation is a very low priority at the moment. What is important it to keep making ACTUAL prints themselves, while I still can, and getting them properly mounted. That's what will continue to define the specific look I want, and not any so-so digital substitute. If you can't accept that, then take up the debate over on the hybrid section.

People mocking me? - get real. That is an insult. Do you think I was born yesterday, and have only been doing this for six months? I had my own server, custom software, plus dedicated programming staff at my day job before I retired. Besides the quality advantages to real optical printing and darkroom workflow, do you really think that, after all of that, I'd want to spend a lot of time now fiddling with imagery sitting on my butt and punching buttons? My fingers were crippled and almost unusable with carpal tunnel syndrome when I retired; now they're almost completely normal again.

 

[BradS]

.....Is there still any snow on the pass?

Drew, because you asked, I drove up to the St. Mary's pass trail head (just a mile or two shy of the Sonora Pass summit) today. Hiked up to Sonora peak. There were a very few not-so-large patches of snow above 11,000 feet. Ambient temps in the low 70's. Not too many mosquitoes but some yellow jackets here and there. Beautiful weather - hazy, clear skies, some gusty winds at the peak. Stopped in at Baker station on the way down the hill and hung out with a small group of college students that I had met on the trail earlier in the day. They were doing a summer session on native edible medicinal plants. It's been a Good Day!
Please forgive the crappy cell phone pics - is the only digital thingy I own....

St. Mary's Pass trail head

snow patch at 11,000 feet just past St. Mary' Pass. That's Stanislaus Peak in the distance at left.

iPhone compass screen grab on Sonora Peak

Views from Sonora Peak - looking toward Stanislaus Peak.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Patrick, if you don't know the dramatic distinction between viewing real REAL PRINTS, especially subtle ones, and the VERY BEST the web is capable of even today, then maybe you need to invest in a white cane. Yes, the web has improved a lot, but due to it, the "standard" and expectation of what people find acceptable and defining just keeps sinking lower and lower. I've already got current digital tools and an especially deluxe copystand setup to do web image presentation in an up to date fashion. Scanning directly from negs or chromes for sake of web image presentation in an entirely different ballgame. I've turned down free drum scanners because that's NOT the way I want to go.

As a far as I'm concerned, a photograph is never really completed until its personally printed, precisely cropped, and even mounted by me, my own specific way. Anything else is half-baked. I AM a printmaker. That IS the name of the game. With a helluva lot of work and expense, fine book presentation is potentially a distant second option. The web is still way way off behind the left field fence out in the cattle pasture, as far as I'm concerned.

But like I already stated, web presentation is a very low priority at the moment. What is important it to keep making ACTUAL prints themselves, while I still can, and getting them properly mounted. That's what will continue to define the specific look I want, and not any so-so digital substitute. If you can't accept that, then take up the debate over on the hybrid section.

People mocking me? - get real. That is an insult. Do you think I was born yesterday, and have only been doing this for six months? I had my own server, custom software, plus dedicated programming staff at my day job before I retired. Besides the quality advantages to real optical printing and darkroom workflow, do you really think that, after all of that, I'd want to spend a lot of time now fiddling with imagery sitting on my butt and punching buttons? My fingers were crippled and almost unusable with carpal tunnel syndrome when I retired; now they're almost completely normal again.

With all the stuff you've spouted over the years people pretty much expect your images to drop the seraphic angels from heaven when they see them. We both know that won't happen. And that is why you don't want to show your images online. Pretty much everyone knows this they just don't say anything and you just give excuses anyway. Your "legacy" when you kick it, if you don't change your mind, will be the crappy horrible website with images that look like a reindeer puked on them that will live on. Sorry to say it but that is literally how bad they look. It makes you look like a clown. I'd bet money you are not a clown, but how many people think that? You need to overwrite that with something of quality, which is easy to do these days.

I suppose you'll respond to this with another insult and another string of excuses and more claims of some tangential greatness. If anything you are predictable.

 

[Down Under]

Patrick, if you don't know the dramatic distinction between viewing real REAL PRINTS, especially subtle ones, and the VERY BEST the web is capable of even today, then maybe you need to invest in a white cane. Yes, the web has improved a lot, but due to it, the "standard" and expectation of what people find acceptable and defining just keeps sinking lower and lower. I've already got current digital tools and an especially deluxe copy stand setup to do web image presentation in an up to date fashion. Scanning directly from negs or chromes for sake of web image presentation in an entirely different ballgame. I've turned down free drum scanners because that's NOT the way I want to go.

As a far as I'm concerned, a photograph is never really completed until its personally printed, precisely cropped, and even mounted by me, my own specific way. Anything else is half-baked. I AM a printmaker. That IS the name of the game. With a helluva lot of work and expense, fine book presentation is potentially a distant second option. The web is still way way off behind the left field fence out in the cattle pasture, as far as I'm concerned.

But like I already stated, web presentation is a very low priority at the moment. What is important it to keep making ACTUAL prints themselves, while I still can, and getting them properly mounted. That's what will continue to define the specific look I want, and not any so-so digital substitute. If you can't accept that, then take up the debate over on the hybrid section.

People mocking me? - get real. That is an insult. Do you think I was born yesterday, and have only been doing this for six months? I had my own server, custom software, plus dedicated programming staff at my day job before I retired. Besides the quality advantages to real optical printing and darkroom workflow, do you really think that, after all of that, I'd want to spend a lot of time now fiddling with imagery sitting on my butt and punching buttons? My fingers were crippled and almost unusable with carpal tunnel syndrome when I retired; now they're almost completely normal again.

Odd this may seem, but I'm with Drew on some of this, and I'll put my dental drill away (hopefully for good) and try to comment accordingly.

All too often we tend to forget that it's better to catch bees with honey than vinegar. At times I'm as guilty of using the latter as anyone else, so I know.

Drew, let me say it's good your carpal tunnel syndrome mostly went away when you wisely gave up the things that were causing and/or aggravating it. It will all pass in time. My partner has had periods of this and tells me it's most unpleasant.

Drew's stance on photographs and the web may seem worthy of criticism to some (I like to think he is "outspoken" which is certainly his own unique style), but I think the gist of what he tried to say was that he doesn't rely on back-pats from other photographers for affirmation or the value to his self-esteem of his imagery. He has a more, well, "mature" viewpoint on his past and current photography and he seems to find enough satisfaction in making good film negatives and then good paper prints. I do too. So, well and good.

I also have never posted images for public viewing. In the past I've had 'closed' web sites for clients to view my stock architectural images which they bought for publication. I've sold hundreds of images in my time and seeing them in print, mostly in quality books on architecture, was enough for me, as was spending the money I made, for the most part on good equipment and if any was left over, travel to new destinations to again make more images. So my little merry-go-round went. Sadly, it stopped revolving last year due to the Covid crisis, but I have to say it had been turning more and more slowly from about 2014-2015, when my particular stock photo markets went into decline. But this is not what I set out to say, so enough of all that.

I believe we older photographers tend to look to our images with different viewpoints. Not for us the instant adulation so many nowadays crave from the social web sites. I know several dozen (younger) photographers. They call themselves "artists" (but rarely seem to do any finished work) and post images on such sites as Facebook etc etc, after which they contact everyone on their friends/social lists (some have thousands on names on these) to solicit "small pats on the back", as my partner calls it. Often as not their work is good, but not inspiring. I like to think they don't much care - altho' a part of me knows they do, often entirely too much, going by the angst they express when someone comments less than positively on what they have posted.

I also do not post online only for the adoration/adulation/criticism/ego gratification of it. Much of this because I still shoot a fair bit of film, I dislike scanning (= a pain in the pooter), and at my age time in the darkroom eats up enough of what is left of my life that I prefer to limit it to a minimum and prioritise other good things. Last week I did 15 rolls of B&W film I had hoarded since early 2020. Setting up my Jobo, mixing the chems, warming the bath, loading, and then the damn scanning, about 40 minutes for each 35mm roll to get the scan quality I consider to be barely acceptable). At some time in the future I'll make about a dozen prints for framing and hanging. Which will be it for me. I enjoy these processes (well, most of them), but it's still such a lot of work...

I suspect Drew (and to an extent me too) doesn't greatly care for public adulation of his work, and gets entirely enough pleasure out of doing it to please himself. I'm the same, and so I could not agree more.

In spite of our past differences, I have to say he often has positive and helpful things to say about photography. He seems to know his craft and he comes across as being secure within himself. He can be irritating at times, but doesn't this apply to many of us of the same 'vintage', who've passed the Use By Date (again, from my partner) of threescoreandten. Call me ageist (as someone did in this thread). I say, phooey to that!! I'm old enough to be as ageist as I want. PC be darned. Flush it.

I agree with him that even a decade ago, posting images on the web was in many ways primitive (or to put it diplomatically, "in its infancy") and one had to do a lot of post-production work to get acceptable images online. I put up with it until my sale markets declined (for purely external reasons, not my images) I cut back on my web posting six years ago and I've not at all missed the time and effort I had to put into it. The money I made from it, well, nice, but over the years there was less of it while the workload stayed the same, and to me at that/this time in my life, it just wasn't/isn't worth the effort. I now prefer to print and hang my work at home, give it to family and friends, put it in small books. My latest creative effort is - wait for it - a photo album of our long-departed cats back to the '70s. Ha!

Now can we all go back to being grown-ups with fewer tactless criticisms and name-calling and put-downs (I'm as guilty of all of these as the rest) and to the original point of this thread. How goes the OP in his quest for better skies in his negatives? We are all awaiting your latest input, much like the cat that ate cheese to peer down the mouse hole - with baited breath. Ouch!!

PS I enjoyed Bras S's excellent photos (#94) and his humorous 'take' on all this. Greatly appreciated. My last (= one and only) visit to Sonora was more than forty years ago. I wonder where those Kodakchromes are...

 

[DREW WILEY]

Somebody's finally starting to get it. For the rest, without a bit of "spice" in the conversation, things tend to get bogged down. And anything involving esthetic opinions is going to involve all kinds of personal flavoring and hyperbole, crossing of swords, so to speak. Take it in context. At my age, I'll admit that I can't stand much hot spice in my own food any later in the day than lunch time; but some people like my wife can't seem to live without it.

My priority down the line will not be casual web posting for social purposes, but cataloging prints for sake of estate planning. A new website might or might not rise as an offshoot of that, depending on if my heir wants to run some kind of gallery or not. My extended family already has a big art collection to deal with in terms of generational inheritance, so there are quite a few logistical headaches. Not mere "hobby" art in either case, so some forethought and legal planning is requisite.

Brad - thanks for the pics. That's really really dry for this time of year. I'm hoping to get at least a brief token backpack in soon just to get some high altitude conditioning before any longer more serious trip in the high-country, if that doesn't fall through again due to smoke everywhere again. There are all kinds of fires in the Rockies already, and of course, that one around Whitney Portal right now; but some monster firestorm is at least a statistically probability later in the season just like last year, so I'd like to breathe in at least a little high-altitude air as soon as possible, and hope the mosquitoes have quieted down earlier too. Due to its volcanic and metamorphic terrain, the Sonora Pass area drains differently and seems to have far less mosquitoes than the dominantly granitic parts of the range further south.