Overcast/Cloudy Days - Exposure

[Jeff D. Welker]

My Friends:

A few years ago, Ned encouraged me to "follow" one of his friends and world renowned bird photographer Arthur Morris. I've been a subscriber to Arite's bulletin ever since. This morning I got his "Birds as Art Bulletin #464". It had a great Exposure Lesson for shooting on "dreary" days. Below is the text from the lesson with a link to Artie's bulletin's. I hope this may be helpful when faced with shooting on overcast or cloudy days.

"Exposure Lesson: Plus Three Stops Off the Dreary Sky

Fact: on cloudy days, most folks will under-expose all of their images. As I have said and written a thousand times, when the sun is out at full strength, the meters in digital camera bodies are pretty smart. When it is cloudy or very early or very late in the day, the meters in digital camera bodies are dumb! And the lighter the overall tonality of the framed image, the dumber they are. It is easy to learn to create perfectly exposed images on dreary days. Here's how:

Start by metering the dreary grey sky, add three stops of light to that, set the resulting exposure manually, re-frame the original image, take one photograph, and check and evaluate the histogram. Ideally your histogram will be well to the right. If the sky is included in the image, you are fine with a very few blinkies there but not on the subject. Note: Nikon folks should begin by adding 2 to 2 1/3 stops to the meter reading off the grey sky (and add a bit more light if needed)..

Here is how that would work for beginning photographers with the image above. Work in Av mode and choose an aperture of f/9 (stopped down 1/3 stop from wide open). Point the lens at the grey sky at zero, that is, with no exposure compensation. The meter would read 1/1250 sec. at f/9. Then go to Manual mode and set that exposure. Now add 3 stops of light by lowering the shutter speed nine clicks. They would wind up at 1/160 sec. at f/9. When they re-frame the image with the puffin exactly where they want it, the meter will read something like +1 2/3 stops on the analogue exposure scale in the viewfinder because of the influence of the puffin's dark upperparts' feathers on the meter. But the exposure will still be +3 stops off the sky and will be correct for the puffin and will yield clean, bright WHITEs and BLACKs with more than adequate detail.

Experienced photographers would get to +3 off the sky a lot faster by starting in Manual mode, setting the desired aperture (in this case f/9), pointing the lens at the grey sky, and then adjusting the shutter speed so that the analogue scale showed +3. Done deal. Again, Nikon folks should start by adding 2 to 2 1/3 stops to the meter reading off the dreary sky (and add a bit more light if needed)."

http://www.birdsasart.com/2014/08/19/birds-as-art-bulletin-464/

[Tower Guy]

Jeff, thanks for this article, it's always good to get advice from the pros. I'm looking forward to trying these settings. I always depended on the camera meter and I was looking at his shots and they are outstanding. Thanks again.

[Anna M. Wood]

Great tip Jeff....  I will need to try that out next time we get a cloudy day.

[Barry Griffiths]

Thanks, Jeff ..... I've already tried it out because it seems that we ALWAYS have cloudy days in Waterloo. It WORKS!!!