A Quick Photography Tip for Turning Grey Skies Blue

We just can't seem to get enough of New York City-based Photographer David Bergman. Whether he's touring with Bon Jovi, shooting for Sports Illustrated, creating a 20,000-megapixel image, or just popping in with a quick tip from his "Two Minute Tips With David Bergman" series, David never fails to show us something worth our while. For his latest two-minute tip, he teaches us a quick and easy method for dealing with grey, overcast skies.

By manually adjusting his camera's white balance to the tungsten setting, David is able to make a drab and dreary grey sky blue. He then uses a group of Canon Speedlites with a set of warm Rosco gels to light his model, normalizing the cold blue tone of his camera's (a Canon 5DS R with a 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens) white balance setting.

David has accomplished more in his 25 years of professional shooting than most of us will during our entire career. He was just named a Canon Explorer of Light in 2015, placing him amongst some of most influential photographers in the world. So, be sure to keep up with him via his Instagram and Twitter, because you never know what he is going to be bringing us next.

[via Adorama TV]

Kenn Tam's picture

Been holding this damn camera in my hand since 1991.
Toronto / New York City

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6 Comments

Nice technique. I tend to enjoy working with speed lights. They are often a simpler and more affordable solution for some photography situations over strobe lights.

4 Speedlights seem to be a little overkill for the results. Is the horizon line crooked in the lead image?

It totally is crooked! It was driving me nuts so I made my own, adjusted, lead image for the Fstoppers page instead of the default YouTube thumb. :P

I was just wondering one thing...

do "big shot" photographers use this "in camera technique" (today we see a lot of "Annie Leibovitz look " where the grey background and the whole image is very blue"ish")... or is it mostly done in post prod for those photographers? (I bet retouchers out there can answer :) thanks!

This is strobist 101 stuff.

I've tried this before. Not to say that it doesn't work- it certainly does- but I'd be cautious about using it on an overcast day. Blue skies are great, but blue clouds just look weird.