washed out sky

[Benjy]

Hi, been taking a few wood pecker photos recently,sky has been cloudy/grey,how do I get washed out sky better in camera?......

[FrankMi]

Hi Benjy, I am no expert in this type of photography but I don't think you have many options if your only source of control is the camera. If you expose for the sky, the tree will go too dark and you likely won't have enough light to capture the bird at all.

However, if you expose for the sky and add an exposure synchronized flash to light up the bird and tree, the birds wings could be sharper but you would likely see the bird's flash shadow on the tree.

This is one of those situations where I would use the advantages offered by post processing. For example, a sky replacement. You could also do multiple exposures, one shot for the sky, another for the tree, then concentrate on whatever it takes to get the best bird image and then blend the three in post processing.

[Shadowman]

Chances are you'll miss the shot unless you set up your camera early prepared for an overcast sky. If you expose for the sky, recompose the shot for the bird area keeping settings for the sky, then you can use exposure compensation to dial in an exposure that will only give you some blown highlights.

[Colin Southern]

I'd simply expose for the sky and then see what the noise levels were like when I compressed the dynamic range into something displayable. Bottom line is I suspect you'll get more noise but a sharper capture due to the higher shutterspeed. Keep the ISO as low as practical.

[Geoff F]

Whatever you do under those conditions will be a problem, Bernard. You don't really want to go any darker on the bird. Possibly if you did tone down the exposure you could recover something from the bird during editing but I would prefer to make sure the bird is well exposed and lose the sky.

Moving the tree around so the nest hole is in bright sunshine might be the easiest option!

One alternative which some bird photographers use is to experiment with different settings while the bird is away then set your camera manually based on those test shots. But don't let having a good sky over rule the important element.

It may be possible to change the sky but those feathery wing edges will be tricky.